Political Economy of the Penetration, Resistance, and the Popular Beliefs: A Case of Hopeful Farmers in North Jeolla Province under Japan’s Occupation

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· 발행기관 : 한국정치학회
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· 저자명 : 남창희

초록

The record of widespread mantra-meditation in North Jeolla Province in the 1920sshows the significance of the idea of cosmic change among former Tonghak (EasternLearning) followers in the early part of twentieth-century Korea. The teachingspropagated by the Guri Village meditation school were especially attractive to thoseKorean farmers in North Jeolla Province who suffered most from Japan’s exorbitantrice-extraction program. Their home province was transformed into a key rice supplybase for sustaining Japan’s export-oriented economy since 1920. Importation of morerice from the overseas territories was expected to supplement Japan’s struggling primarysector and thus to lower prices of foodstuffs for solving the subsistence crisis of theirunderpaid urban workers. The consequence of the rice extraction program wasincreasing tenancy and impoverishment in the largest rice farming lands, namely, JeollaProvince of Korea. Despite this aggravating standard of living their master advised hisfollowers not to wage a violent anti-Japanese struggle, but rather wait until the UnitedStates was involved in the war against the Japanese Empire. Instead, he told hisfollowers to meditate upon the Taeeulju mantra to gain enlightenment in order to bementally prepared for a new mutually life-saving universe in the time of the upcomingcosmic change. The notion of cosmic change fortified the conviction among thepeasants that Japan’s occupation and expansionism was doomed and Korea wouldeventually be liberated. Their unique vision for eternal peace and beliefs in eventualvictory can be an explanation as to why the once most revolutionary people of thesame region appeared less resistant to Japan, but nevertheless faced relentless repressionsince the mid-1930s.

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