earticle

영어

Yoon Dong-ju is a cultural symbol which evokes the collective memory of Yanbian and mediates the formation of its people’s identity. To remember Yoon Dong-ju in Yanbian means to evoke their collective memory through him while, at the same time, projecting that collective memory onto this specific cultural symbol. Especially since the 1990s, the collective memory of Chosun people began to be materialized through space as memorials of Yoon Dong-ju were constructed or restored and various commemorations for him took place in the process of urbanization of Yanbian. The process of discourse formation around the memories of Yoon Dong-ju mediated by memorials is also a process of intervention by different groups, capital, and power. There appears a process in which the South Korean capital, the Chinese state authority, and Chosun people’s ethnic characteristics and demands are intervening each other collaborating and conflicting in accordance with their strategic necessities. The logic of distinctiveness, which appeared as Yoon Dong-ju’s “nationality” was emphasized in the recent memorialization discourse, also shows the present condition of Chosun people whose identity can neither entirely be included in the category of “nationality” or “ethnicity” nor exist outside the categorical frame. Yanbian is a space of memory where the strained and conflictual relationship among the memories and identities of China, Korea, and Chosun people is presented through the commemoration of Yoon Dong-ju.