Visiting Gwangyang Mangdeok Jeong Byeong-uk House on the 100th Anniversary of Its Birth

Awarded the Silver Crown Cultural Medal for Contributions to Classical Poetry, Classical Novels, and Pansori

Distinguished Contributor Who Preserved Yun Dong-ju's Handwritten Manuscripts and Illuminated Korean Literary History

[Gwangyang=Asia Economy Honam Reporting Headquarters, Reporter Heo Seonsik] On March 25, marking the 100th anniversary of the birth of Korean literature scholar Baek Young Jeong Byeong-uk, Gwangyang City in Jeollanam-do recommended a precious time to visit the Jeong Byeong-uk House at Mangdeok Port to honor his noble friendship and literary spirit.

Jeong Byeong-uk was born on March 25, 1922, graduated from Yeonhui College, and then from Seoul National University’s Department of Korean Literature in 1948. He served as a professor at Pusan National University and Yonsei University before working as a professor in the Department of Korean Literature at Seoul National University for 27 years.

He laid the foundation for classical literature such as classical poetry and classical novels, founded the Korean Language and Literature Society, and also established the Pansori Society, dedicating himself to the research and popularization of Pansori. Additionally, he made outstanding achievements in classical Chinese literature and bibliography.

He also served as a visiting professor at Harvard University and the University of Paris, authored the Korean literature section of the Encyclopædia Britannica, and participated in international academic conferences in the United States, France, Japan, and other countries, greatly contributing to raising the status of Korean literature.

For these achievements, he received the Korean Publishing Culture Award for authorship in 1967, the Oesol Award in 1979, and the Samil Culture Award in 1980. On Hangeul Day in 1991, he was posthumously awarded the Silver Crown Cultural Medal in recognition of his lifelong dedication to classical poetry research.

Jeong Byeong-uk regarded his preservation and publicizing of Yun Dong-ju’s handwritten posthumous work Sky, Wind, Star, and Poem as his greatest accomplishment.

In his memoir Unforgettable Brother Yun Dong-ju, Jeong said, “If someone asks me what the most rewarding and proud thing I have done in my life is, I would answer without hesitation that it was preserving Dong-ju’s poems and making them known to the world.”

Moreover, to never forget Yun Dong-ju, he adopted the pen name Baek Young (白影), meaning “white shadow,” which is the title of one of Yun Dong-ju’s poems.

Yun Dong-ju, who was Jeong Byeong-uk’s senior at Yeonhui College, dreamed of publishing a poetry collection to commemorate his graduation in 1941. He compiled 19 handwritten poems under the title Sky, Wind, Star, and Poem, personally bound three copies, and gave them to his advisor Lee Yang-ha and his cherished junior Jeong Byeong-uk.

Unfortunately, due to the circumstances of the time, the poetry collection’s publication was thwarted. Yun Dong-ju, imprisoned on charges of independence activism while studying in Japan, passed away on February 16, 1945, in the cold Fukuoka Prison, just six months before liberation.

Even when drafted as a student soldier, Jeong entrusted the handwritten poems he received from Yun Dong-ju to his mother in Gwangyang. The poems, neatly wrapped in a silk cloth, survived quietly in a jar beneath the floor of his house.

While the manuscripts held by Yun Dong-ju and Professor Lee Yang-ha were lost, the manuscripts preserved at the Jeong Byeong-uk House in Mangdeok Port were published as a posthumous collection on January 30, 1948, summoning Yun Dong-ju as a poet.

The house where Jeong Byeong-uk lived is registered as Cultural Heritage No. 341 under the name “Jeong Byeong-uk House Preserving Yun Dong-ju’s Posthumous Works,” commemorating the painful history under Japanese colonial rule and the poignant friendship between the two.

Kim Seongsu, Director of Tourism, said, “Until now, Jeong Byeong-uk has been illuminated only as the ‘white shadow’ who introduced Yun Dong-ju’s poems to the world, but he was a person who made outstanding achievements in researching and inheriting Korean classical poetry and Pansori, connecting Korean literature and spirit.”

He added, “On the 100th anniversary of Jeong Byeong-uk’s birth, I hope people visit Mangdeok Port, where his sacred friendship and life are reflected, to have a meaningful time tracing the pains of the era he lived through and the spirit he preserved.”

Gwangyang=Asia Economy Honam Reporting Headquarters, Reporter Heo Seonsik hss79@asiae.co.kr

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