A History of Korea (71 page)

Na Hyes
k, in fact, proved a pioneering figure in another way as well—she was a forceful voice in the flourishing public discourse of her times, in which she argued for greater recognition of both of her primary identities, as artist and as a woman. Her life and work constituted a microcosm of Korea’s “roaring twenties,” the maturation period of colonial rule that established significant societal patterns enduring well past this decade. One could argue that the 1920s actually began in the opening months of 1919, when the independence uprisings led to the closure of the somber 1910s and the commencement of what officially was proclaimed “Cultural Rule.” Henceforth appeared a blossoming of cultural expression, associational activity, and articulations of nationhood in the re-invigorated realm of publishing. As the rise and equally dramatic fall of Na Hyes
k’s public profile demonstrated, the transformation of Korea in the long 1920s was centered on social and economic developments that affected nearly everyone, especially Korean females.

THE MARCH FIRST MOVEMENT AND CULTURAL RULE

It is difficult to say whether the loosening of social and political restrictions that marked the 1920s would have eventually emerged regardless of the March First Movement of 1919, but certainly the uprisings spurred the colonial authorities to deploy substantial corrective measures. The first decade of the colonial period, the so-called “military rule” era characterized by stifling limitations on social activity, suppressed the outward expression of people’s discontent, but this served only to intensify the ensuing explosion. The trigger came from a confluence of three major events, one in Korea, another in Japan, and a third in Europe. In the West, 1918 was the year of reckoning of the Great War (First World War), and among the resolutions that the victorious powers advanced was to encourage self-determination among fledgling nations.
The Euro-American leaders had in mind the peoples of Europe and did not envision the independence of overseas colonies, but this was exactly how these utterances from Versailles were taken by liberation movements around the world. Indeed, the Korean students who had flocked to the metropole, especially to Tokyo, in the 1910s found there not only greater educational opportunities but, ironically, also a much freer atmosphere for political thought and agitation. They organized themselves into publishing a manifesto of Korean independence in February 1919, and soon they joined forces with like-minded students in their homeland to recruit social and cultural leaders for a mass demonstration for independence. The timing, however, would be dictated by news in late February of the death of Kojong, the last autonomous monarch of pre-annexation Korea, and by the likelihood that people from throughout the country would gather in the capital for his funeral.

The drafting of the Declaration of Independence by a renowned author, the gathering of eminent religious and social figures to serve as official representatives, and other secret planning for the demonstrations targeted March 1, two days before the funeral, as the date. On that morning, the thirty-three signers of the Declaration gathered in Seoul to read aloud the document in Pagoda Park, and soon throngs of people marched down the streets shouting “Long Live Korean Independence!” This scene was soon repeated throughout the country, and everywhere the scale and ferocity of the demonstrations, with upwards of one million participants nationwide, stunned and befuddled the authorities. This undoubtedly accounted for the senselessly ruthless measures taken to crack down on the demonstrators, with the cycle of suppression and resistance escalating into atrocities that included random shootings, massacres, and burnings of churches and entire villages. Perhaps the best-known victim of these reprisals, and hence also the most renowned female of this era in the nationalist annals, was Yu Kwansun. Yu was a schoolgirl in Seoul when March First broke out, but quickly went down to her home town in Ch’ungch’
ng province to rally the locals for the cause. She was captured, brutalized, and eventually killed in prison, one of countless activists who became martyred. Even the colonial government’s tallies totaled more than 500 deaths
and thousands of injuries over the course of the spring, with unofficial counts claiming exponentially larger numbers. Pacification would eventually come in the summer, but almost everything had changed.

The one thing that did not change was Korea’s colonial status. The March First Independence Movement ultimately failed to achieve its primary goal of gaining Korea’s liberation from Japanese rule. But the significance of March First, judged by its effects both internally and externally, was still enormous. Outside the country, representatives of disparate efforts to achieve independence, militarily and otherwise, were inspired to gather in Shanghai in April that year to organize a government in exile. This effort soon faltered due to ideological and other divisions among the activists, but the independence movements continued throughout the colonial period, if along divergent tracks. Within the peninsula, meanwhile, the March First Movement elicited a sweeping reevaluation of colonial rule on the part of the Japanese government. Japanese leaders were not ready to grant independence, of course, but they realized that harsh enforcement was counterproductive. Hence, the new Governor General instituted a comprehensive program that combined a discreet strengthening of bureaucratic and police forces with an outwardly more benign governing approach that encouraged Koreans to pursue social, economic, and cultural activities more freely. This so-called Cultural Rule, then, constituted a strategy of co-opting Koreans into the colonial system by allowing them a greater stake in its development.

The scale and scope of the changes that followed, particularly beyond the political realm, were extensive. Publication restrictions were lifted, and the two oldest Korean newspapers still circulating today, the
Tonga ilbo
and
Chos
n ilbo
, began publishing in 1920. In the economy, the pursuit of a core benefit of turning Korea into a colony—that is, the exploitation of its natural resources—remained preeminent, but in the 1920s this effort gained improved efficiencies and structural reforms. While these developments consigned more Koreans to life as struggling tenant farmers, they also provided opportunities for other Koreans to gain commercially from the agricultural sector. Furthermore, the
Government General’s easing of restrictions on native enterprise stimulated the emergence of many Korean companies, including those businesses that would later turn into the giant conglomerates dominating the South Korean economy, such as Samsung and LG. The most formidable and conspicuous of such family-owned companies, the Ky
ngs
ng Textile Company, eventually branched out into various industries and even different regions, as it built factories and branches in Manchuria and elsewhere. The colonial government’s accelerated extension of communication and transportation networks, meanwhile, spurred further urbanization and the concentration of wealth, construction, and influence in these growing population centers. The precipitous migration out of the rural areas and the ensuing dissolution of traditional ties, both familial and otherwise, would have far-reaching social ramifications. Most striking of all, perhaps, the loosening of legal restrictions and enforcement methods led to a boom in associational activity among Koreans, who joined hundreds of clubs, organizations, and other groups catering to countless interests and social identities.

These developments, together with the incorporation of thousands of Koreans into the colonial state, also engendered a reordering of the social structure by facilitating a dramatic rise in social mobility. The fundamental transformation and even overturning of Korean social hierarchy had begun in the late nineteenth century, but the colonial circumstances intensified these trends, particularly in urban centers. In these areas, the Korean social structure looked very different from that of a few decades earlier, as the diversification of the economy and occupations, together with legal reforms, further minimized the impact of hereditary status. Descendants of previously despised groups such as butchers and shamans organized campaigns to gain social acceptance, and many from secondary status backgrounds ascended to the highest levels of the new social elite. Most striking of all, perhaps, were the changes affecting women. From
kisaeng
courtesans and peasants in the countryside to the housewives and wage workers in the cities, females began to reshape the social landscape in a way unprecedented in Korean history.