러시아 극동 한인문학의 정초(定礎)와 문학지리학(literary geography)

초록

In this paper, based on the realization that all history and activities of mankind are inevitably rooted in the land and cannot exist outside the geographical world, the discourse and images of Primorsky where Koreans settled after the 1860s was observed from the works of Korean artists. As for the methodology, the historical/cultural/art historical significance of the times was revisited by tracing back to the artists’ painful memories, issues of barren reality, and the method of regeneration in contemplation of the future through the representation of Primorsky in the new novels based on Russian Far East and the artworks of Korean artists who were active in the region. The novels that deal with the diaspora traces of Koreans who immigrated to Russian Far East can be largely divided into the following diachronic phases: finding their roots through heroes of anti-Japanese struggle, glorification of and settlement in socialist Soviet Union as a new homeland, torment from identity crisis as Russian Koreans among the emigrants after deportation, and the collapse of the regime and beginning of diverse society after the 1990s. Certainly, the birth of Korean literature that began from Primorsky did not completely reflect the literary accomplishments in Primorsky due to the immigration policy of Stalin. However, the identity of Russian Koreans that reformed from Joseon nationalists to international socialists in the wake of the Russian Revolution defined the lives of Russian Koreans and gave birth to the uniqueness of Russian Korean literature. Another fact that deserves special attention is that Korean migrants gained layered identities as they embraced both Joseon and Russia as their homeland during the process of assimilating to the disparate community. For Korean migrants, that is the reason why there is connection between the “armed struggle against Japan” that revolted against Japanese rule and aristocrat system in Korea and the “Russian Revolution,” where they joined the Red Army to fight against the counterrevolutionaries of Japan and Russia during the Russian civil war. The fact which is more closely linked and important than the anti-Japanese independence movement in Russian Far East is that Russian Koreans began the search of their roots at a new settlement through the rumination of struggle on the grounds of ideologies. To the grass roots, Primorsky was the land of life and the promised land that gave them air to breathe, but to some intellectuals such as Cho Myeong-hui, it was the land of exile and opportunity for the independence of Joseon. Such national spirit was realized into literary works and created an imaginary ethnic community, and through such awareness, the solidarity of the nation was strengthened. As people returned to their second homeland of Primorsky when the ethnocentrism reached its peak due to the republics in Central Asia gainingd their independence after the collapse of Soviet Union, Primorsky in terms of Russian Far East Korean Literature reverted the “imaginary community” to a “real community” in the historical struggle of Russian Koreans and cradled the national spirit that sought to realize the “community of ideology” as a result.

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