19세기 러시아 텍스트에 반영된 한국의 지리적 명칭들과 전사(轉寫)의 문제

The Korean Toponyms Reflected in the 19th Century Russian Texts and the Problems of Transliteration

The main purpose of this small article is to trace back the process of the infiltration of Korean toponyms in the Russian texts throughout the 19th century The name "Korea" was introduced to Russian language rather late compared to other European languages such as Dutch. French. Portugese. and German because Russia for a long time had not paid attetion to this small far eastern country. The name "Korea" first appeared in Russian text when the travelogue of Kruzenshtern was published in Petersburg in 1809. From Kruzenshtern on. not a few documents and books conveying the information of Korean place names had been published in Russia The problems of these materials lie in the fact that most of them were translations of the works of other European travelers. mainly French ones. To make matters worse. the French author. Eyries. for example. used the system of transliteration based on Chinese or Japanese phonological rules when they wrote the place names of Korea in their books. For this reason , the Russian transliterations of the Korean toponyms were far from being correct. Even Goncharov's sailings to the Korean peninsular 44 years later since Kruzenshtern's book was published didn't improve the problems of the transliteration because his crews on "Pallada" didn't accept the correct local names of Korean bays. ports and seas despite that they were accesible to local Koreans at that time. Instead of using local Korean names , these sailors preferred Russian proper nouns. The trade agreement between Russia and China in 1860 was turning point in the history of Korea-Russia relations. Since then. the interest in this new neighboring nation was increased in Russian. Gel'mersen who was highly conscious of the problems of transliteration even attempted to use the diacritical marks for the writing system. Still , Russian authors were dependant on French missionary Dallet' s invention of writing Korean in Latin alphabets. The mutual pact between Korea and Russia in 1884 allow many Russians travel the Korean peninsular. They were accessible to local Koreans. As a result , the Russian texts at this time reflect many variants of the same place name. In 1900 , the author of "Description of Korea" established the system of transliteration in Russian based on Korean alphabet. For this , even the new characters a and 0 with diacritical marks on them were introduced Thus , the first step of the process for the unification of Russian transliteration of Korean toponyms end , which awaits for another long process in the 20th century.