중국 농촌의 또 다른 역사 기억 - 1940년대 關永吉 소설 읽기

Abstract

Guan Yongji(關永吉) was a Chinese author and critic, based in Huabei area(華北淪陷區) which was ruled by Japan in 1940’s. His local novels are significantly distinctive from those written in the Communist party-controlled area, where Chinese peasant had been liberated. Guan Yongji’s local novels, however, could not get enough attention in accordance with several historical reasons. It means that 1940’s rural China had been imagined mostly over the local novels of liberated area. Consequently, Chinese rural areas in the first half of the 20th century has been remembered as a place of heroic peasant who had struggled for class conflict and land revolution. Guan Yongji’s local novels, however, show different aspect of rural world in 1940’s. His distinguishing rural narrative shaped poor rural people and their pitiful life, rather than featuring peasants with full of class-consciousness and will for struggle, as the local novels of liberated area did. In Guan’s novels, even some landowners were depicted as suffering with poverty, that is, they were not simply portrayed as the object of overthrowing. Guan’s novels described the rural people suffering with pain and inner conflict, rather than depicting farmers with conviction for particular political party. As a matter of fact, Guan’s realistic description of Chinese farmers and rural society in 1940’s, is evidenced by ample studies of sociologists as well. Readers who has only rural imagination shaped by novels of liberated area, not familiar with the existence of other regional novels in 1940’s, would get some sort of impact on representation of Guan’s local novels. In a sense, Guan's local novels could be perceived as more succession to ‘5⋅4' literary tradition, that is literary realism, than the novels of liberated area. His novels depicted the reality of those days on the basis of literary realism, not dominated by the particular political ideology. Guan's local novels have significant importance in terms of reminding readers of some forgotten memories for Chinese rural area in 1940's, with variety of views understanding the rural reality in the first half of the 20th century.