A Study On The Translation And Dissemination Of Das Kapital In South Korea

The translation and dissemination of Das Kapital in South Korea are the most significant aspects in the history of translation of Marxism in South Korea.One cannot fully understand the translation and dissemination of Das Kapital in South Korea without the overall assurance of development of Marxism in South Korea.This thesis for the first time argues that the history and current situation of the development of Marxism in South Korea manifests itself in three stages: the �introduction� of Marxism during Japanese colonization;�the first renaissance and its silence� of Marxism after 1940s;�the second renaissance� of Marxism in South Korea after1980 s.The three periods above respectively serve as the historical background of three main sections of this thesis,which in turn discusses the translation,dissemination and development of Das Kapital in South Korea.So far,there are seven Korean editions of Das Kapital,including the ones already published and the ones still in the process of translating: the Seoul edition,the Theory and Practice edition,the Bai-Yi edition,the Bi-Bong edition,the Kir edition,the Kong-Sa-Yen edition and the Raum edition.Chapter 1 outlines the introduction and translation of Marx's works in 1920 s.It is when the communism movement and socialist trend were introduced in Korea in 1910 s,and the 1919 Independence Movement of Korea broke out in 1919,that Marxism gradually became dominant among other social trends.Further,it investigates the first two translated economic works of Marx during Japanese colonization,of which the translated Preface to A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy is the starting point of the translation of Marx's works.In addition,when it was prohibited to translate Das Kapital during colonization,the translated Wage Labor and Capital was the bestsubstitution for it.Chapter 2 provides the original documents about Das Kapital in1940 s,which were seven pieces of newspaper articles found in National Library of Korea.It is important for the research on the liberation period to get hands on first-hand resources when the Korean scholars even know little about the situation of the Seoul edition of Das Kapital in 1940 s.There is also an elucidation on the original Korean edition of Das Kapital published during the liberation,which is at present housed in the library of Seoul National University.Moreover,this chapter restores the history of the first officially published Korean edition of Das Kapital(known as the Seoul edition)and amends the questionable opinions of Korean scholars on its publishing and translation.This chapter ends with an necessary analysis of the status of Das Kapitalin South Korea from 1950 s to 1970 s while pointing out the trends of criticizing Marxism and anti-socialist phenomena in this period.Chapter 3 compares two popular editions of Das Kapital,separately translated by Gang shin-joon and Kim soo-haeng,and introduces their studies.The comparison begins with calculating phrases,sentences and concepts used in Prefaces and Afterwords and Ch.1Commodities of these two Korean edition.Kim soo-haeng's theory of crisis mainly explains the emergence of crisis by looking for patterns of the decreasing profit ratio and looking at its internal contradictions.On this basis,Kim proposed his theory of� the worldwide crisis� in the light of the globalization of capital and Mars' s theory of world market and crisis.Moreover,Kim soo-haeng was the only one to localize the monetary unit while translating.Gang shin-joon provided the general structure for restating Das Kapital in the light of Marx's three-fold elements to achieve revolution.Besides,Gang shin-joon argued that the dictatorship of the proletariat,the different understanding of which issued in the debate of early and later Marx,mainly consists in its means rather than the idealistic end.This thesis for the first time divides the history of South Korean Marxism into three periods: the �orthodox period� under the influence of Soviet textbook;the�wandering period� after the collapse of Soviet Union and the �opening period� in the light of Common Declaration of the North and South of the Korean Peninsula.Chapter4 articulates the second renaissance of Marxism in South Korean and the newsituation of the translation of Das Kapital.The three discussions over Marxism by left-wing scholars during the �orthodox period� are the first attempts made byleft-wing intellectuals in South Korea on their way to inquire Marxism independently.In 1990 s,after the post-Marxist turn during the �wandering period�,the practice of Marxism in South Korea did move backward,although the turn was fundamentally to make new theoretical inquiries and it came out positively.Further,since the 21 stcentury,theoreticalinquiriesabout Marxismin South Korea have made impressive progress in translation,team-building,classical theory,discipline-constructing and practical movements.In especial,as a high-end dialogue platform for the study of Marxist theory between China and South Korea,"China-south Korea Marxist research forum" has played a positive role in promoting the theoretical exchanges and academic development of Marxism between China and South Korea.