Seeing tens of thousands of demonstrators engulfing the capital’s downtown streets on Saturday, March 1 harkened back to a massive rally on the very same byways exactly 106 years ago. It is extremely disheartening to fathom the difference.
On March 1, 1919, our forebears were firmly united in confronting the brutal Japanese gendarmes under the sole objective of regaining independent sovereignty. Their rally in Seoul sparked a nationwide movement that laid the spiritual and legal cornerstone of our republic.
In contrast, today’s demonstrators are sharply divided, either supporting or opposing the impeachment of President Yoon Suk Yeol in the aftermath of his failed martial law attempt. The unseemly conflict might be yet another acute turning point on our journey with democracy.
The raw emotions in the streets today recall the characters and soul of “Beasts of a Little Land,” Juhea Kim’s bestselling 2021 novel depicting the March 1st Independence Movement as a pivotal event.
A sprawling epic set in 20th-century Korea, the novel weaves a fascinating tapestry of characters: ordinary Koreans striving to survive a tumultuous era while adapting to, or being crushed by, the forces of history. In their relentless struggle, each in their own way, their paths cross to be interwoven through the endeavors to achieve liberation from foreign occupation.
For all its immersive elegance, the novel does not censor violence and brutality. In a highlight, the nonviolent march of Koreans waving their national flag and shouting for an end to Japan’s oppressive rule leads to bloody carnage. As the author has admitted, it is the first novel written in English containing a realistic depiction of the events of the historic watershed.
The march begins with the Declaration of Independence, read by a student: “Today, we declare that Korea is an independent nation and Koreans are a free people… We seek only to build ourselves, not to destroy another. We do not want vengeance. We only seek to right the wrongs of the Japanese imperialists who oppress and plunder us, so we can live in a fair and humane way … A new world is coming. The era of force is past, and the era of righteousness is here … We have nothing to fear.”
As the marchers walk shoulder to shoulder, Japanese troops aim their guns and fire at them. Students are shot in the back and fall forward onto the snow, blood spreading across their bodies. A man runs toward the troops, raising the Korean flag high in his right hand. A young Japanese officer pulls out his sword and in one swift motion, severs the man’s right arm above the elbow. The man screams out in pain, but he remains standing. Then he bends down and picks up the flag with his left hand. The officer swings again without hesitation, and the left arm falls to the ground as well.
“I felt no inclination to shy away from violence, much of which is directly inspired by true accounts,” Kim said in an interview with Historical Novels Review. “Recently there has been, in my view, too much emphasis on trigger warnings. Literature is not safe because history is not safe, nor is reality.”
Kim is a Korean American who was born in Incheon in 1987 and moved to the United States at age nine. She grew up in Portland, Oregon, and has a degree in art and archaeology from Princeton University. “Beasts of a Little Land” was her debut. The novel, indisputably Tolstoyan in epic scope and narrative approach based on a keen observation of detail with moral depth, earned her the 2024 Yasnaya Polyana Literary Award for Foreign Fiction, founded by the Leo Tolstoy Museum-Estate and Samsung Electronics.
The novel opens with a pastoral scene coming alive in Kim’s simple but engaging style: “The sky was white and the earth was black, like at the beginning of time before the first sunrise. Clouds left their realm and descended so low that they seemed to touch the ground. Giant pines loomed in and out of the ether. Nothing stirred or made a sound. Hardly distinguishable in this obscure world, a speck of a man was walking alone.”
The “speck of a man” is a tiger hunter and formerly a soldier in the Imperial Korean Armed Forces, handpicked from the best archers in the country. And from this speck unfolds a magnificent saga spanning five decades intertwined with the lives of many charming characters. The tiger is a haunting motif rending the novel with a mysterious aura.
Kim explains that while jogging in a snowy park in New York one winter day in 2015, she had the vision of a big tiger running toward her. Right upon returning home, she started writing her novel. “Even before writing a single word, I knew I wanted to do something like Bruckner’s Symphony No. 8, which I used to play as a cellist of the Portland Youth Philharmonic.” She finished six years later.
During a recent press interview in Seoul, Kim said she marveled at the swift resilience of ordinary Korean citizens joining strength to restore democracy after Yoon’s martial law decree. “I dare say they acted with the same spirit as our ancestors who bravely took to the streets a century ago,” she said.
Lee Kyong-hee
Lee Kyong-hee is a former editor-in-chief of The Korea Herald. The views expressed here are the writer's own. -- Ed.
