Han Sorya
Han Sorya | ||
---|---|---|
Chairman Choe Yong-gon | | |
Minister of Education and Culture | ||
In office 11 May 1956 – 29 September 1958 | ||
Premier | Kim Il Sung | |
Preceded by | Kim Chang-man | |
Succeeded by | Yi Il-gyong | |
Personal details | ||
Born | Han Pyŏngdo 3 August 1900 Nippon University | |
Occupation | novelist, short story writer, literary administrator, politician | |
Awards | Order of the National Flag (second class, 1951),[1] People's Prize (History, 1958), title of People's Artist (1958)[2] | |
Korean name | ||
Chosŏn'gŭl | 한설야 | |
Hancha | ||
Revised Romanization | Han Seol-ya | |
McCune–Reischauer | Han Sŏrya | |
Birth name | ||
Chosŏn'gŭl | 한병도 | |
Hancha | ||
Revised Romanization | Han Byeongdo | |
McCune–Reischauer | Han Pyŏngdo | |
Han Sorya (Korean: 한설야, born Han Pyŏngdo;[4] 3 August 1900 – 6 April 1976) was a Korean writer, literary administrator and politician who spent much of his career in North Korea. Regarded as one of the most important fiction writers in North Korean history, Han also served as head of the Korean Writers' Union and Ministry of Education.
During his career, Han survived a number of purges that were caused by
Early life
Han was born on 3 August 1900 in
Career
Han was one of the most prominent fiction writers in the history of
In Japanese-occupied Asia
Before the division and independence of Korea from Japan, Han was an insignificant author. His subsequent fame would only be due to his association with the Korean Artist Proletarian Federation (KAPF),[10] which he joined in Seoul in 1927. The organization had been founded in 1925 during his emigration in Manchuria,[4] and after the liberation it would have been the only left-leaning Korean literary organization. For this reason, Kim Il Sung would promote writers like Han who had belonged to it and exaggerated their achievements.[10]
During the early 1930s, Han did briefly associate himself with leftist ideas, but later, during the
Emigration
After the liberation of Korea, writers were faced with the task of establishing a
In North Korea
Soon after starting his career in North Korea, Han had become one of the earliest and most enthusiastic admirers of
Writers opposing Han, such as Yim Hwa , were purged because of their connections with South Korean communists. When the Domestic faction, including its leader Pak Hon-yong, were purged,[8] Han attacked their associates in the literary circles from 1953 onwards.[14] Later, between 1955 and 1957, Han attacked the Soviet Koreans faction,[8] accusing them of "factional, splitting activity"[25] and "not allow[ing] the party and the people to demonstrate their good feeling and love toward their leader".[26] It is possible that Han influenced Kim Il Sung to wage his campaign against the Soviet Koreans' faction specifically on the literary front, culminating in Kim's famous "Juche speech" of 1955: On Eliminating Dogmatism and Formalism and Establishing Juche in Ideological Work.[27] The speech credits Han for uncovering[28] "serious ideological errors on the literary front"[29] and can be considered an expression of public support for Han.[30] In editions after Han's purge in 1962, his name is omitted or replaced with the expression "prominent proletarian writers".[31]
During his career, Han held multiple posts in the literature administration as well as politics in general. Since 1946, Han edited
In 1946, Han became a member of the
Purge
In 1962, Han was accused of "parochialism" and "bourgeois decadence" by the NKFLA. He was consequentially expelled from the party and stripped of his offices.
