Session 106: The Japanese Censorship System and Korean Responses in Colonial Korea

Organizer: Kee-Hyung Han, Sungkyunkwan University

Chair: Michael E. Robinson, Indiana University

Discussant: Kyeong-Hee Choi, University of Chicago

Keywords: Korean vernacular publications, Korean national consciousness, censorship system, censorship standards.

The beginning of modern Korean vernacular language was conditioned by the growth of Korean national consciousness and Japanese colonial rule, which guarded against it. The Japanese colonial regime in Korea allowed Korean vernacular publications in the aftermath of massive Korean demonstrations denying the colonial rule in 1919, but it had a definite intention to control Korean publications lest they should turn into the vehicle for mobilizing the Korean masses behind nationalist or socialist ideologies opposed to the colonial regime. Consequently, the development of modern Korean vernacular writing was marked by discrepancies between what was thought, what was written, and what was published, mainly due to the colonial censorship system regulating writing and publishing activities of Koreans. Hence, it is crucial to understand the development of modern Korean writing in the context of the operation of the colonial censorship system.

Assuming colonial censorship as the most crucial restraint on modern Korean writing, this joint research explores how modern as well as colonial aspects of the censorship system affected the development of Korean writing. Keun-Sik Jung highlights the role of the Korean censor staff in the Government-General, whose role was not solely to screen unacceptable passages or articles, but to guide Korean publishers and writers toward modern ways of writing. Heon-Ho Park’s paper shows how the Japanese censorship authorities justified the imposition of censorship and what responses it elicited among Koreans. He empathizes the positive role of this debate in forming Korean attitudes toward colonial censorship. Kee-Hyung Han clarifies the nature of the conflicts between the censorship authorities and Korean writers by examining persecution incidents against them in the early 1920’s. Man-Soo Han suggests methods to recover erased words and censored passages so as to establish authentic texts and learn about censorship standards.

Censorship Institution and Censors in Colonial Korea

Keun-Sik Jung, Seoul National University

The establishment for enforcing publications inspection in colonial Korea consisted of the Newspaper and Publication Laws, the censorship agency within the Government-General, and censor officials, both Japanese and Koreans. This paper focuses on the role of the censorship agency and its staff, especially Korean censor officials, and explores the change of their career background with the expanded role of the censorship agency.

The colonial police had been responsible for publication control in Korea since the protectorate, and the Publication Department (Toshoka) under it had been in charge of actual censorship inspection. All Korean publications of newspapers, magazines, books cinemas, musical records, and pictures were subject to pre-publication inspection by the Toshoka. Thus, the Toshoka was a political arena where cultural activities of Koreans were met with the colonial power to control them.

The whole number of staff in the Toshoka increased over time; 15 in 1927, 22 in 1929, 31 in 1937, and 38 in 1940, including 5–6 Koreans. With regard to Korean censor officials, the shift in their career background can be noticed in the 1930’s. Korean censors who had been previously police officers or bureaucrats tended to be promoted to local magistrates and then to the Toshoka, but they were progressively replaced by professional literary men recruited from outside the government in the 1930’s. This new group of Korean censors in the department interests us, because their role was not just to control the content of Korean publications, but also to guide Korean publishers and writers toward modern Korean vernacular writing.

Japanese Justification of Its Censorship System and Korean Reactions in the Era of Cultural Rule

Heon-Ho Park, Sungkyunkwan University

It is assumed in this paper that the shift of the Japanese colonial policy to the cultural rule (bunka seiji) in the aftermath of the March First Movement meant a sophistication of the colonial ruling structure. One conspicuous evidence of such sophistication can be found in the Japanese effort to justify the institution of the censorship system to control all Korean vernacular publications, which had been hitherto completely banned. By analyzing the logics used to defend the Japanese censorship system, we can grasp two aspects of the system.

