민족 통일 논의와 아리랑을 둘러싼 경합: 1991년 남북단일팀 단가 결정에서 유네스코 등재까지

Abstract

This paper deals with the three landmarks in the recent history of Arirang’s appropriation by South and North Korea. The first one is the 1991 decision to make Arirang into the official song of the united single team of two Koreas which opened the era of “Arirang’s unification.” The second is 2002 when two mega-events, World Cup Korea-Japan in South Korea and Arirang mass games in Pyongyang, marked the beginning of “Arirang’s division.” The third is 2012 UNESCO inscription of Arirang as intangible cultural heritage, which symbolized the final consolidation of “Arirang division system”. While in the 1990s the employment of Arirang for South-North unification movement purposes implied depoliticizing it and emphasizing homogeneity, “Arirang’s division” of the 2000s meant more explicit politicization and an emphasis on two Korea’s growing heterogeneity, as well as on the state achievements of both (rather than one single ethno-nation) and international friendship inside the (new) Cold War framework. After these two periods were passed, Arirang entered the age of the 2010s when its South-North division was consolidated. It was now to be managed separately by South and North Korea under the UNESCO heritage regime, a global project of intangible cultural heritage protection. The UNESCO cultural heritage regime, under which Arirang was to be separately protected and managed by two Korean states, guaranteed an autonomous development of Arirang in both of them. We should not suppress the reality of Arirang’s regional differentiation in the name of transcending the state-centrism of UNESCO regime and overcoming Arirang’s division by making it into a shared ethno-national legacy.