『태백산맥』의 민족운동

Abstract

This examines the National movement in the『Taebaek Mountains』 in terms of the movement’s agent and goal. In particular, it focuses on identifying the dialectical interrelationship between Social liberation and National liberation which are two axes through which the National Movement can be understood. In regard to the movement agents, Minyoung Seo and Beomwoo Kim were said to have been bourgeois intellectuals, as they are belonged to a social class which performed political responsibilities. In comparison, Sangjin Yum is considered to have been a public agent because of his progressive economic ideas. Such revolutionary intellectuals were the leaders who agitated for revolution. 『Taebaek Mountains』is a literary work which features conflicts between Social and National liberation. It demonstrates a discrepancy about the priority between both parties. National liberation asserts dominance over Social liberation while Social liberation claims the opposite. This disagreement becomes a key conflict in the work, which includes other conflicts both internal conflict and external conflict with American imperialists. In the second half of the book 『Taebaek Mountains』 focuses more on the issue of how to overcome the ideology and the abstractness of the movement. Eventually, the National movement, together with both Social liberation and National liberation, achieves proper recognition of reciprocity through the Korean War. Dialectical integration of the National movement, however, is difficult to achieve due to things such as the movement’s ideology, including both ethnic fundamentalism and class fundamentalism, and the asymmetric war situation. Meanwhile, the main characters in 『Taebaek Mountains』, Sangjin Yum, Beomwoo Kim, and the public, pursuit this dialectical unification of Social liberation and National liberation in their own ways.