In Han's wake, other cultural figures, like
Legacy
Though Han Sorya's name has been since been all but forgotten in official North Korean accounts, his influence on contemporary North Korean literature has been significant.[7]
Literately, Han's style of writing has been described as experimental in his employment of various narrative structures.[46] Andrei Lankov considers Han mediocre as a writer[8] and assess his rivals Kim Namch'ŏn and Yi T'ae-jun "marginally more gifted", however considering North Korean literature of the period "boring and highly politicized propaganda" across the board.[14] Lankov describes Han "unscrupulous" as an opportunist and careerist.[8] The literary style and ideologies of Han and some of his adversaries are very similar, and Han's prevailing is due to factional strife. Some aspects of the struggles are baseless, too, as some works by Han include rather sympathetic depictions of Japanese soldiers, while it was many of his rivals who were purged because of their "pro-Japanese" tendencies. Thus, Lankov concludes, the struggle within the literary establishment can be attributed to conflicting personal ambitions more than anything else.[14]
Yearn Hong Choi assess that "Han is not a typical North Korean writer" but an extremely political one in his attempt at pleasing Kim Il Sung.[7] B. R. Myers contrasts Han's legacy with that of North Korean poet Cho Ki-chon. While in Han's works Kim Il Sung embodies traditional Korean virtues of innocence and naivety having "mastered Marxism–Leninism with his heart, not his brain",[47] in Cho's he exemplifies particular traits of the rather early cult of personality built upon Soviet Marxism–Leninism and bloc conformity.[48] The style of Han based on Korean ethnic nationalism ultimately established itself as the standard of propaganda over Cho's.[47] According to Myers, Han is not a writer of fiction in the official literary doctrine of socialist realism at all, but "his own man, not a socialist realist". Yearn Hong Choi disagrees, and points to Han's one-time praise of the Soviets and Kim Il Sung as well as his employment of propaganda in praise of a "utopian" North Korea as proof of him being a socialist realist. According to Yearn, Myers simply has a different idea of what socialist realism is from North Korean writers.[7]
An exception to Han's forgotten legacy in North Korea exists. The multi-part film
Works
Jackals
All in all, there were a lot of poor people living around here. The missionaries had purchased the area for twenty wŏn upon arriving in Korea twenty years ago. Since then they had turned it into a scenic summer retreat, on which Reverend Yi and one or two newly-rich families had recently erected neat brick houses. But far from benefiting from this, those who had always lived there in their rock huts just became more inextricably enmired in poverty as time went on.
Jackals tells the story of a Korean boy murdered by American missionaries with an injection.[59] In North Korea, the story is taken to be based on fact,[60] and B. R. Myers assesses that it is possible that it gave impetus to allegations of biological warfare in the Korean War by North Korea.[59] Called "the country's most enduring work of fiction",[61] it is still influential in North Korea where the word "jackals" has become a synonym for "Americans", and papers like Rodong Sinmun regularly invoke the language of the novella.[55]
The emotional story is inspired by
Jackals was republished in
List of works
- Han Sorya (1929). Kwadogi [Transition Period].[67] Short story.[4]
- — (1929). Ssirŭm [Wrestling Match].[67] Short story.[4]
- — (1932). Sabang Kongsa [Erosion Work].[67]
- — (1936). Hwanghon [Dusk].[67] Novel.[4]
- — (1940). T'ap [Pagoda]. Autobiographical novel.[4][14]
- — (1950). Ch'oso-esŏ [At a Guard Post].
- — (1946). Hyŏlla [Path of Blood].[17]
- — (1946). Mining Settlement.[6]
- — (1946). Moja [The Hat].[19][6]
- — (1949). Growing Village.[6]
- — (1949). Brother and Sister.[6]
- — (1994) [1951]. "Jackals". In Brian Myers (ed.). Han Sŏrya and North Korean Literature: The Failure of Socialist Realism in DPRK. Ithaca: East Asia Program, Cornell University. pp. 157–188. ISBN 978-0-939657-84-1.
- — (1955). Taedonggang [The Taedong River]. Trilogy.[68][6]
- — (1955). Man'gyŏngdae.[6]
- — (1958). Ryŏksa [History]. People's Prize (1958).[2]
- — (1960). Love.[2]
- — (1960). Emulate the Leader.[2]
See also
Notes
References
- ^ Wit 2015, p. 44.
- ^ a b c d e f g Myers 1994, p. 191.
