일제강점기 제주 지역에서의 증산계 신종교의 역사적 전개와 그 기억 = The Historical Development and Collective Memory of Jeungsan-Affiliated New Religions in Colonial-Era Jeju

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

This study examines the development of Jeungsangye new religions in the Jeju region during the Japanese colonial period and how their memory has undergone transformations over time. Religious orders of the Jeungsangye lineage, including Bocheongyo, were introduced to Jeju in the 1910s and rapidly expanded their religious influence. However, the Beopjeongsa Incident of 1918 and subsequent disturbances were defined by the colonial authorities as a “disturbance by a heretical cult.” The Government-General of Korea and the police suppressed these groups by labeling them as pseudo-religions under the Rules on Propagation (布敎規則) and through public security administration. Local communities also formed negative memories of these religions due to experiences of excessive donations and the squandering of personal assets. These perceptions were reflected in official records of the colonial period and continued to be reproduced in regional narratives such as provincial and county histories even after Korea’s liberation.
However, since the 1990s, academic and local re-evaluations of the anti-Japanese nature of the Beopjeongsa movement, along with the reassessment of the Jeju Mugeukdaedo incident, have contributed to a shift in the collective memory of Jeungsangye new religions. In particular, the Beopjeongsa movement has come to be understood as an anti-Japanese struggle involving Buddhism, Bocheongyo, and local residents, while the religious activities of Jeju Mugeukdaedo have been discussed in terms of their anti-colonial aspects. As a result, Jeungsangye new religions have come to be recognized as part of the broader religious resistance movements against Japanese rule. In recent years, efforts to confer posthumous honors on independence activists affiliated with these religions can be seen as part of a process of re-memorializing the history of Jeungsangye religious orders at both national and local levels.
The Jeju case demonstrates that religious memory is not fixed, but rather is continuously reconstructed within the context of cultural, social, and political discourses. From the perspective of cultural memory theory, the memory of Jeungsangye new religions in Jeju has fluctuated between conflicting layers of stigmatization as heresy and commemoration as anti-Japanese resistance. Ultimately, this illustrates that religion becomes historicized not only as a matter of faith, but also as a site where memory and forgetting, culture and identity intersect. Therefore, the study of Jeungsangye new religions in the Jeju region can be regarded as a significant case for understanding the relationship between religion and cultural memory in Korea’s modern and contemporary history.