Abstract
The truth about the May 18th Gwangju Uprising(“5·18”) was eventually liberated in the late 1980s-documents and nonfiction books for the testimony of “5·18” were extensively circulated. This sudden flooding of testimony resulted from the problem that the government’s investigation was delayed and not satisfactory. The Committee for Democracy and Reconciliation(known as “Minhwawe”), established after President Roh Taewoo’s election, was in a contradictory position of suppressing the discussion and activity for illuminating the truth. While under the suppression once again, the testimony of “5·18” struggled to construct the history of people’s democratic uprising and the individual memories not fully converged into the history. The work for establishing an official history of “5·18” stood against the discourse of the national unity developed by “Minhwawe.” On the other hand, the work for archiving people who had participated in, experienced, and sacrificed themselves for “5·18” stood for those who were not represented by the nation nor by “the people”, and gave them some voices for their own testimony.