崔益翰의 전통주의 비판과 전통 이해의 방식

Abstract

Choi Ik-han (1897～?) studied classics under Myeon-woo Kwak Jong-seok, Confucianist in the Yeong-nam Province, and began to experience modern sciences at the Jungdong School and YMCA from 1917. He was arrested for raising war funds for the National Independence Army and imprisoned from 1921 to 1924. Released from the prison, he studied at Waseda University in Japan and accepted the socialist ideology. He was again arrested while acting as a socialist and served another term from 1927 to 1935 in prison. Choi Ik-han was not only a socialist activist but also a modern intellect who experienced both traditional and modern sciences and deliberated deeply on the modern meanings of Korean classics. In his writing ‘Heosaeng’s Real Life’(1925), he traced the real model of Yeon-am Park Ji-won’s Heosaengjeon, and displayed an aspect of his modern understanding of the novel, and from that time on he published a number of writings that reinterpreted various Korean classics from a modern viewpoint. Particularly through the spotlighted work ‘Reading Yeoyudangjeonseo’ (1938), he thoroughly examined scholastic heritages from Da-san Jeong Yak-yong, and explained Jeong Yak-yong’s progressive aspects and his imitations in his days. In his writing ‘The Contemporary Meaning of Studies on Traditions,’ Choi Ik-han declared by himself the right attitude toward the study of Korean classics. According to his contention, tradition is the past restructured if necessary for today’s progress, and people should not idolize or idealize past traditions and should not be engrossed in them. That is, he applied the logic that guaranteed socialistic ‘scientificity’ to Korean classics