• Cross-Cultural Studies
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• v.43
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• pp.171-206
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• 2016

Russian anarchist thinker P. A. Kropotkin had a significant impact on the school of thought, the literary field and the anarchist movement in East Asia in the early 20th century. This paper examines the history of the translation of Kropotkin in terms of the routes and paths of translation in colonial Korea in comparison with those in Japan and China. It is a known fact that the acceptance of Kropotkin in colonial Korea is owed to pioneering translation works in Japan, but it appears that there have been various transformations and magnetizations in the process of translating the texts into the Korean language. Despite a disturbing censorship, the works of Kropotkin, such as "I appeal to the youth ("Aux Jeunes Gens" in French)", were imported, translated and distributed by various routes throughout the 1920s and there were various versions of translated Korean texts. At this point, it is noteworthy that there are works which were translated from Chinese texts about Kropotkin, such as the works of Yu Seo (柳絮), and it can be said that there is a relationship between Korean translations and Chinese original texts. Since the 1930s, the phenomenon of the appropriation of Kropotkin as a litterateur and critic rather than an anarchist thinker is particularly apparent, and this allows us to understand that Kropotkin became a major pathway to interpret Russian literature in East Asia. In colonial Korea, translations of Kropotkin were generally via Japan and China, but the process of translation also showed the struggle to accept and adapt 'the foreign text' into the Korean language.