KOREASCHOLAR

The memory of the Korean War is about the time period when people lived toughly during evacuation, due to being exposed to the natural climate such as intense cold or heat without any protection, leaving their comfortable home and living in temporary built shelters which were barely enough to avoid the wind. ‘Death is concealed and only the figures of evacuation for survival were expressed, just as how the government ordered. Since the experience of the battlefield is personal and fragmentary, that is broken into pieces, it does not have compatibility. As war is a distorted experience that cannot be placed in a big picture, it is not possible to take a view of the war’s big picture. Having this individualized experience as a common collective memory is an issue and it is the will that people tries to pursue. The reason why the evacuees from north to south, and as well as from the south to further south were all able to be adopted as the theme of artworks due to the military action that emptied the occupied territories of the North Korean Army under the forced removal command. In such situations, the natural state of the ‘snow’ was like a symbol of the 1.4 Recession. The group of people who were thrown into the intense cold displaced the war damage of loosing their base livelihood, and symbolized the obedient citizens who faithfully follow their government’s command. The figure of advocating anti-communism is projected as a figure of a refugee during cold winter-time and it contains ones past which he or she obeyed its own country’s commands. Evacuation, especially the evacuation during the winter is a visual device that can confirm these kinds of country’s command. The consequences were same for the artists as well. Therefore, the situation being communal could be found due to the individual experiences during war are ideological. The image of the refuge shown in the picture played the role of strengthening the consciousness of defecting to South Korea into the meaning of the ‘Finding Freedom.’ I would like to express that the reason of them leave their home during the harsh winter is in order to avoid the oppression of the Communist Party. The evacuation that people went through was not to ‘Finding Freedom’, but ‘To Survive’. Later, this evacuation has been imprinted as a behavior of choosing free Republic of Korea, which was an ideological issue. Anti-communism was the rule of survival in South Korea society, and people have the tendency to remember what they want to remember. As it is not the people who possesses an incident, but the memory that possesses ones, people cover their memory with disguised plots in order to forget the violence and to live a different prologue. They share the incident of violence as a hurtful memory. The tragedy of the Korean War was the result of Ideology and being in between the powerful nations’ rights, but the violence during the war has been depicted as a natural disaster, which was the evacuation in heavy snow.

I 자연재해와 전재
 II 6.25전쟁기 피난 이미지
 III 피난과 재해
 IV 기억되는 전쟁

• 조은정(한남대학교) | Cho, Eun-jung