Authors Under the Service of the Army in the Korean War

한국전쟁기 육군종군작가단의 작품 활동

The literary products of Authors Under the Service of the Army during the Korean War have been neglected on the whole because of the perception that they were little more than war propaganda. The majority of the works (poetry, serial novels, and short stories) Published by these authors in various Army publications such as Junsunmunhak (Literature of the War Front) and Comet, as well as in regular literary periodicals, supports this perception. Most of these works convey simplistic emotions and stereotypes that project untroubled patriotism and strongly antipathetic sentiments against to the Communist North. The appointed leader of this group, Dock-Kyun Choi regarded the pen as another form of weapon to be used against the Communists in the North, and did not shy away from describing in graphic details the atrocities committed by his enemies. But what truly deserves our attention is the fact that many of the same authors who wrote highly propagandistic works also wrote works that can only be described as antiwar. In these works are depicted as faithfully as possible the human sufferings of the war. These works resist and even question the very ideologies that have brought about the conflict, focusing instead on the dark side of the war -the horrifying deaths, the separation of families, and the displacement of people from their homes, How we are to interpret this ambivalence in many of these authors is a task that remains to be carried out. We must approach these works with more seriousness and begin by comparing them with similar products from authors under the service of the Navy and the Air Force during the Korean War.