냉전기 북한 지식인의 아시아 인식－서만일의 인도기행(1957)을 중심으로－

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to understand the cultural exchange patterns of Asian intellectuals at the time based on the North Korean travelogues in the mid to late 1950s, to clarify their perceptions of Asia, and to contextualize the cultural communication they constructed on the Asian new prospect. In addition, it will be possible to elucidate the practical context of Cold War Asia. In the meantime, travelogues, especially Asian travelogues, have received little attention in North Korean literature research and have not been properly identified. Therefore, this study was intended to examine North Korean travelogues in Asia in the mid to late 1950s. This paper corresponds to the first study, and the main text is Seo Man-il's Travel to India. Seo Man-il's Travel to India is an important text in that it deals with the ‘Asian Writers’ Convention, one of the major events of the ‘Asian Solidarity’ that began in earnest in the mid-1950s. In addition, Seo Man-il has served as chairman of the Foreign Literature Subcommittee under the Joseon Writers' League, vice-chairman of the Chosun(North Korea) Writers' League, and vice-chairman of the Chosun-Indian Cultural Association. Seo Man-il served as chairman of the Foreign Literature Subcommittee under the Chosun Writers' Alliance, vice chairman of the Joseon-India Culture Association, and was an important writer in North Korea in the 1950s, creating works of various genres such as plays, poems, children's poems, and reviews. And because he was one of the first students to study abroad in the Soviet Union from North Korea, so was fluent in Russian and active as a translator. However, after the purge in 1959, it was not reinstated, and it was not studied properly. Through Travel to India, the following contents were considered. First, the ‘Asia Writers Contest’, which has not been studied properly, has been summarized. Next, Travel to India was North Korea’s first “visit to capitalist country,” so the travel route was inevitably different from the existing North Korean travelogues. In this study, the process of entering the capitalist camp (Burma, India) from the socialist camp (North Korea, China) was considered from the perspective of ‘traversing the Cold War’. Then, looking at India reflected in Seo Man-il's eyes, we investigated his perception of India and his perception of Asia. It is characteristic that he showed a different perspective from other foreigners who traveled to India.