Online rally to pray for peace in Ukraine
On March 16th, a Zoom online rally was held to listen to Kim Ji-euns story and think about the Ukrainian war under the theme of Peace Literature and the Undying Voice.
▲ War did not have a womans face Svetlana Alexievich, Park Eun-jung, <War did not have a womans face>, Munhak Dongnae, first published in 1983. ⓒ Munhakdongne
Svetlana Alexiyevich, winner of the 2015 Nobel Prize for Literature, is the daughter of a Ukrainian mother and her father, who served in the Belarusian military. <War didnt have a womans face> She previously wrote a book in which she <Voices of Chernobyl>. In more than four years, she has met more than 200 female soldiers, she says, and she wrote this book to boldly reveal her voice.
Ji-eun Kim needs to look at Alexi Jericho, she said, because she is creating a small rift and revealing the voices of the minority that mainstream discourse is excluding.
Ji-eun Kim noted that war is a traumatic event experienced by all human beings, and that war is transformed into something only for men due to masculinity. She includes women in the war discourse by calling women to the battlefield in times of war and image of mothers who can embrace everything, but when the war is over, they return women to their homes, making the military and war a super-masculine space. It is suggested that it be reconstructed as
Born to a Ukrainian mother and a Belarusian father, a Belarusian university graduate, and Belarusian journalist Alexievich, when she was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature, then Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said that her work was a victory made with blood. They caricature and pollute people. They devalued the war that was a history of victory and failed to show the noble sacrifices of their ancestors, and called it anti-national.
The President of Belarus, Lukashenka. President since 1994. ⓒ wiki commons
▲ peace for ukraine Online rally poster to pray for peace in Ukraine ⓒ Suyeon Kim
Kim Ji-eun said the work was problematic because it is a context and text that really shows how women are included and excluded between before and after the war, she said.
Then, the state requested women to participate when it was necessary in the war, but there were not enough sanitary pads, so they had to shed menstrual blood while marching. Circumstances that have resulted in unwanted pregnancies. She said that after the war, she had to return to her country, but she kept the voices of women who had no choice but to commit suicide because she feared that she would insult her family.
In addition, the interview shows the contexts that mothers were victims of war because they did not acknowledge, did not want to remember, they did not want to be remembered as colleagues who shed blood together after the war was over, and they wanted to forget all the things that harm masculinity. said there is
She cites as an example the passage that there were many beautiful girls among the girls and soldiers on the front line, but they didnt look like women to us.
When the war was over, they [female soldiers] had no protection whatsoever. Because even a smart woman like my wife didnt like female soldiers. People say they went to war to find a husband. I believed that I came here after only having a romantic relationship there. Im talking about this openly, but in reality, most of the girl soldiers were virtuous virgins. pure virgins. But when the war was over… the dirty filth, the seething teeth, and the corpses… As soon as I couldnt look at it any longer, I started to miss something beautiful. Something bright and bright… Beautiful women…
Considering this passage itself, Kim Ji-eun may not be a problem in that she is emphasizing the aspect of being a colleague rather than an object to protect because she is a woman, but the beauty that men are talking about is the beauty that men are talking about when they carry guns and throw shells together on the battlefield. He pointed out that I mean only women who can purify me, such as the Virgin Mary, who has not been raped or harmed by the enemy, who has escaped from all warfare sentences, not female soldiers.
Deep in the hearts of women is hidden an intolerable disgust and fear of death. But the more unbearable and unwanted thing women can do is to kill people. Because women are life-giving beings. She is the gift of life. A woman holds life within herself for a long time and gives birth to life and nurtures it. I have learned that killing a life is much harsher for a woman than dying.
In addition, in the last passage of this work, it is pointed out that the existence of a female soldier is a person itself, and it is not in the country, nation, cold war, or ideological system, and how to save people is more important.
In terms of delivering a voice of hope through the horrors of war, this work can be said to be very important at this point in time when the war in Ukraine is taking place.
“War did not have a womans face” in that it captures a mothers desire to have a child even in a war situation, and a female soldier who sacrifices herself or overcomes all ideological systems and goes to help. explained that it is more important because it speaks not only of revelations and accusations, but also of hope for life or of ethics that can be transferred to another world.
In the online meeting, these questions were answered.
– I would like to know more about war novels or wars.
There is a book called “Comfort Women” by Nora Okja Keller. I also recommend a book called <Fox Girl> by the same author. It is about women who had to be prostituted in US military bases. There were many stories about how Cha Hak-kyungs <Dicte> had a feminine voice, but no one really paid attention to how Cha Hak-kyung died. I found out through
I also recommend “How Militarism Became Fashion” and “Penetrated Body”.
A lot is happening these days. Considering the will and voices of those who take the time to participate in the evening under such circumstances, I think it is a meaningful activity.
It was a very trivial thing that got me interested in Alexievich. At that time, there was such a thing as pure curiosity, wondering if people were so enthusiastic about the program <Real Men>. The programs called <fake man> and the social meritocracy that demand strong men are all intertwined.
Although war is not happening in our territory right now, I think that it is far away, but I think that we should always think about the discourse of war.
At 8 pm on the 21st, an online rally will be held with Jiwon Lee, a picture book researcher, curator, and Polish translator on the topic of <How Polish writers are helping Ukraine>.
We and I will pray for peace in Ukraine every night at 8:00 pm until the 31st.
We are holding an online meeting.
