해방 공간의 민족주의와 전통문화

The Imaginations of Nationalism and Traditional Culture and Their Realities in South Korean Post-Liberation Space with the Focus on the Discussion of National Music

This articles deals with the relationship between nationalism and traditional culture. Nationalism is an ideology which aspires for the establishment of the nation-state and its maintenance, and at the same time integrates its members, present or future, into the community. For this purpose, nationalism develops a number of many symbolic resources pertaining to unique, traditional culture. Then, one may raise the question on the real relationship between nationalism and traditional culture. This constitutes the primary problematic of this article. These problematics of this article leads it to examine the imaginations of nationalism, national culture, and tradition, their imagined relationship, and the its realities in the days of South Korea right after its liberation from Japanese colonialism in which nationalism surged up after the strong desire by the Korean people of building their naton-state. Contemporary South Korean intellectuals, competing with each other over the definiton of the nation, suggested the nation as the community of blood tie, and/or regional tie, cultural community, and/or the community of a history. Despite the competitions, they placed common emphasis upon the significance of culture. That is, they, understanding culture as the integrated accomplishments of creative human activities, linked culture to the political activities for the making of a new state. Also, they suggested the uniqueness and the globality of national culture as its primary constituting principles. Despite their common emphasis of culture, however, they differed in their emphasized principles. Some of them laid emphasis upon cultural uniqueness. Others attached significance to cultural globality. In the progress of contemporary discussion, those intellectuals who placed emphasis upon the uniqueness stressed the significance of cultual tradition. For them, tradition was the vital power of inheriting national spirits from ancestors and also the driving force for a creation of a new culture.Based upon their view of tradition, it was re-oriented toward developmentality and scientificness for the future. These discourses appeared also in the contemporary discussion of national music. Korean people majoring in Western music tried to establish national music while clearing away the legacy of Japanese colonialist music. They, understanding national music as embodiment of national color and ancestral spirits, discussed the elements of national music. More than anything else, they, perceived the time as the period of science, argued that national music should have scientific basis in its musical expression. Also, national music, according to their arguments, should have globality and universality as a requirement. Based upon their idea, they presented as the model of national music Western music for the reason that it was scientific, global, and universal. One step farther, they argued that Korean musicians should inherit musical heritage from Korean ancestors, and also accept Western music, although critically. By the way, some Western-music specialists even argued that Korean musicians should embrace not only Western methodology of music but also the spirit and the philosophy of Western music, and even its contemporary tradition inherited from its past. Like this, they were actually deep in Orientalism in that they believed that Korean embracing of Western music lead to the establishment of Korean national music. Based upon their Orientalist idea, they evaluated traditional music from according to the standard of Western music. They, defining traditional music as the music inherited from ancestor, categorized it from the criterions of social caste, nationality, musical instrumentality, and professionalism. And they understood that traditional music had the potential of offering a decisive clue to the job of establishing national music.