이북5도 지정 무형문화재 종목 현황과 과제

Abstract

This study is aimed to examine the current status of designating intangible cultural assets in five North Korean provinces and raise the problems of five North Korean provinces’ intangible cultural assets system. Presently, related to the designation of intangible cultural heritages, <The Act on the Promotion and Preservation of Intangible Cultural Assets> and <The Special Law of Five North Korean Provinces> are present in North Korea having their own provisions, but they are fairly inclusive. Currently, there are total 13 items of intangible cultural assets in five North Korean provinces, 8 for performing arts, 4 for social rituals, and 1 for traditional technics; therefore, the items show unequal distribution, and the categories of designing intangible cultural assets are unevenly distributed, too. Several items designated as intangible cultural assets in five North Korean provinces are mostly performing arts held on stage, and they can be transmitted with no locality or community. When individual items were decided, they did not consider the relations with the region of transmission, actual status of the community of transmission, or the real status of the items that had continued to exist from the past. What they had to do more importantly was to investigate if the items designated were really associated with five North Korean provinces not just by the names but by the contents, too, but they didn’t. The items of intangible cultural assets designated in five North Korean provinces were actually decided by South Korea, and although we can accept the relations with North Korea in terms of the place names, titles, or forms, the real transmission in North Korean regions has not been examined. Some of the items were attempted to be designated as either national or municipal/provincial intangible cultural assets, but it failed after all. They were designated as the ones of five North Korean provinces consequently, so it is quite questionable about the identity of those intangible cultural assets designated in five North Korean provinces. Accordingly, it is necessary to conduct political shifts as follows. Five North Korean provinces’ intangible cultural assets were grounded on five North Korean provinces, but we should recognize the fact that now they belong to the culture of South Korea. North Korea’s culture is to be accepted with tolerance. They should not exist additionally as intangible cultural assets but become included in South Korea’ system of intangible cultural assets. Designating them as municipal/provincial intangible cultural assets, we can mark they are related to five North Korean provinces in the detailed titles of the items, or we can just admit the value of them as it is with no marking and designate them as intangible cultural assets. Although the national territory has not been restored, the culture can be seen as being restored. The national territory is divided into South and North, but the culture is combined into one for the Korean people having a single flow. It is meaningless to divide them into municipal/provincial and five North Korean provinces’ intangible cultural assets, and it may adversely cause heterogeneity between South and North instead.