- ^ 황치복 (September 2002). 한일 전향소설의 문학사적 성격-한설야(韓雪野)와 나카노 시게하루(中野重治)를 중심으로 [The Characteristics of the Novel of Conversion in Korea and Japan]. 한국문학이론과 비평. 16: 342–368. Retrieved 27 June 2015.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i Myers 1994, p. 189.
- ^ Myers 1994, p. 20.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j Myers 1994, p. 190.
- ^ a b c d Choi, Yearn Hong (1995). "World literature in review: Korea". World Literature Today. 69 (1). Archived from the original on 7 July 2015.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Lankov 2007, p. 34.
- ISBN 978-0-252-09025-7– via ProQuest ebrary.
- ^ a b c Gabroussenko, Tatiana (27 September 2013). "Benoit Symposium: Writers in the DPRK: The Invisible Stars". Sino-NK. Retrieved 21 August 2016.
- ^ Lankov 2007, p. 70.
- ^ Ryu 2013, p. 182.
- ^ a b Ryu 2013, p. 195.
- ^ a b c d e Lankov 2007, p. 35.
- ^ Armstrong 2013, p. 182.
- ^ Armstrong 2013, pp. 181–182.
- ^ a b Myers 1994, p. 37.
- ^ Myers 1994, p. 148.
- ^ a b c Armstrong 2013, p. 43.
- ^ Armstrong 2013, p. 171.
- ^ Armstrong 2013, p. 223.
- ^ Armstrong 2013, p. 44.
- ISBN 978-0-8018-9841-9– via ProQuest ebrary.
- ^ Lankov 2007, p. 97.
- ^ Lankov 2007, p. 37.
- ^ Lankov 2007, p. 44.
- ^ Lankov 2007, pp. 39–40.
- ^ Myers 2006, pp. 94–95.
- ^ Kim Il-sung (2008) [28 December 1955]. "On eliminating dogmatism and formalism and establishing Juche in ideological work". Marxists Internet Archive. Transcription: Victor Barraza, HTML Markup: Salil Sen. Retrieved 2 July 2015.
- ^ Myers 2006, p. 111.
- ^ Myers 2015, pp. 231–232, 236.
- ^ Myers 1994, p. 75.
- ^ Wit 2015, p. 43.
- ^ Myers 1994, p. 86.
- ^ Lankov 2007, p. 51.
- ^ Myers 1994, p. 46.
- ^ Lankov 2007, p. 58.
- ^ Lankov 2007, p. 59.
- ^ ISBN 978-1-86189-450-2.
- ^ Myers 1994, p. 147.
- ^ Myers 1994, p. 150.
- ^ Myers 1994, p. 1.
- ^ "Prometheus.co.kr" 북한의 열사릉, 그 상징과 폭력: 혁명열사릉과 애국열사릉 (in Korean). Prometheus. 13 August 2006. Archived from the original on 24 December 2013. Retrieved 7 July 2015.
- ^ Moravius (9 February 2008). "Grave of Han Sol Ya (Han Sŏrya)". Flickr. Retrieved 5 October 2016.
- ^ Myers 1994, p. 6.
- ISBN 978-0-8014-4566-8.
- ^ a b Myers 2011, p. 36.
- ^ Myers 2015, p. 28, 40n36.
- ISBN 978-0-7656-3523-5.
- ISBN 978-0-8248-6439-2– via ProQuest ebrary.
- ^ Epstein, Stephen (January 2002). "On Reading North Korean Short Stories on the Cusp of the New Millennium" (PDF). Acta Koreana. 5 (1): 37. Archived from the original (PDF) on 4 March 2016. Retrieved 24 June 2015.
- ^ Lankov 2007, p. 79.
- ^ Lankov 2007, p. 83.
- ^ Translation in Myers 1994, pp. 158–159
- ^ a b c d e Fields, David (18 February 2015). "Collapsist Narratives and State Strength: Reading The Interview through Han Sorya's Jackals". Sino-NK. Retrieved 26 June 2015.
