This study explores the North Korean initiative to translate Korean writing into foreign languages from the mid-1940s to the early 1970s. Between 1945 and the mid-1960s, the North Korean government focused on the translation of Soviet texts, such as Lenin’s Collected Works, into Korean. The North Korean elite attempted to learn about Soviet culture and Marxism-Leninism by translating books and magazines from Russian into Korean. They accepted, rejected, or transformed elements of Soviet culture and Marxism-Leninism and applied them to their own context. At the same time, the North Korean leadership launched a Korean-to-foreign language translation project to introduce North Korean texts such as Kim Il Sung’s writings to Third World countries. When Kim Il Sung promulgated the Juche idea while visiting Indonesia in 1965, the focus of the North Korean leadership moved from Russian-to-Korean translation to Korean-to-foreign language translation. Previous studies have seen translation in North Korea as a way of importing written texts from the outside world, particularly the Soviet Union. However, this study sheds light on translation as a practice of exporting culture, ideas, and knowledge to the world, notably to the Third World.
목차
Abstract Sovietization and Transculturation Publishers and Translators Dual Membership of the International Community Translation and Application: Exporting the Revolution Lost Friendship, Faded Readership, and the Unintended Consequence of the Translation Initiative References
키워드
translationKorean-to-foreign language translationNorth KoreaThird WorldSoviet UnionJuche ideaMarxism-Leninism
저자
KIM Sunghee [ A research professor at Soongsil University, Korea. ]
한국연구원은 1970년 5월 한국 민속의 각 분야에 걸친 자료의 수집과 학술적 연구를 목적으로 '한국민속연구소'로 출발하였다. 그 후 1973년 5월 연구 분야를 확대하며 민속뿐만 아니라 한국학 전반에 걸친 연구를 위해 '한국학연구소'로 개편하였고, 다시 1989년 3월 한국의 국제적 위상의 부상과 함께 한국학 연구의 중요성이 높아짐에 따라 '한국학연구원'으로 확대, 개편하였다. 한국학연구원은 한국학 전반에 걸친 연구를 통해 지역과 민족문화 발전에 기여하며 한국학의 세계화를 위해서 학술활동을 강화하고 나아가 내·외국인에 대한 한국문화 교육을 담당하고자 한다.