유진오의 「상해의 기억」과 사라져버린 ‘인터내셔널’의 노래

Abstract

The main character of Yu Chin-o's(兪鎭午) short story “Memoriesof Shanghai”(1931) gets to meet Seo Young-Sang, a Chinese friendhe acquainted during his study in Japan, in Shanghai by chance,and then unexpectedly stumbles onto a conspiracy. After spendingseveral days in Chinese prison, he is freed to return home butfinds out that Mr. Seo was executed while he was in the prison. In the 1931 edition of “Memories of Shanghai,” there is a scenewhere the main character gets to hear the song called'International' in the prison to which, failing to meet SeoYoung-Sang, he was taken by unidentified assailants. But in the1939 edition, the word 'International' is deleted. The reason for thedeletion was probably because of self-censorship against ideologicalsuppression. In the work, the date on which the main character was taken tothe prison by somebody is clearly stipulated as January 17. AndJanuary 17, 1931 is the day Five Martyrs of the League of Left-Wing Writers(左聯五烈士) including Rou Shi(柔石) and Yin Fu(殷夫) were arrested by the Chinese Nationalist Party(國民黨 orKMT). Yu Chin-o, imagining ideological solidarity between Koreanmain character and China's left-wing writers, was attempting tocombine his passion for political ideal transcending nation andlanguage with the date of ‘January 17' into an entity. Having written socially critical novels ever since his debut in theliterary circles in late 1920s, Yu Chin-o transformed himself totake on the mantle of reality-embracement after experiencingpolitical persecution through the ‘Research Institute of KoreanSociety' incident(朝鮮社會硏究所事件). In that sense, “Memories ofShanghai,” announced in 1931, can be regarded as the workwritten when his radical political awareness was at its height. The discovery of the fact that Yu Chin-o was overlapping the‘Five Martyrs of the League of Left-Wing Writers' incident onto‘Shanghai Memories' has a very significant implication in theliterary conversation between Korea and China during the first halfof 20th century. Even though Yu Chin-o has always been describedas a ‘fellow traveler'(同伴者) around KAPF in the history of Koreanmodern literature, he was actually having his eyes on China'sleft-wing literary movement and, through the character in hisstory, was imagining a network among East Asia's liberal writers.