韩国开化期进化论的接受与文学思想

Evolutionism in the Enlightenment Period of Korea

19世纪末20世纪初,韩国处于开化期,为了民族的生存和国权的恢复,接受了进化论思想。作为维护国权的开化期思想,经历了从实学到新的基督教文化以及以进化论为旗帜的科学思想发展过程。传统的儒家思想和外来的基督教文化以及进化论的自然科学思想,经过相互磨合期,共同形成了新的时代精神的基础。

In the late 19th century, Korea had to construct new national identities that can replace traditional world view of confucianism. Darwinism exerted a huge impact in this new ideological restructuring. The proliferation of Darwinian terms shows that western thoughts, especially social evolutionism, swept through East Asian countries in peril of western imperialism. The Darwinian evolutionism received wider acceptance and was ap- plied not only to nations but also to ethnic groups and individuals. The social evolutionism of Korea in the early 20th century also had two faces. The positive side of it was that social evolutionism bolstered anti-imperialism through public education. The negative side was that it justified imperialistic invasion and colonialism. The primary purpose of this paper is to investigate how evolutionism, especially social evolutionism, had influenced the enlightenment philosophy of Korea and how modern literature can be understood in this context.