THE KUKMIN DAILY

“As he sang in his poem ‘The Prologue,’ ‘Wishing to gaze at heaven without a speck of shame, until the day I die…’ please help us reflect constantly on our lives. And through the sensitive language he left us in his poetry, let us of the human race end our fights and divisions and restore a life of love and peace.” (From the prayer of Yonsei University Chaplain Cho Jae-guk.)

On February 16, a memorial service marking the 70th year since the passing of poet Yun Dong-ju (1917∼1945) was held in Luce Chapel of Yonsei University, Seoul. The poet is famous for his works “The Prologue,” “Another Hometown,” and “The Night I Count the Stars.”

Some 300 participants including Yun’s family members, persons related to Yonsei University’s Yun Dong-ju Memorial Committee, and graduates of Yonsei University gathered and remembered him: “Our Korean people’s freedom is indebted to the lonely struggles of persons like poet Yun, who dedicated their lives… We should fully accept his inheritance, and pass down his pure and noble spirit.”

Committee Chair Choi Mun-gyu of the Committee said, “He lived a short life, but he was the first poet to express such a yearning for peace in East Asia through his poetry, reflecting his own life journey from China to Korea, and to Japan… His poetry became a landmark of past relations among Korea, China and Japan, and will inspire our future relations as well.”

After graduating from Yonhui Professional School (later Yonsei University), Yun went to Japan and was studying in the Department of English at Doshisha University, when he was arrested by the Japanese police in 1943 for a political violation. In June 1944, he was sentenced to two years in prison, but died the following year in Fukuoka prison. Yun’s grandfather was an elder of Myeongdong Church in North Jiandao, and Yun himself was baptized as a young child and grew up in a Christian family. Many of his poems reflect the Christian spirit.

* In the photo, the Presbyterian University and Theological Seminary (PUTS) choir sings “The Night I Count the Stars” in “Opera Yun Dong-ju,” at the Yun Dong-ju 70th memorial service held in Luce Chapel of Yonsei University in Seodaemun-gu, Seoul, on February 16.

Reporter A-young Kim (cello08@kmib.co.kr), with Yeara Ahn-Park (yap@kmib.co.kr)
Photo by intern reporter Heo Ran


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