[Encounter] Traces Left by Anti-Communism Imposed by Ilje in Korean Literature

[Asia Economy Reporter Byunghee Park] "A special disciplinary system that emerged during the Japanese colonial period, went through the U.S. military government era, and took root with the establishment of the Republic of Korea in 1948."

Literary critic Professor Yui Imha of Korea National Sport University defines anti-communism this way in his new book, Anti-communism and Korean Literature.

Socialists were one of the forces leading the independence movement during the Japanese colonial period. Professor Yu explains that Japan harshly suppressed socialists involved in the independence movement, internalizing a phobia of anti-communism. The McCarthyism frenzy in the United States, which led the Cold War, occurred in the early 1950s. It is surprising that Japan had already used anti-communism as a tool of repression before that.

In Anti-communism and Korean Literature, Professor Yu examines how anti-communism oppressed and distorted Korean literature within the historical context. He aligns with the position of Professor Benedict Anderson of Cornell University. Anderson argued that the concept of a nation is merely an "imagined community," and that the modern novel effectively functions to bind imagined communities together.

The internalized fear of anti-communism flourished even more after liberation. To borrow Professor Yui Imha’s expression, liberation came to us "suddenly." In an unprepared situation, extreme division and confrontation between left and right, each asserting nationalism, occurred.

Professor Yu explains that the Soviet-American divided occupation immediately after liberation caused geographical division, and the trusteeship plan discussed at the Moscow Conference in December 1945 led to ideological division. The division escalated into social division, with North Korea’s land reform in March 1946 being decisive. North Korea’s land reform gained popular support, and right-wing political forces in South Korea politically emphasized anti-communism to overcome their weak popular base. The anti-communist ideology adopted by right-wing political forces identified socialists as hostile others to the nation. Through this, they sought to expel and exclude socialists and create a more ideologically homogeneous citizenry. In this process, literature functioned as a tool to reinforce anti-communism.

Professor Yu regards the Red Purge Three-Point Appeal Collection, published by the International Press Federation in 1951, as the origin of anti-communist texts. The Red Purge Three-Point Appeal Collection was planned immediately after the recapture of Seoul and published in Busan, where refugees had fled.

The 1960s pure literature debate also exerted influence on the foundation of anti-communism. Professor Yu points out that the pure literature theory was not a fully developed literary theory. It was a controversial construct created by othering the literary theories of the left-wing camp as different from their own. Kim Dong-ri, who advocated pure literature, hierarchized literature in his essay titled "Serious Literature and the Prospect of the Third Worldview." He elevated pure literature’s autonomy as the first literature, while labeling left-wing or progressive middle-ground literature, which claimed political and utilitarian qualities, as second- and third-tier literature. Professor Yu explains that through this method, pure literature theory erased all ideological elements and excluded literature from social contexts.

Under the post-Cold War atmosphere, Korean literature began to show signs of change from the late 1980s. Notably, Hong Seong-won’s South and North, Jo Jung-rae’s Taebaek Mountains, Kim Won-il’s Festival of Fire, and Hwang Sok-yong’s The Guest were representative achievements that viewed the Korean War. Regarding the most popularly known Taebaek Mountains, Professor Yu evaluates it as "having limitations such as the rigidity of the good-versus-evil character structure, relative deficiency of characters belonging to ideological middle grounds, and narrowness stemming from the author’s definitive historical judgment, but it was a practical example of 1980s culture that expanded human freedom and liberation under the oppressive reality of the 1980s." Furthermore, he adds that it laid the groundwork for resolving the violence of anti-communism and internalized social conventions all at once.

Professor Yu specifically examines what meanings various anti-communist texts have held in each era up to the present. He also includes reflections on how to restore modern literary history on the 30th anniversary of the lifting of restrictions.

Professor Yu has long researched the relationship between Korean literature and anti-communism, as well as literature after liberation and North Korean literature. Anti-communism and Korean Literature is a collection of 19 research papers from 2005 to recent years. Can we say that the era of anti-communism has now passed? Professor Yu diagnoses that anti-communism still functions as a biopower that governs even the "mind" of social members through surveillance, punishment, censorship, and fear.

(Anti-communism and Korean Literature / Written by Yui Imha / Geulnurim)

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.