The history of Korean Shinp’a theater: the birth of a new genre at the beginning of the twentieth century

The relevance of research is determined by the insufficient study and comprehension of the cultural landmarks transformation processes within the Korean society during its colonial dependence on Japan. The research novelty lies in the fact that there are no works in Russian historiography addressing the formation and development of the Shinp’a theatre. Western historical science barely mentions this cultural phenomenon or narrows it down to the brief articles in theatrical encyclopedias and reference books. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the formation of modern Korean theater culture (as opposed to the traditional one) during the Japanese colonial rule. Achieving this goal requires solving the following problems: first, to indicate the impact of Japanese culture on the Korean colonial society; second, to trace the emergence and formation of the Korean Shinp’a theater; third, to analyze the techniques and methods of the actors’ influence on their audience; and fourth, to identify the main trends of the new theater. These issues are investigated in connection with foreign and domestic policy conditions of colonial Korea. The following research methods were used: the principle of historicism, which implies the study of events and phenomena of the past with regard to their historical features and cause-effect relations, and the civilizational approach to the study of history used to study the cultural characteristics of Korean society that influenced the processes of its modernization in the early twentieth century. The article shows that, despite the Japanese origin of the Shinp’a theatre, its reproduction and modification in Korea met the needs of the society that was striving to overcome the centuries-long cultural isolation. It is concluded that the Shinp’a theatre laid the foundations of the Korean theater art, and the genre of melodrama largely determined the modern popular cinema art, which was developing at the same time.