Remembering and Forgetting the Korean War in the Republic of Korea

The Korean War had no official ending and has continued in a form of Cold War since 1953, the year the cease-fire agreement was signed, and yet, during the  past five decades, it appears to have faded from South Korean memory. Anti-communism became a national ideology in post-war South Korea. For a...

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Main Author: Hyeon Ju Lee
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Suomen Antropologinen Seura (Finnish Anthropological Society) 2023-03-01
Series:Suomen Antropologi
Online Access:https://journal.fi/suomenantropologi/article/view/127468
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author Hyeon Ju Lee
author_facet Hyeon Ju Lee
author_sort Hyeon Ju Lee
collection DOAJ
description The Korean War had no official ending and has continued in a form of Cold War since 1953, the year the cease-fire agreement was signed, and yet, during the  past five decades, it appears to have faded from South Korean memory. Anti-communism became a national ideology in post-war South Korea. For a country that was endeavoring to establish a national identity that differs from communist North Korea, the establishment of an anti-communist state was inevitable. However, the collapse of the Communist Bloc and a humanitarian crisis in North Korea in the 1990s led to attitudinal changes in the South Korean public toward North Korea. The forgetting and remembering of North Korea in conjunction with the memory of the Korean War has left the South Korean people ambivalent toward North Koreans. This paper explores social encounters between North and South Koreans in the late 2000s in Seoul that illustrate the uneasy interactions that stem from past anti-communist education as well as the subsequent erasure of social memory about North Korea as part of Korean culture.   Keywords: history, memory, migration, North Korean refugees
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spelling doaj.art-a29807e162f845b588167027a2fbc16b2023-03-03T16:12:36ZengSuomen Antropologinen Seura (Finnish Anthropological Society)Suomen Antropologi1799-89722023-03-01352Remembering and Forgetting the Korean War in the Republic of KoreaHyeon Ju Lee0University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa The Korean War had no official ending and has continued in a form of Cold War since 1953, the year the cease-fire agreement was signed, and yet, during the  past five decades, it appears to have faded from South Korean memory. Anti-communism became a national ideology in post-war South Korea. For a country that was endeavoring to establish a national identity that differs from communist North Korea, the establishment of an anti-communist state was inevitable. However, the collapse of the Communist Bloc and a humanitarian crisis in North Korea in the 1990s led to attitudinal changes in the South Korean public toward North Korea. The forgetting and remembering of North Korea in conjunction with the memory of the Korean War has left the South Korean people ambivalent toward North Koreans. This paper explores social encounters between North and South Koreans in the late 2000s in Seoul that illustrate the uneasy interactions that stem from past anti-communist education as well as the subsequent erasure of social memory about North Korea as part of Korean culture.   Keywords: history, memory, migration, North Korean refugees https://journal.fi/suomenantropologi/article/view/127468
spellingShingle Hyeon Ju Lee
Remembering and Forgetting the Korean War in the Republic of Korea
Suomen Antropologi
title Remembering and Forgetting the Korean War in the Republic of Korea
title_full Remembering and Forgetting the Korean War in the Republic of Korea
title_fullStr Remembering and Forgetting the Korean War in the Republic of Korea
title_full_unstemmed Remembering and Forgetting the Korean War in the Republic of Korea
title_short Remembering and Forgetting the Korean War in the Republic of Korea
title_sort remembering and forgetting the korean war in the republic of korea
url https://journal.fi/suomenantropologi/article/view/127468
work_keys_str_mv AT hyeonjulee rememberingandforgettingthekoreanwarintherepublicofkorea