일제강점기 불경(不敬) 사건과 행위자들 (Incidents of Disrespect(不敬), and People involved in those cases, during the Japanese Occupation period)

서지정보

· 발행기관 : 한국역사연구회
· 수록지 정보 : 역사와 현실 / 130호 / 189 ~ 231페이지
· 저자명 : 정병욱

초록

일본과 그 식민지에서 ‘불경죄’는 천황제 질서를 침범하는 또는 침범했다고 여겨지는 여러 ‘적’을 탄압하는 데 사용되었다. 역사적으로 문화적으로 천황제를 수용하기 어려운 다른 민족인 ‘조선인’은 그 자체로 천황제의 적이 될 가능성이 높았다. 1937년 중일전쟁 이후 식민지 조선의 불경죄 피고인이 급증했으며, 절대 수에서도 일본의 불경죄 피고인 수보다 많아졌다. 특히 생산과 유통의 노동자층이 많이 적발되었다. 일본과 달리 조선인의 불경 사건에는 비속어가 자주 쓰였고, 아래에서 위를 또는 민(民)이 관(官)을 고발하는 불경 사건이 거의 발생하지 않았다. 이로 볼 때 조선인은 천황(제)과 식민 지배에 대해 반감과 불만이 컸고, 사회적으로 천황제를 내면화하지 않았다고 할 수 있다.
조선인이 내면으로 천황을 받아들이지 않았다고 해도, 천황은 현실의 최고 권력자로 여러 쓸모가 있었다. 조선 민중은 소박하게 천황과 사적 관계를 자랑하며 자신을 과시했고, 때론 자신의 사업은 천황가도 참여하니 믿을 만하다고 했다. 또 천황을 민속적으로 전유하기도 했다. 일본 민중에게 ‘천황’은 주로 자신의 욕구와 소원을 들어주는 긍정적 존재였다. 반면에 조선 민중에게 천황은 귀신을 물리치는 공포의 대상이고 그 시조신은 병을 불러오는 귀신으로 부정적 측면이 강했다. 검찰과 경찰이 불경 행위를 예의 주시하자 이를 이용하여 개인적 원한을 해결하려는 허위 투서, 즉 무고(誣告) 사건도 일어났다.

영어초록

In Japan and its colonies, the crime of ‘disrespect’ was used to suppress and oppress various kinds of ‘enemies’(state or public) for disrupting –or supposedly disrupting- the Denno(天皇) order of Japan. The Joseon race, which was not Japanese in nature at all, had the potential of finding such order extremely hard to accept in either historical or cultural terms, therefore could be easily named as the enemy of the Denno.
After the China-Japan war of 1937, there was a dramatic increase in colonized Joseon, in terms of the number of people accused of ‘disrespect,’ showing the number of people charged with that crime even being higher than the number of people charged with the same crime in Japan. Many of those who were accused of such crime in Joseon were laborers working in the line of commercial production and circulation. Unlike cases in Japan, cases occurring in Joseon frequently showed slang and vulgar words being used, while underlings accusing their superiors of ‘disrespect’ or civilians accusing the authorities of ‘disrespect’ were very hard to found. Cases in Joseon show us that the Joseon people were very much frustrated with and antagonistic toward Japan and the Japanese Denno’s colonial rule of Joseon, and that they never internalized the Denno system in their hearts and social lives.
However, while the Joseon people never fully embraced the Denno system, the Denno figure itself was indeed the most powerful being in reality for the Koreans at the time, hence the concept itself had some utilities in at least some Joseon individuals’ lives. Some of the Joseon people simply boasted their private connections to the Denno to showboat themselves, while some people tried to lure investors to support their business claiming even the Denno household was behind their ventures. And some Koreans even used the Denno in folklore practices. To the Japanese population the Denno was a positive entity who would listen to people’s desires and wishes, while to the Joseon population the Denno was more known as a fearful figure who could repel ghosts, whereas the ancestral god of the Denno was a negative God who could rain diseases.
Meanwhile, as the prosecutor office and police in Joseon began to closely monitor disrespectful cases, some people intended to use accusations of such charges as a mean for personal revenge. They would launch false accusations in the form of anonymous tips filed to the authorities.

참고자료

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