씌어 지지 않는 역사 혹은 닦지 않은 거울-북한의 서양사연구 반세기, 1955년-2005년-

초록

The essay intends to understand the origins, transformations, and peculiarity of western historical studies in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea(DPRK) during the past half-century. Due to limited accessibility to primary sources, the author selects two materials in order to sketch a basic historiographical topography: One is Historical Science, the oldest historical journal published by Research Institute for Historical Studies; the other are World History Textbooks designed for the 8th through 11th graders. Relying upon these sources the author tries to raise and answer the following questions. Exactly when and by whom did western historical studies begin in North Korea? How (far) did Marxist historical materialism and/or Kim Il Sung's Juche(Self-Reliance) Idea influence the roles and functions that western history has to play vis-à-vis Korean history in national identity building? Are North Korean historians' interpretation and judgement on western history always incompatible with those of South Korea(Republic of Korea)'s historians? The author has discovered a number of interesting and idiosyncratic characteristics regarding the North Korean historians' perspectives on western history. First, North Korea, in comparison with South Korea, has produced very poor-in terms of both quantity and quality-works in the field of western history. Second, most works have exclusively focused on the topic of cruel exploitations of western imperialism against the Third World and presented, in particular, harsh criticism against the U. S. A's capitalistic imperialism. Third, North Korean historians had been strongly influenced by U. S. S. R until the arrival of Juche Idea and the collapse of the really existing socialist countries. Fourth, North Korean historians have put an emphasis on overcoming Eurocentricism in writing Western history, and thus managed to establishing a sort of 'North Korean version of western history.' The author concludes the article by proposing that each North and South Korean historian in the field of Western history should pay due respect to the other's strange world of interpretation-instead of engaging each other in hostile ideological conflicts and containing the other within his own boundary of value system. After all, each of other within his own boundary of value system. After all, each of them needs to reflect his shabby and shaky face on the mirror of the other's in order to reconsider and rectify-if necessary-his prejudice. The author wishes that it be historians not politicians who should first sing a new song of modernization and globalization according to the tune of 'Perestroika' and 'Glasnost'.

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