일제식민지하 신여성운동과 최용신

The Rural Community Enlightenment Movement of Ms. Yongshin Choi as a New Woman under the Japanese Rule

Ms. Yongshin Choi devoted herself to the Rural Commmunity Enlightenment Movement in Korea until she passed away at the age of 26 in 1935. At that time, the rural life of Korea was so miserable due to the exploitation of Japanese rulers. In order to achieve her dream of enlightening the rural areas, she entered the Hyupsung Women’s Theological Seminary, where she met Esther Hwang who was famous for the Enlightenment and Independence Movement as well. During her seminary days, she started the first Rural Enlightenment Movement in Yong-Hyun-Li at Hwang-Hae-Do. The most critical underlying philosophy of Yongshin in her Rural Enlightenment Movement was her belief in Christianity in which she wanted to create the land of peace in this real world. The era of 1920’s was the formative period in the life of Yongshin. In fact, the 1920’s are characterized as all the new streams of thoughts such as socialism and feminism which attracted the attention of most “highly educated new women”. In this regard, it is just amazing that she decided to devote herself to the Enlightenment Movement of rural areas because she herself was the very representing example of “the new woman”. As mentioned above, she went to the rural areas unlike most new women and selected Saem-Gol in Suwon as her important destination where was just a very typical rural area with serious poverty. However, she made the great change there in just 4 years and founded Saem-Gol school. Throughout the movement process, Saem-Gol people also experienced unprecedented hopes of and wills to life. For Yongshin’s life, the first success in Saem-Gol was not the final destination, but the starting point. She wanted to expand “Saem-Gol” to all the Korea. She strongly believed that the development of Korea could not be realized without the prosperity of rural areas. Even though her magnificent dream could not come true eventually, her Rural Enlightenment Movement made the great stroke at the modern history of Korea.