Patriotic Poet Remembered
By Jung Sung-ki
Staff Reporter
The Ministry of Patriots and Veterans Affairs has selected poet Yoon Dong-ju (1917-1945) as the Independence Fighter of this Month in consultation with the Korea Liberation Association and the Independence Hall of Korea.
Yoon is one of the most prominent poets in Korea. His poems are thought to have reflected the darkness of Japanese colonial period (1910-1945) and hopes for Korea's independence at the same time.
He was born in northern Manchuria on Dec. 27, 1917.
In 1941, a year before graduating from Yonhi College, predecessor of Yonsei University in Seoul, Yoon made a collection of poems, titled ``Sky and winds and stars and poems'' including the renowned poem ``Seo-shi.''
But he failed to publish the collection at that time due to tight surveillance of Japanese authorities and financial problem.
In 1942, Yoon went to Japan to study English literature at a Tokyo university.
He was arrested next year on a charge of supporting Korea's independence movement by ``instigating'' Korean students in Japan, along with his cousin Song Mong-gyu, who helped an anti-colonization movement led by independence activist Kim Koo. Kim later became a president of the Provisional Government of the Republic of Korea.
Yoon was sentenced to two years in Hukuoka prison and died on Feb. 16, 1945 there. His death is suspected to have been murder by the Japanese military's medial experimentation on his living body.
Song reportedly said during a meeting with Yoon's families at the prison, ``We've been forced to get unknown injections every day, and that made Dong-ju dead.''
In 1948, Yoon's first and last anthology of poems, ``Sky and winds and stars and poems,'' was published by one of Yoon's friends.
He was awarded the Independent Medal of the Order of Merit for National Foundation in 1990.