Memory, History, and Korea
Memory is a living thing. Unlike stone-inscribed historiography , memory keeps on adjusting itself to changing sociopolitical milieu. The mnemonic iterations of deletion (i.e., forgetting), storage (i.e., remembering), and retrieval explain the vicissitudes of historical memory. The iteration is often a function of presentist and traditionalist perspectives which selectively energize remembering, forgetting, and retrieval. Traditional societies tend to have longer memory spans compared to progressive societies, and exhibit differences in historical outlook. Whilst traditional societies have more tenacious remembrance of past events, progressive societies tend to focus more on what lies ahead than (re)visiting the bygone era. They thus have different temporal preoccupations, which South Koreaâs contentious memory politics powerfully demonstrate.
In 1882 the French scholar Ernest Renan presented a lecture on the subject âWhat is a nation?â For Renan the answer lies not in race, religion, or the like, but in shared memory and compelled forgetting: â[T]he essence of a nation is that all the individuals have many things in common and also that all [must already] have forgotten a great many things. All French citizens are obliged to have forgotten the Saint Bartholomew [massacre], the massacres of the Midi of the thirteenth centuryâ (Renan 1947â61: 892). It is the sense of obligated forgetting and remembering (imagining) that is salient in Renanâs argument.1
Furthermore, Maurice Halbwachs (1992) has argued that memory is a social production: social institutions and contexts make possible certain memories, encouraging certain recollections while discouraging others. Pierre Nora has attempted to distinguish between memory and history: âMemory fastens upon sites, whereas history fastens upon eventsâ (Nora 1986: 181). It is an aphorism that is provocative yet also obfuscating, for memories constitute historyâs data while it is officially endorsed history that will be mobilized to constantly refashion obligated memoryâconsequently the state-condoned constructions of history and the nation are reinforced.
The key lesson to be taken from these considerations is that memory is multiple and fragmentary. Note Pierre Noraâs comment, citing Maurice Halbwachs: âthere are as many memories as there are groups, that memory is by nature multiple yet specific; collective and plural yet individual. By contrast, history belongs to everyone and to no one and therefore has a universal vocationâ (Nora 1986: 3). However, because history must build on multiple, ephemeral memory, it is forever contested, revised, denied.
In the case of Korea, the stateâs control of memory and forgetting must be judged a dismal failure. Both colonial administrators and domestic dictatorships have failed to suppress thought, memories run wild, and histories consequently proliferate, differ, and conflict. Korean historiography is a rich, bitter, and exhilaratingly contested field. It is also of wonderful longevityâso Lee Ki-baikâs A New History of Korea (1984 [1961]) could reflect on the richness of Korean historiography in the eighteenth century.
In the debates and contests of present Korean historiography, there are various rather obvious themes: ideas of Japanâs âmodernizingâ of a backward Korea against Korean indigenous modernization, Korean writing of history against that of Japanese scholars, the special tragedy of the âcomfort women,â compelled into prostitution for the Japanese Imperial Army, the problem of accounting for the Park Chung Hee dictatorship (1962â79) where brutal suppression makes a stark contrast to the genius of national reinvention, and subsequent social repression versus the cultural renaissance paradigm in the post-1987 democratization era. These themes of Korean historiography and the bitternessâbrillianceâof its contestation are dealt with elsewhere (Shin Gi-Wook and Robinson 1999; Cumings 2005; Soh 2009; Lee Jin-kyung 2010; Uchida 2011; Akita and Palmer 2015; King 2018).
It is in this context of constantly fragmenting memories and unsettled historiography that the present volume has been assembled and is to be read. Its goal is to throw light on a diversity of difficult memories and savagely contested history of a nation that, in the twentieth century, was dragged through processes of colonial subjection, painful division, fratricidal civil war, subsequent domestic turmoil, but also brilliant reinvention and economic, social, and cultural resurgence.
Korean Memories
This collection of essays on Korean memories sheds light on memory studies in the context of Koreaâs idiosyncratic historical trajectory and the contestations of its historiography. Korea has been under the intense pressure of rapid social change during the past century. Existing studies of Korean memories reveal dynamic interactions between the mind map and its terrains. Koreans have a longer memory span compared to the USA or most other modern nations, where the foundational myth of Dangun (around 2333 BCE) and the ancient Kingdom of Kokuryo (107 BCEâ668 CE) are cited as sources of historical pride (Schwartz and Kim 2002; Hundt and He 2015). The 2002 study of Schwartz and Kim supports the validity of traditionalist perspectives in the case of Korea where shame and honor form a dominant paradigm as opposed to guilt and pride.
In Kim 2013a, I have advanced the argument made by Schwartz and Kim (2002) by showing the dynamic tension between tradition and progress which permeates both memories and historiography in Korea. This goes beyond the usual cultural framework of âhan-fulâ sentiment2 by accentuating the responsive action schemata of âresistance.â As Koreans often identify themselves as the people of han (æš), the sentiment reflects the complexity of the Korean ethos because it not only aggregates the sentiments of anger against injustice, helplessness in the face of inequality, and bitterness over exploitation, but it also incorporates self-blame. As the concept was used in Japanese academic circles during the colonial era, it has overt political implications. At that time, han was used to portray Koreans as sentimental, passive, fateful, and inward-looking. It became a tool to explain away the harsh reality of a subjugated people: colonized Korea resulted from its own weakness, and Koreans had nobody but themselves to blame. Han facilitated a powerful framework for justifying the colonial reality. Han was the authoritative concept in explaining Koreansâ mindset until resistance was factored in as an empirical phenomenon to explain Koreaâs historical progression (see Kim 2013b). This volume is yet another extension of existing observations by introducing the theoretical concept of âpsycho-historical fragmentationâ which manifests ruptured memories of strong presentist qualities.
âPsycho-Historical Fragmentationâ
In mapping out Korean memories, I am introducing the concept of âpsycho-historical fragmentation,â a theoretical framework, to explain Koreaâs mnemonic rupture as a result of living under fast-paced, strong pressure. Celebrations of South Koreaâs economic and political achievements notwithstanding, those successes are often characterized as compressed modernization (see Chang 1999, 2010; Ryu 2004). As Korean society has been undergoing transformation at unusual speed and intensity, so has its historical memory in all its fragmentation and multiplicity.
I build on Robert Liftonâs theorem of âpsycho-historical dislocationâ where Lifton describes Hiroshima atomic bomb victimsâ traumatic memories. Liftonâs psychological dislocation is caused by victimsâ inability to make sense of the meaningless deaths as a consequence of the unprecedented violence provoked by their own government.3 When the victims cannot give a meaning to the suffering, the mind splits from historical experiences. His insight is a heartrending critique of the myth of historical progress which scientific knowledge and technological advancement claim to serve for humanity (Lifton 1991). The trauma of the Hiroshima atomic bombing alerts us to the possibi...