Life of Writer Yi Kwang-su: From Nationalist to Collaborator

Andrei Lankov

By Andrei Lankov
Korea Times Columnist

Most people want to see history in black and white, as an epic struggle between perfect heroes and treacherous villains. But real history ― like real life ― seldom has clear-cut ``goodies'' and ``baddies.''

One figure who encompassed all of this confusion of Korean history in five decades between 1900 and 1950 was Yi Kwang-su, arguably the first modern Korean writer.

Perhaps, his strange, successful and paradoxical life is best expressed by such a fact: Yi was imprisoned by all of the regimes that ruled Korea in his lifetime ― by the Japanese, by the North Koreans and by the South Koreans!

Yi was born in 1892, in what is now North Korea. He was 10 years old when his parents died, but the village community took care of him as he had already become

viewed by his fellow villagers as a local prodigy.

In an earlier era, his life path would have been easy to predict: sponsored by the villagers, he would receive education in the Confucian classics, which would enable him, with some luck, to become a junior official in the Joseon bureaucracy.

But the Joseon era was coming to an end, and the young prodigy became involved with the then powerful Cheondogyo sect. The sect's theology can be described as a Korean attempt to answer the challenge of Christianity.

It was sect leaders who provided Yi with a scholarship to study in Japan where he went in 1905. In Tokyo, he acquired a native fluency in Japanese. Indeed, Japanese, not Korean, was the language he used in his first fiction writings (in later stages of his life he also switched to Japanese sometimes). After graduating from the equivalent of a high school, Yi majored in philosophy at Waseda University.

In the early 1910s, many Korean students were attending Japanese schools, learning the ``new science'' and discussing the future of Korea. Most of them were nationalists, and they were full of ambition. Yi wrote in his diary: ``Am I a genius? I do not know, I am only trying.'' Well, Yi was not an example of modesty.

While in Japan, he was exposed to modern literature. The works of Western writers, so different in style from what Korean (and Japanese) intellectuals used to read before, enjoyed tremendous popularity.

Yi Kwang-su (1892-1950), known as the first modern Korean writer, wrote the contemporary Korean novel, “Mujeong”(Heartlessness), between 1917 and 1918. / Korea Times File

Yi was impressed by these works, and decided to write new Korean fiction that would reflect the life and problems of the contemporary Korean.

And write he did. Between 1917 and 1918, he produced what can be seen as the first modern Korean novel, ``Mujeong'' (Heartlessness). It was serialised by the Maeil Sinbo, the only Korean-language newspaper allowed by the colonial authorities at the time.

Some literary historians would probably argue that ``Heartlessness'' was not, strictly speaking, the first modern Korean novel. There were earlier attempts to write a modern-style novel in Korean ― but none of these attempts was even remotely as successful.

In 1917, Yi became famous overnight. Handsome and well dressed, he was often called the ``would-be lover of all Korean women.''

This was an overstatement: in that era an overwhelming majority of Korean women were illiterate farmers' wives and had not the slightest idea of who Yi was ― but his tremendous success among the rich and educated minority was undeniable. Indeed, he can be seen as one of the first Korean celebrities.

Like many other celebrities, Yi soon found himself in the middle of a scandal, which, however, only enhanced his popularity. Virtually all Korean males of his era were married by their elders when they were in their teens, and he was not an exception.

A wife was supposed to be loyal and obedient, to take care of her in-laws and, above all, give birth to sons. If these demands were met, her husband was supposed to support her, while retaining complete sexual freedom ― as long as he slept with the ``right'' women, that is, with women from the despised social groups who were expected to be promiscuous.

So, extramarital sex was permitted and, indeed, expected from a successful male, but a formal divorce was a taboo.

Yi decided to break with this tradition. In Japan, he met Ho Yong-suk, a Korean medical student who was also a minor celebrity at the time. The romance flourished, and in October 1918 the lovers eloped.

Incidentally, by divorcing his first wife and marrying a new woman (that is, a woman with a modern education), he established the pattern to be followed by many Korean male intellectuals of the 1920s.

In February 1919, Yi was among the Korean students leaders in Japan who composed ``The Feb. 2 Declaration of Independence.''
This document preceded the better known March 1 ``Declaration of Independence,'' which ignited the March 1 Uprising of 1919. Then Yi moved to Shanghai and became involved with the Shanghai Provisional Government, the Korean nationalist government in exile.

He was also a major force in nationalist journalism, and penned quite sharp anti-Japanese articles. For a while, it appeared as if he was destined to become a prominent nationalist leader.

But this did not happen: in the early 1920s, Yi suddenly withdrew from pro-independence politics and returned to Korea. (He was briefly detained but soon released.)

Since then, his major activities were writing and journalism. He was influential, successful and well-paid, being one of very few Korean writers who could make a living through professional activity.

When in 1923 Yi was employed by the Donga Ilbo daily as a columnist, he was paid a monthly salary of 300 won. It was 15 times the average for Seoul, so nowadays it would be the equivalent of 30 million won a month.

In the 1930s, Yi's politics became less radical, but he was still imprisoned for his nationalist activity as late as 1937. However, soon afterwards, he changed his mind and became one of the most enthusiastic supporters of the Japanese rule.

In 1940, he was one of the first to replace his Korean name with a Japanese one. In 1940-1945, Yi demonstrated unusual zeal in producing pro-Japanese propaganda. He extolled Korean youth to volunteer for the Imperial Army, and eulogized the greatness of the Japanese emperor.

He wrote odes to the kamikaze pilots (some of them were Koreans, incidentally). Admittedly, in those days a majority of prominent Korean intellectuals had to do something similar -- but very few did it with such gusto.

Yi was certainly no opportunist, and he had a lifelong history of close connections with the anti-colonial resistance -- and his willingness to challenge the authorities.

Was he broken by his arrest in 1937? Did he really believe the official propaganda? Did he hope that through sincere cooperation Korea would secure a better place in the would-be Japanese East Asian empire? We'll probably never know for sure.

At any rate, after liberation Yi found himself despised and ostracized. In 1946, he even had to divorce his wife in order to save the family's property from possible confiscation. Indeed, in 1949, he was arrested as a collaborator, but was pardoned and released soon after.

In late July 1950, the North Koreans took over Seoul. Their rule did not last for long, but when they were withdrawing in September 1950, they rounded up a number of people of political and cultural significance, and sent them to the North. Yi was unlucky enough to be chosen.

The march to the Chinese border under the watchful eyes of guards proved to be too demanding for the aging writer. He was last seen in a Pyongyang prison in October 1950. Soon afterwards, he died somewhere in the hills of his native North Korea.