All North Korean History Books Are Mere Tools to Promote the Personality Cult of Kim Il-sung...
Interview with Prof. Shin Hyong-sik of Ewha Womans University (Vantage Point August , 1996)
Question: Half a century after Korea was divided into two halves with different political systems, even their understanding of the same Korean history before the division is different today. What is your view of Pyongyang's interpretation of the Korean history?
Answer: Until North Korean dictator Kim Il-sung declared the Juche (self-reliance) Idea as the guiding principle for his rule in 1955, studies of Korean history in the North had been active in terms of new periodization and interpretation based on the orthodox Communist view. But after Kim established his inflexible dictatorship in the late 1960s, North Korean historians had to rewrite Korean history itself in such a way as to promote the personality cult of Kim and his relatives. Distortions of history reached a new height in the mid-1970s, when Kim began to groom his eldest son, Jong-il, as his successor. As a result, history books in North Korea today much resemble biographies of Kim and his relatives, including his great grand-father, all of whom North Korea claims are "Juche-oriented revolutionaries."
Historiography as well as history education in North Korea have been tools to make its citizens revolutionaries loyal to Kim and armed with the Juche thought. Kim's "teachings" have been the sole yardstick by which the value of any development in Korean history is assessed. Since the early 1980s his status and role have been transferred step by step to Kim Jong-il.
Q: What is your view of the characteristics of Pyongyang's interpretation of history?
A: Like other Communist states whose interpretation of history is based on materialism, North Korea views history as a process of struggle. The history of the ancient and medieval period is considered as the process of working class struggles against the hereditary feudal aristocratic class and against foreign aggression, that of the modern period as the process of struggles against the U.S. and Japanese "imperialists," and that of the recent period as the process of struggles for socialist construction. North Korean historians claim people can win in the struggles only when they abide by the "teachings" of Kim Il-sung and the Juche Idea.
In a move to promote the personality cult of Kim and justify the dynastic North Korean regime, Pyongyang has placed stress on the history of the recent period which began in 1926, when North Korea claims Kim established the "Union for Crushing Imperialism," said to be the first full-fledged Communist movement in Korea. Eighteen of the 33 volumes of the "Chosun Chonsa" (Complete History of Korea) cover this recent history which is dotted with Kim's "revolutionary" activities, under such headings, 'The History of Anti-Japanese Struggles," and "The History of the Construction of a People's Democracy." The nature of these history books are exposed in such headings as, "The Revolutionary Thought of Kim Il-sung," "The Revolutionary Activities of Kim Il-sung,' "The Revolutionary Thought of Kim Jong-il," and "The Revolutionary Activities of Kim Jong-il."
In addition, North Korea is placing more accent on the meaning of historical events rather than their factual development. Under North Korean historical theory, all rebels in kingdoms and capitalist systems are the heroes of the history and those who shattered these revolts are traitors. History books in North Korea have been written mostly in provocative belligerent tones.
Q: How is historical fabrication for the personality cult of Kim's clan developing in recent years?
A: Fictional contents of North Korean history books aim at manufacturing the background of the alleged anti-Japan struggles of Kim Il-sung and his relatives. In these books, for instance, Kim's father Kim Hyong-jik and his mother Kang Ban-sok are depicted as "indefatigable fighters" who led the anti-Japanese civilian movement of "March 1, 1919," which are historical fabrications. North Koreans who are in their 40s and younger have not heard of the 33 Korean leaders who played a pivotal role in this independence movement. North Korean history books even claim that Kim Il-sung, at 8, played a role in this movement.
Historical fabrications in the North went so far as to portray his great grandfather Kim Ung-u as a brave fighter against the "U.S. imperialists," maintaining that he destroyed the U.S. ship General Sherman in 1886 in the Taedong River estuary in Pyongyang, and that Korean anti-American struggles began as early as the 1880s. North Korea marks Aug. 15 as the date Kim crushed the Japanese to liberate Korea from Japanese colonial rule, also a historical fabrication because World War II ended that day in 1945 when the Japanese surrendered to the Allied Forces. "Had it not been for Great Leader Kim Il-sung, we could not have even imagined liberation," says one North Korean history book.
Q: When North Korea announced abruptly in October 1993 it had discovered the tomb of Tangun, legendary founder of the Kochosun (Ancient Korean) Dynasty, on the outskirts of Pyongyang, South Korean scholars raised a question on the actual existence of Tangun. Until then North Korean scholars were also negative on the entity of Tangun and his kingdom. What is your opinion on this?
A: According to a Korean history book written by Iryon, a Buddhist priest, and published in 1281, Tangun was born from a man descended from heaven and a woman transformed from a bear. Tangun, it also says, did not die but turned into a heavenly being at the end of his earthly life. Against the prevailing theory that Tangun existed only in the realm of tradition and mythology, North Korea asserted it had excavated the bones of Tangun and his wife and their relics, which date back 5,011
years. South Korean historians believe that the Tangun dynasty, the first Korean dynasty in ancient Korea, existed from 233 to 1122 B.C. North Korean historians said they measured the age of the bones using electron spine resonance (ESR) techniques,
but the method introduced by Motoji Ikeya, a Japanese scholar, is usually applied to remains which are only as old as 1,000 years, and only if they were preserved well.
North Korean studies of ancient Korean history focus on their intent to maintain that the Korean people originated from the area where the North Korean capital city of Pyongyang is now located. North Korea's assertion of the actual existence of Tangun and its discovery of his tomb in Pyongyang is apparently aimed at securing the sole legitimacy of the North Korean regime on the peninsula. For the same reason, North Korean history books emphasise the role of the Koguryo Dynasty, whose territory covered a northern part of the peninsula, treating lightly the Shilla Dynasty in the south, which conquered two other Korean kingdoms--Koguryo and Paekje--in the latter half of the seventh century, to establish for the first time the sole unified kingdom on the peninsula.
Prof. of Ewha Womans University in Seoul / Vice president of the Korean Association of historical Studies and a member of the National History Compilation Committee of South Korea. His publications include A Comparison of Historical Views between North and South Korea (1994).
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