1920년대 사회주의사상의 수용과 맑스주의 원전 번역

The Introduction of Socialism and the Translation of Marxist Texts in the 1920s : Focusing on Socialism Utopian and Scientific

One of the famous Marxist texts Socialism: Utopian and Scientific was originated from the book Anti-Dühring. The former was mainly recomposed of the important contents of the latter. This text was at those days appraised as a guide to the scientific socialism. So this book was 1880 at first time published in French by Paul Lafargue, and since then it was successfully translated in 10 languages until the English publisher Edward Aveling published in English. Even in East Aisa in 1906, the text was at first time translated in Japanese. The main translators Sakai Toshihiko and Kawakami Hajime used both the English and the German version as the basic text for the translation. In Korea Socialism: Utopian and Scientific was translated in 1925 at first time by Sinchun. Only the chapter III was published with the title “Scientific Socialism” on the magazine Sasangundong. This Korean version has the peculiar character to use the English version as the basic translation text and also to refer the Japanese version which was translated by Sakai and Kawakami. It is very important that it shows that the translation method relating to Marxist texts has gradually changed from the double translation of the Japanese version to the direct translation of the English version. While Sinchun selected and used main conception words from the Japanese version, he also had used creative translation words. And he tried to give useful help to the Korean readers by newly adding 79 notes for the Korean version. On April 1926, Gwondoksa published Socialism: Utopian and Scientific with the Korean title Scientific Socialism. It was the first Engels’ text to be published in Korea. This Korean version used the English version as the basic translation text and also to refer the Japanese by Sakai and Kawakami. This editors made use of main conception words from the Japanese version, they also created new Korean translation words. And they also tried to help to understand the content of the book with the addition of 37 notes. Moreover, they retranslated completely on the basic of the English version all of the parts which the Japanese version had deleted or translated differently on the Japanese style. In these points the version of Gwondoksa was very different from the version of Sinchun. The publication of Scientific Socialism was the trial to respond to the social needs for the scientific theory from the development of the socialism movement in Korea. This event has an historical meaning that the Korean socialists had successfully tried to understand the Marxism directly without passing through the Japanese version.