몰락하는 신생(新生) : '만주'의 꿈과 『농군』의 오독(誤讀)

Abstract

Yi Tae-Jun’s short story 『Nong-Gun(Peasant)』has been understood as an indication of the author’s development in literary thoughts and/or a fruit of Korean nationalliterature(민족문학) in the colonial era. But 『Nong-Gun』is complicit with the Manchurian ideology which was disseminated by Japanese imperialism. 『Nong-Gun』originated from a travel sketch 『Iminburak kyonmungi(A record of a visit to the Korean immigrants'villages in Manchuria)』which described the ‘present’ peace and stability in Manchuria, but 『Nong-Gun』 was, in fact, full of the chaotic ‘past’ of Manchuria. Thus, both embodied the slogans of Manchukuo(만주국), that is, odoragto(왕도낙토), and gojokyokai(오족협화). What I want to emphasize mostly in this paper is that we have to be free from the perspective of egocentric nationalism and see the movement of Japan’s ‘total’ empire when we read the Korean literature from the colonial era.