Abstract

This article analyzes changes in the conception of Korea’s minjung history and the development of nationalist historiography, minjung-centered nationalist historiography, and minjung historiography. Although the term minjung traditionally referred to the ruled class in Korea, in the early modernization period the concept shifted to refer to agents of national liberation and resistance. After the 1960s, the minjung was reilluminated as the subject of anti-Japanese nationalism and the democratization movement, and in the 1970s, the concept of minjung spread to various academic fields. This view of the minjung as a collective subject of resistance countered previous nationalist historiography and proposed new minjung-centered historical narratives. The mid-1980s saw the full emergence of minjung historiography. But along with the decline of the minjung movement from the mid-1990s, in tandem with the collapse of the Soviet Union and socialism in Eastern Europe, minjung historiography too began to decline. The previous standpoint that saw the minjung as subjects of revolutionary change began to be criticized. New minjung historiography of recent years does not regard the minjung as a fixed subject but as a fluid existence with diverse voices. Here, the core task is to reconstruct in a pluralistic way the traditional concept of minjung that has been dismantled in the process of rapid social change, and to rewrite their everyday lives and experiences and their history of solidarity and tolerance.