Introduction

This chapter focuses mainly on the literary as opposed to journalistic or academic images of Russia and Russians, both Soviet Russians and exiles. In the literary community, Communism was represented by the KAPF (Korea Artista Proletaria Federacio (KAPF), Korean Federation of Proletarian Artists), formed in 1925 by a group of mostly Japan-educated progressives, some of them maintaining also intimate ties with the underground Communist movement. Siberia and the Maritime Province were an important topos in colonial-time Korean literature and journalism, for a number of interrelated reasons. These colonial spaces of the Russian Empire were among the places Korea's destitute peasants and militant nationalists alike could migrate to pursue their dreams, be it family's economical survival or the continuous struggle for Korea's independence. For Communists as well as for many other self-styled progressives, Soviet Russia was either beacon of hope or, at the very least, the site of an important modern experiment, a vanguard of modern humanity.