- ^ a b David-West 2012, p. 1.
- ^ a b "Drama 'Wolf' Re-created in DPRK". KCNA. 31 August 2015. Archived from the original on 24 November 2019. Retrieved 21 August 2016.
- ^ a b Myers 2011, p. 152.
- ^ a b Myers 2011, p. 40.
- ^ Myers 2011, p. 138.
- ^ Myers, Brian Reynolds (19 May 2003). "The Obsessions of Kim Jong Il". The New York Times. Retrieved 2 July 2015.
- ^ a b David-West 2012, p. 2.
- ^ Wit 2015, p. 110.
- ^ Myers 1994, pp. 95–96.
- ^ David-West 2012, pp. 3–4.
- ^ Feffer, John (6 September 2006). "Writers from the Other Asia: The two Koreas". JapanFocus. The Asia-Pacific Journal. p. 4. Retrieved 23 June 2015.
- ^ ISBN 978-1-139-44086-8.
- ^ Lankov 2007, p. 33.
Works cited
- Armstrong, Charles K. (15 April 2013). The North Korean Revolution, 1945–1950. Cornell University Press. ISBN 978-0-8014-6879-7.
- David-West, Alzo (May 2012). "Savage Nature and Noble Spirit in Han Sŏrya's Wolves: A North Korean Morality Tale" (PDF). Transnational Literature. 4 (2): 1–18. Archived from the original (PDF) on 17 March 2015. Retrieved 2 July 2015.
- Lankov, Andrei (2007). Crisis in North Korea: The Failure of De-Stalinization, 1956. University of Hawaii Press. ISBN 978-0-8248-3207-0.
- Myers, B. R. (1994). Han Sŏrya and North Korean Literature: The Failure of Socialist Realism in DPRK. Ithaca: East Asia Program, Cornell University. ISBN 978-0-939657-84-1.
- — (2006). "The Watershed that Wasn't: Re-evaluating Kim Il Sung's 'Juche Speech' of 1955". Acta Koreana. 9 (1). Archived from the original on 26 September 2015.
- — (2011). The Cleanest Race: How North Koreans See Themselves and Why It Matters. New York: Melville House. ISBN 978-1-935554-97-4.
- — (2015). North Korea's Juche Myth. Busan: Sthele Press. ISBN 978-1-5087-9993-1.
- Ryu, Youngju (June 2013). "10. Kim Namch'ŏn". In Hanscom, Christopher P.; Lew, Walter K.; Ryu, Youngju (eds.). Korean Classics Library: Historical Materials: Imperatives of Culture: Selected Essays on Korean History, Literature, and Society from the Japanese Colonial Era. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. pp. 181–196. ISBN 978-0-8248-3904-8. Retrieved 23 June 2015 – via ProQuest ebrary.
- Wit, Jerôme de (15 January 2015). Writing under wartime conditions: North and South Korean writers during the Korean war (1950–1953) (PDF) (Doctoral thesis). Leiden University. OCLC 900144488.
Further reading
- Kim, Ellie Sue (2014). Rituals of Decolonization: The Role of Inner-Migrant Intellectuals in North Korea, 1948–1967 (Doctoral thesis). University of California Los Angeles. OCLC 904783158.
- Kwŏn Yŏgngmin, ed. (1989). Wŏlbuk munin yŏn'gu [Studies of Writers Who Went North]. Seoul: Munhak sasangsa. OCLC 22847934.
- Se-p'yong Yun (30 November 1960). Han Sol-ya and His Literature: North Korea (PDF). Washington D.C., U.S.: Joint Publications Research Service. OCLC 227922016. Archived from the original(PDF) on 26 September 2015.
External links
- Grave of Han Sorya on Flickr
- Han Sorya at the Encyclopedia of Korean Culture (in Korean)
- Han Sorya at North Korean Human Geography (in Korean)
- "American Wolf" dance performance loosely based on Jackals on YouTube