1920년대 이후 성공주의 기원과 확산

The Origin and Spread of Successism in the 1920s Korea : A Study of the Theory of Success Written by Christian Youth Choi Yeon-taek(崔演澤) who Accepted the Concept of Self-help

The purpose of this paper is to study, a colonial intellectual Choi yeon-taek trying to propagate a discourse of one’s personal success in the 1920’s Korea. Since the March first movement, He launched campaign of one’s personal success by using newspapers and a edited book which contains partially translated Self-help. When Self-help was first introduced in newspapers and journals in the late of Great Han, the social meaning of ‘self-help’ was conceptualized and made into national ideology. After that time, the meaning of ‘self-help’ what Choi nam-son(崔南善) and Hon nan-pa(洪蘭坡) had interpreted was related to one’s personal affairs. The ‘self-help’ of Choi yeon-taek was similar to theirs. Choi yeon-taek was converted from a confucian to youth who had a background of christianity. He managed the publisher, munchangsa(文昌社), to propagate modern knowledge in colonial society like Choi nam-son. He was a writer of the magazine which is called shinchoenji(≪新天地≫) with Hon nan-pa. But his position of a publisher and writer was different from them to have symbolic power in the colonial society. I think that he was ‘youth’ in the position of boundary to relate with his level of education. Choi yeon-taek lived in A hyeon-dong(阿峴洞) Seodaemungu(西大門區), Seoul Korea. Before enter a elementary school in A hyeon-dong, he learned confucianism at sodang(書堂), a Korean traditional fundamental school. He left a course of secondary school and went to Japan to study for a short time. Even though his education level was high school class in the colonial Korea, he didn’t belong to a group of Korean students in Japan. Kimtaejajon(『金太子傳』), a version of Yook mi danggi(『六美堂記』) written by Chinese character, was serialized in the daily newspaper(≪每日申報≫) translated by Choi yeon-taek returned from Japan in 1914. He was converted from a confucian to christianity during his translation of the Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin and a novel of the beginning of sin and evil(『罪惡의 種子』) from 1921 to 1922. I found that Choi yeon-taek was a colonial intellectual to propagate a discourse of one’s personal success using a value of Self-help. In conclusion, I believe that the case study on Choi yeon-taek will be helpful to understand colonial intellectuals who was not well known to propagate a discourse of one’s personal success.