[KS] On term "haebang"

[Kwang On Yoo]

Hello,

Modern usage of a common noun Haebang includes,

1. Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation: 노예해방
2. PLO(Palestine Liberation Organization):파래스타인 해방
3. Women's Liberation: 여성 해방

Regards,

Kwang-On Yoo



On Mon, Feb 8, 2010 at 10:48 AM, Kelly Jeong <kelly.jeong at ucr.edu> wrote:

> Hello,
>
> I found a brief discussion of several words that seemingly mean the
> same thing as "haebang," and discussed them in a footnote for my as
> yet unpublished article about the legacy of the 'collaborationist'
> writers.  Don't know how helpful it'll be but pls see below.
>
> Footnote #26
> One can see the contentious nature of the decolonization even in the
> politics of naming the historical moment.  The literary critic Kim
> Sûng-hwan, for example, highlights the nomenclature of the recovery of
> the nation, i.e., the different ways of naming what happened in Korea
> at the moment of Japan’s defeat on August 15, 1945. Firstly, there is
> the word haebang, or “liberation.”  According to the author, the word
> indicates the nation’s passive position that received decolonization
> through the bigger world powers’ intervention.  Next is the word
> tong’nip or “independence,” which he also designates as inaccurate,
> for Korea did not achieve independence purely through its own means
> and through internal struggle.  Then there is kwangbok, or “recovery
> of light.”  He argues that of all the possible names for Korea’s
> decolonization this is the most problematic and objectionable, as it
> harkens back to the politics of feudal Korea and the loyalist
> sentiment with which it is associated.  It was first used in the
> context of anti-colonial militia belonging to the Provisional
> Government of Korea in Shanghai.  It reflects, according to the
> author, a view of history that belongs to the aristocratic ruling
> class of Chosôn dynasty, or yangban.  His explication commands one’s
> attention, as the phenomenon is a good indicator of the degree to
> which the decolonization of Korea immediately became politicized,
> revealing how even the politics of the very naming continues to
> highlight the emotionally fraught history surrounding such national
> recovery and its agent.  While this explication is helpful, the author
> curiously continues to use the generally accepted term haebang
> (liberation) without much justification for doing so.
> Kim Sûng-hwan, Study of the Space of Decolonization’s Realist
> Literature (Haebang kong’gan’ûi hyônsil chu’ûi munhak yôn’gu, Seoul:
> Iljisa, 1991), 28-30.
>
>
>
> best,
>
> kelly
>
> On Mon, Feb 8, 2010 at 2:24 AM, Matti Tervo <matti.tervo at jyu.fi> wrote:
> >
> > Dear all,
> >
> > Have any of you run into the term "haebang" (Revised romanization) in
> > respective fields. I am studying political rhetoric of the 1980s and Chun
> > Doo-hwan seems to have grown an affection to this term.
> >
> > Obviously it is linked to the term and concept "jiefang" in Chinese and
> > some of the events that deserve the name "liberation" in China during
> > 1940s and 1950s.
> >
> > I am interested where this term might have occurred the first time in
> East
> > Asia and especially in Korea and with what kind of connototations.
> >
> > Thank you,
> >
> > Matti Tervo
> > Jyväskylä University graduate student
> >
> >
> >
>
>
>
> --
> Kelly Y. Jeong
> Assistant Professor,
> Department of Comparative Literature & Foreign Languages
> UC Riverside
> 900 University Avenue HMNSS 2401
> Riverside, CA  92521
>
> Tel  951 827 5007
> Fax 951 827 2160
>
>
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