Yi Yuk-sa (이육사) is known for his resistance against the occupying Japanese authorities. While there were many intellectuals who resisted and fought, they were more an exception than norm if you take a critical look. It is not surprising either because, if you think about it, a powerful imperial state like Japan before the second world war was not something you could easily resolve to go against. Anyone doing that must have felt like a tiny egg before a towering boulder. So most people had no choice but to go with the reigning forces of the time, accepting it as destiny, even if they didn't condone or support the imperialists. There were even those who took it as an opportunity for personal gains and became the frontmen for the occupiers, which is something hard to accept but that is how the mass is.
Yi Yuk-sa was on the opposite end of it. He fought all his life with remarkable consistency. It appears he never wavered until the end, and his resistance didn't merely consist of giving moral support but pretty much ran the whole gamut of it short of actually firing shots at the Japanese troops. He is said to have been arrested and jailed seventeen times for subversive activities, and when he was not he was often an operative working with the resistance groups in what was then Manchuria as well as China. The Peak must have been written in his later years when he had to flee to the north to escape the hands of the Japanese hot on his tail. The poem reads like a short journal entry about the dire circumstances. A man of iron will, he transcended the limits of everyman, demonstrating the fortitude of a fighter for the just cause in the face of seemingly insurmountable opposing forces. His name lives on in the body of works that recorded his trials and tribulations, of which The Peak is one fine example.
Respectfully remembered activist intellectual who dedicated his life for indepence and betterment of Korea at a time when it was at the mercy of imperialism.
Tony's Web
