A centennial symposium to commemorate Choonwon’s Mujong at George Mason University with three distinguished scholars from Korea and Japan will be held on October 28, 2017. There is going to be a unique celebration of the centennial commemoration of the publication of Mujŏng in the Washington area.

In the beginning of 1917, the Maeilshinbo, daily newspaper, started to publish, very first time in Korea, a serial novel entitled Mujŏng. The author was Choonwon Lee Kwang-soo, the giant of Korean literary history. Mujong was published totally unprecedented in literary style, usage of the language, serialization, and more. It was 7 years after the Japan annexed Korea, thus the Korean culture was in a precarious state. Nonetheless, the serial story became an instant success, not only among the learned but also the less educated Koreans. It was written with pure Korean script, Hangul, and was read by well educated, that was unheard of. This phenomenon crashed the boundary between the classes of the society. So, the novel was more than a story telling. It changed Korean society by breaking down the boundary between the classes. This was a significant historical fact of political and social integration of Korean people divided by Hangul. The serialization of story over a year also made the paper sold more.
The novel was written in unity of speech and writing, that was very first in Korean writing. Historically, the available script was only in Chinese characters. Although the King Sejong the Great(1397-1450), of the Chosun Dynasty invented the new Korean alphabet, which was completely a new phonetic script, especially for universal usage for all populace, not like the Chinese script that only learned can use. As the new script was easy to learn as it was close to ordinary spoken Korean, but the aristocrats did not like it and berated. It was used by only small population, mostly by women. The social class of the population was very apparent in early 20th century Korea similar to Indian Caste system. The servant class was banned from learning the letters. King Kojong, in 1985, pronounced the edict that public documents will be written in the new Korean script. But, still the most of written language was mixture of Chinese and new Korean alphabet, similar to the Japanese style. Mujŏng was written all in Hangeul and used the words like they were spoken, such as ‘...handa’ rather than old written expression, like ‘...hanora’. This was epochal as that of Chauser’s Canterbury Tales and Dante’s Divine Comedy.

Professor Hatano Setsuko, professor emeritus of Nigata University, is going to present her paper on Mujong and Hangul in this Symposium.

The first book of Mujŏng was published in 1918 and since then, several dozen versions have been published, and translated in English and Japanese. This novel has been studied by many scholars for a long time in Korea and abroad. Thus, in 2017, there were several commemorative seminars on Mujong in Korea and China, Japan, and even in North Korea and so far 14 papers have been presented in various symposiums this year according to the Choonwon Research Center.
Professor Song Hyun-ho of Ajou University and president of the Choonwon Research Society is going to present his paper on new discovery of Mujong at the centennial year. His overview of the Mujong in the past one hundred years will be valuable to the Choonwon studies. Mujŏng, is akin to Lee Kwang-soo’s autobiography by comparing the situations of those heroes and heroine appeared in the novel. The very protagonist Lee Hyungshik was orphan, not just by loss of parent but also loss of the country to Japan. Of course, a writer’s creative work reflects his or her life. However, Mujong was more than his own life experience and aspiration. Song points out Choonwon’s view of Dosan Ahn Chang-ho’s life reflected deeply and broadly in this novel. Ahn Chang-ho was one of the first Korean immigrants to the United States who tried to educate and enlighten the Korean people for his independence movement against Japanese rule. Song emphasized that study of Mujŏng based on the ideals of American democracy should be a new discovery in his centennial celebration of the first modern novel in Korean history. His point of view is a new shocking information to the Korean people in the United States.

In 2015, in the library of Tokyo University of Foreign Studies, Hatano found Choonwon’s handwritten unpublished poems in a couple of monographs. She and Sogang University faculty members edited a book out of these two monographs this year. Lee Kwang-soo should be rediscovered as a pioneering poet as well in the Korean literary history. He had written more than 200 poems before this discovery, mostly in modern style but some were sijo and some children’s song.

Professor Yang Wang-yong, Poet and the Professor Emeritus of Busan University, divided four periods of Yi’s poetical life. In his paper, he is going to discuss Choonwon’s poems and Choi Nam-sun’s poems as the first ever New Style Poems in the 1910s. Choonwon’s poems were nationalistic and patriotic from the beginning to the end throughout his life. Yang will point out the reflections of times Choonwon encountered with enormous difficulties under Japanese colonial rule. His poems were truly reflections of his painful life in the 1930s and 1940s, some hopes and despairs before and after Liberation of Korea in 1945. There will be readings of Choonwon’s poems at the symposium.

The anticipation of the symposium is kindled with excitement.

*Whenever we call his name Lee Kwang-soo or Yi Kwangsu, always his pen name Choonwon is attached. In fact there are many who only remember his pen name. .

Dr. Kang is an essayist and psychiatrist in Baltimore and Dr. Choi is a poet and writer in Virginia.

<By Dr. Chang Wuk Kang and Dr. Yearn Hong Choi>