One is the ideological sophistication of the Japanese censorship system through developing its logics and practices to justify and maintain the system. Even though the Japanese colonial authorities conceded to allow the Koreans a certain level of freedom in press and publication after the March First Movement in 1919, they effectively used the Korean press and publications for varied purposes; to guage and control the public sentiment of the Koreans, to control intellectual activities, and to let the colonized know the realities of the colonial authority and power. The other is the Korean reaction to the censorship system, reflected in the Japanese logics to defend it. As the other side of coin, the Japanese justification of the censorship system engendered Korean logics to counter it.

Apparently, such Korean reaction can be viewed as a nationalistic resistance against the intellectual oppression by the colonial regime, still this paper, as its second aim, attempts to explore the sphere of creative reaction on the part of Koreans opposed to the system.

The Censorship System and the Colonial Media in the Era of Japanese Cultural Rule

Kee-Hyung Han, Sungkyunkwan University

The so called "cultural rule" in the aftermath of the March First Movement stimulated the growth of modern media in colonial Korea. The Japanese authorities permitted Korean vernacular newspapers and magazines so as to soften Korean discontent with the colonial rule; still they wanted to exert effective control over them in order to achieve the objectives of the colonial establishment. Where the Japanese saw new media in Korea as the object of strict control according to their colonial policy, the Koreans took it as an opportunity to spread nationalist and socialist ideologies among the Korean masses, thereby enlisting support to overthrow the colonial regime. Therefore, modern media in colonial Korea can be viewed as an political and cultural arena where the conflicting interests and aspirations between two nationals collided in direct manner.

This paper seeks to clarify the nature of tensions and conflicts between Korean publishers/writers and the Japanese censorship authorities, and also to illuminate the consequences of such confrontations by examining persecution incidents against Korean publishers and writers involved with three leftist magazines (Kaebyŏk, Sinsaenghwal, and Sinch’ŏnji) in the early 1920’s. By allowing new media, the colonial authorities had to face the very difficult problem of controlling it, because they had weakness in terms of institution and experience. As a matter of fact, a series of persecution incidents at the beginning of the new media period in Korea represent the challenges against and test of the Japanese censorship system. The incidents, however, turned out to be an opportunity to clearly define the limits of the Japanese policy in Korean publications, and as for Koreans, the incidents taught them the reality of the so called "cultural rule." In short, the Koreans involved with the incidents tested the limit of the Japanese censorship system in their efforts to propagate radical nationalist and socialist ideologies, but the Japanese took the incidents as an opportunity to chastise Korean media which challenged the colonial regime.

The Recovery of Erased Words in Korean Literary Works under Japanese Censorship

Man-Soo Han, Dongguk University

When we read later editions of Korean literary works produced during the colonial period, we hardly notice any sign of censorship in the texts, even though it is a well-known fact that all Korean vernacular publications during that period were subject to harsh censorship from the colonial authorities. This editorial failure to articulate censored treatment in given literary texts is largely due to our lack of knowledge about the actual words and passages treated as such.

Among varied censorship actions, this paper is concerned with erasure (pokja in Korean or fuseji in Japanese), the most common form of censorship executed by the Japanese censor officials, and attempts to offer possible methods to recover erased words and passages. Two methods are possible; One is simply to search for differing editions exempted from erasure, and the other is to use a technology to figure out erased letters from their dents in printed pages. The former method is possible, because the Japanese censorship guidelines were not uniform in terms of both principle and practice by periods and also by territories within the Japanese empire. The latter method is confined to those words and passages erased with ink after printing. In fact, the National Institute of Scientific Investigation in Seoul claims that its laboratory work has recovered twenty-four erased letters out of thirty-three in a sample literary text published under the censorship.

More extended efforts for recovering erased words and passages in Korean literary works published during the colonial period may contribute toward illuminating the following points: the establishment of authentic texts; censorship trends by political period; the comparison of Japanese thought control in the metropole and its colonies; and perhaps indirectly, Korean attitudes toward and conflicts with Japanese censorship.