Abstract

This article examines how the solidarity between Yi Sang and Eroshenko manifests in Yi Sang’s early literature, particularly in response to the disasters of modern East Asia that emerged through the collusion of eugenic and Social Darwinist ideologies with state power. First, to identify the reading contents of Eroshenko’s work, which forms the basis of the solidarity between the two writers, the article compares Father Time and For the Sake of Mankind with Yi Sang’s early texts to determine whether these works can be included in the reading list. The analysis confirms that Darkroom of a Map is associated with the former text, whereas the Hoang (獚) series is associated with the latter. Second, by examining the relationship between For the Sake of Mankind and the Hoang series through their shared theme of human–animal relations in experimental medicine, the article demonstrates that the implications of these two works connect to the idea of East Asia as newly conceptualized by East Asian anarchists in the early 20th century. The common issues raised by these two works—the experimental animals and the disasters faced by humans—are related to the crises produced by Japan’s plan to occupy East Asia. Third, the article examines the solutions presented through the two solidarity contents in the Hoang series, which is closely connected to For the Sake of Mankind. The first solution involves crossing species boundaries and becoming multispecies through empathy and ties, a strategy shared by Yi Sang and Eroshenko for the liberation of animals and humans confined within cages and camps. The second concerns Yi Sang’s strategy to confront the crisis in East Asia following the Manchurian Incident and the First Shanghai Incident. This strategy takes the form of a ventriloquistic literary solidarity in which the anarchist Eroshenko, who disappeared from the East Asian stage in the 1930s, is represented as Hoang within Yi Sang’s literature.