According to turbulent changes of Korean society, appreciations and discourses about Jeju April 3rd Incident have been historically expanded in different ways. Discourses usually have been circulated through memorial ceremonies, the discoursal effects...
According to turbulent changes of Korean society, appreciations and discourses about Jeju April 3rd Incident have been historically expanded in different ways. Discourses usually have been circulated through memorial ceremonies, the discoursal effects of memorial ceremonies of April 3rd have been greatly appeared since the memorial ceremonies put experiences or appreciations of groups in the spatiotemporal images so that the experiences and appreciations remain stable and clear. According to this, various subjects have shown discourses and movements through memorial ceremonies.
However, the truth is that specific ceremony's texts are the ones that raise the incident to the fact but unfortunately the process of its formation, formality or its structure has not been focused yet enough. Thus, this study's interests are three. First, what kinds of memorial ceremonies have the discourses on April 3rd produced according to the time? And what type of topography does each memorial ceremony form? Second, how do the texts, which raise the discourses or incident to the face, form the topography and how is it structured? Third, what are the sociological variables that participate in the formation process of memorial ceremonies and in the texts.
The results of those above are shown as followings. Firstly, memorial ceremonies relevant to April 3rd Incident were memorial service, anniversary, exorcism and so on. These ceremonies' formation had clearly preferred ceremonies according to its subject, the government preferred memorial service, democratized groups preferred anniversary and exorcism and surviving family preferred memorial service, anniversary, exorcism and so on. These subjects have chosen one of memorial ceremonies according to Korean society's political and social circumstances to discourse and those circumstances have been circulating memorial ceremonies in the dynamic relations between those subjects.
Secondly, such dynamic relationships have affected forming texts of memorial ceremonies and the targets, space-time and formalities of memorial ceremonies have been differently appeared in dramatic relationships between subjects. They were shown through three stages, in the first stage was when the memorial services, which are only targeting of the military and the police, and victims' surviving families' exorcisms were having complications between them. The second stage was when the new subject, democracy groups appeared and they held anniversaries of non-government people and victims of the military and of police to the public and the conflicts concerning memorial ceremonies came to be noticed by the public. And then, at the end of conflicts, the subjects looked for a new joint ceremony, which is a joint service for the dead, by mutual agreements. In the third stage, the country held national memorial ceremonies targeting of victims, only except for victims of the military and of the police, this stage showed two strategies of the country by accepting formal memorial service and joint service as well. In this stage, bereaved families and democracy groups started to commemorate victims through new memorial ceremonies. In these dynamic relationships, properties of memorial ceremonies have been obviously changed and narrativity, mediality, conscious intent and festivit have been formed in different ways.
Thirdly, social structural variables, that have had effects on the process of formation, formation itself and structure, can be divided into five categories. First one indicates that external environment has affected subjects and there are political, economical, social and cultural variables including the initial incident.
If the initial incident was affected by victims, estate such as massacre site or existence of people who experienced it, we can see the political causes such as change of political system, democratized Korean society and the local autonomy system have been involved. As social causes, social movement such as a movement examining the actual facts of April 3rd Incident was a prime cause as well as the pro-democracy movement. As economical causes, the memorial ceremonies have been affected according to the types of securing the budget, which was to provide materials required for memorial ceremonies, and each type was lead by government, local government and citizens, each type supplied materials and took full responsibility. In the event of cultural causes, they were considerably affected by cultural characteristics of Jeju Society since it is related to 'victim' ceremonies. Thus, forming memorial ceremonies cannot be totally creative. The type which has been influenced by formal ceremonies has appeared as three typesㅡfully imitated, partially accepted and newly formed competing to former ceremonies. Excluding these social structural variables, there were internal causes such as intention of subjects having ceremonies and confrontation that affects formation of memorial ceremonies.
As we can see above, memorial ceremonies relevant to April 3rd Incident have been affected by various sociological causes, different memorial ceremonies have been formed in dynamic relationships of each subjects and the memorial ceremonies' texts have been formed to make discourses and appreciations, on which the April 3rd Incident made by each subject, stable. However, as the memorial ceremony has become an institution since it has been led by the country, the substantial problem and meaning of April 3rd Incident has moved back again. This suggests us to seriously examine this matter that how is the substantial meaning in the history can be commemorated.