When History Answers You After 44 Years
“Can the past help the present? Can the dead save the living?”
Last year the Swedish Academy awarded Han Kang the Nobel Prize in Literature “for her intense poetic prose that confronts historical traumas and exposes the fragility of human life.” In her acceptance lecture, Han noted, “While researching my novel, [these] two questions were often foremost in my mind. Back in my mid-twenties, I had written these lines on the first page of every new diary.”
Han’s novels Human Acts (소년이 온다, 2014) and I Do Not Part (작별하지 않는다, 2021) address the May 18 Gwangju Uprising and the April 3 Jeju Massacre, two defining tragedies from South Korea’s pre-democracy past. Han’s family relocated from Gwangju, a southwestern Korean city, to Seoul in early 1980. By May of that year, a military officer named Chun Doo-hwan would take power in a coup d’état and declare martial law: this sparked widespread protests, including the student-led uprising in Gwangju, and Chun’s brutal crackdown that followed. Han Kang would learn about these incidents through banned books and photographs her father collected – materials produced and circulated covertly to evade government censorship.
A Tumultuous Path to Democracy
South Korea’s transition from autocracy to democracy wouldn’t come until 1997 with the election of Kim Dae-jung as the nation’s first legitimate president. His inauguration on February 25, 1998, represented the first peaceful transfer of power from the ruling party to an opposition party in Korean history. But the journey to this democratic milestone was marked by years of violence, oppression, and hardship.
In 1971, a sham election returned Park Chung-hee to power in South Korea. During his 19-year autocratic rule Park would bypass constitutional limits, dissolve the National Assembly, and apply political violence, including a dramatic kidnapping attempt that ended in a political rival’s rescue just before he would be thrown into the sea. Park’s assassination in 1979, however, did not signal the end of autocracy. The political turmoil following his death led to Chun’s coup d’état and eight-year military dictatorship, an era defined by state violence, terror and nationwide civil unrest.
Human Acts vividly portrays how Gwangju was devastated under Chun’s regime. It is one of the most intimate and visceral portrayals of the uprising and its aftermath, told from the perspectives of six ordinary individuals who lived through it. Following the eruption of protests, paratroopers stormed the city, indiscriminately beating, stabbing, and shooting civilians. Helicopters fired live ammunition down onto peaceful demonstrators from above. The innocent victims included women and children. Hundreds were killed or disappeared, while the rest of the country was kept in the dark due to the government’s strict media control.
Even following South Korea’s transition to democracy, Gwangju's residents endured decades of scorn and discrimination, both implicit and explicit. Chun, sentenced to death but later pardoned after serving just two years, denied responsibility for the massacre until his death. His controversial memoir, Turbulent Times, falsely accused Gwangju residents of spying for North Korea (his book was banned for defamation and misinformation in 2019). Chun’s denial of such unforgivable violence was backed by his partisans and political followers, fueling further disdain and distrust toward the people of Gwangju.
Gwangju’s Global Influence
One of the first stories to make it out of Gwangju was that of a young pro-democracy student: in 1981, Han-bong Yun became the first Korean to seek and win political asylum in the United States. Following the uprising and killings, the young Mr. Yun was a wanted man who spent a year in hiding before entering the U.S. There he founded Young Koreans United in 1984, an organization supporting Korea’s democratization movement and later expanding into immigrant advocacy groups like the MinKwon Center in New York and the Hana Center in Chicago. Today, MinKwon delivers legal and social aid to thousands of immigrants and low-income community members in the New York and New Jersey metro areas.
The uprising’s legacy has grown further through the protest anthem March for the Beloved (임을 위한 행진곡), originally composed in 1981 to honor those killed in Gwangju. Though banned under the military regime, the song survived and found new life in translation among democracy activists around the world, notably resonating with Hong Kong’s 2019 pro-democracy protesters and Myanmar’s opposition to the 2021 military coup. “Gwangju’s experience in 1980 has been a great source of strength to activists in Hong Kong,” said Joshua Wong, a leading figure in Hong Kong’s democracy movement.
In 2021, Gwangju’s Myanmar Solidarity group pledged to help achieve democracy in Myanmar, declaring: “Gwangju is the heart of democracy in Korea and Asia. We will march with Myanmar until they achieve victory.”
Han’s Questions Answered in December 2024
44 years after the uprising and massacre in Gwangju, Han Kang’s Nobel achievement has sparked polarized reactions in Korea. Some conservative protesters called for the award's cancellation, arguing that Han’s work misrepresented history. But the survivors who were there know the truth is on their side.
"I am so grateful that (the May 18th Gwangju Uprising) has become known worldwide thanks to our author's novel” says Kim Gil-ja, mother of the late Moon Jae-hak, the real-life activist who inspired the character of Dong-ho in Human Acts. Moon was shot and killed by government forces during the massacre. Reflecting on the Nobel announcement, Ms. Kim said: “It is much more impactful for our author to have made it known through her novel than for me to have fought a hundred times.”
“The citizens of Gwangju must have felt the same way,” added Park Jin-woo, head of the May 18 Memorial Foundation. “It was symbolic news of the award that showed that May 18th was not limited to the past or the pain of the space called 'Gwangju'.”
Not long after Ms. Han received the world’s most prestigious literary award, South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol shocked the nation by declaring martial law. His decree lasted only two hours but deeply rattled the country and continues to threaten South Korea’s hard-won democracy. The first impeachment motion against Mr. Yoon failed due to ruling party obstruction, but a second attempt passed a week later.
In the second attempt, Democratic Party floor leader Park Chan-dae explained the impeachment proposal, invoking his nation’s history and its dead:
“While preparing Human Acts, Han read the diary of a young teacher killed in Gwangju. She turned the questions over in her mind, ‘Can the present help the past?’ and ‘Can the living save the dead?’ “As I reflect on the events of December 2024, I can answer ‘Yes’ to the question, ‘Can the past help the present?’ because May 1980 saved December 2024.”
The impeachment motion passed the same day.
Democratic activists, elected officials, and the Korean people have won the suspension of Mr. Yoon’s presidency. But a final decision on impeachment lies with the Constitutional Court, one of the highest courts in South Korea's judiciary which exercises constitutional review. Their ruling should come within 180 days of the motion’s passage. Until Yoon is removed from power once and for all, the Korean people have vowed to take to the streets, just as their democratic forebears did in the spring, 44 years ago, in Gwangju.