Conférence EPEL: “Sino-North Korean International Friendship”, 9 novembre 2012
Séminaire pluridisciplinaire 2012-2013
Centre de recherches sur la Corée, EHESS
Le séminaire a lieu de 14h à 16h dans la salle des séminaires au RdC ou dans le Grand Salon au 1er étage de la Maison de l’Asie, 22 avenue du Président Wilson
KWON Heonik (Cambridge University, invité EPEL)
“Sino-North Korean International Friendship”
9 novembre 2012
Abstract: China played a major part in the execution of the Korean War and, after the war was over, in rebuilding the war-torn North Korean economy. Very little has been known about the powerful international solidarity forged between the two countries through these collaborations, although very recently several historians began to look into this important history of revolutionary international friendship using mainly sources made available in Chinese archives. The power and virtue of Jojung Ch’insŏn (Korean-Chinese friendship) have also been a subject of intense revival in recent years by the North Korean public media and mass educational campaigns. This paper explores the meanings of Sino-Korean revolutionary friendship using North Korea’s several key postwar dramas and literature about the subject. The discussion will partly focus on the symbolism of blood donation and transfusions in North Korea’s war dramas, which, practiced between heroic Chinese volunteers and virtuous North Korean civilian supporters, allegedly can create, beyond the given boundaries of historical national communities, a relationship of consanguinity between the two communities and peoples.
SOURCE : Centre de recherches sur la Corée, UMR 8173 “Chine, Corée, Japon” CNRS-EHESS