This thesis examines how South Korea constructs and mobilizes national memory to produce a narrative of identity. Through a critical analysis of memory, identity, and otherness, the study shows how historical processes - including Japanese colonization, the Korean War, the peninsula s division, and post-war economic transformation - shaped official and societal discourses about who constitutes the Korean self and the other. The research argues that South Korean modernity relies on the interplay of strategic forgetting, selective remembrance, and symbolic production, enabling both the state and cultural institutions to promote a unified national identity built upon unresolved tensions. By analyzing memory policies, state narratives, and contemporary disputes over belonging, the thesis demonstrates how Korean identity is sustained through ongoing dynamics of affirmation and differentiation, shedding light on the connections between the past, the nation, and future-oriented projects.