홍범도 장군의 항일무장투쟁과 고려인 사회

Hong Beom-do’s Anti-Japanese Armed Struggles and Soviet-Korean Society

Hong Beom-do is one of few Korean patriots who is highly respected among Koreans both inside and outside of the Korean Peninsula. As the leader of righteous independence armies composed mainly of commoners, Hong Beom-do has left a legacy detailing his turmoil and struggles against Japanese imperialism. His history is a very rare case of a leader who organized an anti-Japanese righteous army in the late 1890’s, continuing armed struggles against the Japanese into the 1920’s, such as in Bongo-dong (Fengwu-dong, June 1920) and Cheongsan-ni (Qingshan-li, October, 1920) in Manchuria. His place in the history of Korean anti-Japanese armed struggles is unparalleled with other leaders of his time. There are several reasons for why Hong Beom-do may not have received proper recognition in Korean society. First of all, we can attribute this to the fact that Korean society has been under the overwhelming influence of the Cold War, as well as the division of the Korean Peninsula. The Cold War and division of the Korean Peninsula brought about an unfavorable political, ideological and geographical environment for academic research. There were difficulties in data acquisition and field survey research. Accordingly, the attention level of the general public to such matters can be quite low. For a long time, the facts about Hong Beom-do’s life and his activities in Soviet Russia after the end of the Siberian Intervention (October, 1922) have been inaccurate and unclear, especially regarding his last years in Central Asia. Plausible conjectures and inaccurate information about Hong Beom-do’s last years in Central Asia have resulted from such ambiguity. The purpose of this paper is to trace Hong Beom-do’s life in the Russian Far East and Central Asia and to introduce how Soviet Koreans memorize and commemorate Hong Beom-do’s life and struggles through theatric performances and literary works. Furthermore, this paper points out some inaccurate descriptions about Hong Beom-do’s life and activities in previous literature and suggests possible future research subjects. Finally, this paper raises the necessity of cooperation in uncovering historical materials and collective researches among historians from various countries.