1970년대 전반 연세대학교 학생운동의 전개와 성격

Abstract

Following the 1969 constitutional amendment that allowed a third term of presidency, the Park Chung-Hee administration cracked down on any civil resistance, so it could hold on to political power indefinitely. To suppress student movement and discipline universities, the Park administration ordered compulsory military training at all universities and planned to place military officers as teachers for the training. The students staged a severe protest against such a move, in order to guard the independence and freedom of university campuses as the last bastion of democracy. From the end of 1970 to 1971, student activists at Yonsei University formed a coalition with other universities and staged massive street rallies, demonstrations and hunger strikes to protest against forced military training on campus. The government, however, crushed all resistant attempts by issuing a garrison decree (a soft martial law), closing down universities and forcefully enlisting the student movement leaders to military service. When the Yushin Regime was established in October 1972, the student activists from different universities again formed a coalition and staged organized protests against the Yuhsin regime. The activity of the student organization National Democratic Youth-Student League (전국민주청년학생총연맹­민청학련) is most representative. Many Yonsei University students also participated in its activities and were arrested. In the late half of 1974, Yonsei University conducted a major administrative reform, where faculty, student and university administration all participated, and achieve successful outcomes. This encouraged the university community to join forces and stand up against political oppression in the 1975 reinstatement of faculty and students who had to leave the school for their involvements in the National Democratic Youth-Student League incident. While guarding freedom on the university campus, student movement was also maturing in terms of its ideology and overall direction. The students went beyond striving for achieving liberal democracy；they discovered national identity and the people as an important player in realizing democracy. This implied more than just broadening the students’ understanding of the key players in the movement, but also of their whole viewpoint on modern history；the students came to see history and its physical space from the perspective of civil movement and revolution. While still portrayed as existential intellectuals, the student activists and their movement started to look beyond the university campus, to the outside world, and embrace the people in their ideological concepts.