이호철의 역사소설과 식민지 역사의 재현 - 1기 졸업생 연작을 중심으로 -

Abstract

This article deals with Lee Ho-cheol’s historical novel, 「The First Graduates」 series. 「The First Graduates」 series include total three volumes and were published between 1964 and 1969. This study is focused on how those works represent the history of colonization to clarify that they sought ways to overcome the history of colonization. 「The First Graduates」 series were published as literary reaction to the Korean-Japanese Agreement. And the style of those works is unique. They are in the setting that the persons who actually lived in the era of colonization got together and talked in afterlife in both 1964 and 1969. They have an argument about the history of colonization or criticize the circumstances in the 1960’s. This setting may have been adopted to reproduce the history of colonization in a more concrete way. 「The First Graduates」 series suggest the direction of overcoming the history. And for this, they ask who would be the subject of the history of colonization. According to those works, the country can never be the only subject of historical issues. Various positions of different individual subjects cannot be reduced to official history, either. And these works proceed to overcoming the national division system through consciousness of history. In this sense, these works can be appreciated as those that pursued ‘overcoming’ history, not just ‘settling’ it.