autobiography
An autobiography, sometimes informally called an autobio, is a self-written account of one's own life.
It is a form of biography.
Definition
The word "autobiography" was first used deprecatingly by William Taylor in 1797 in the English peri ...
of
Kim Il-sung
Kim Il-sung (; , ; born Kim Song-ju, ; 15 April 1912 – 8 July 1994) was a North Korean politician and the founder of North Korea, which he ruled from the country's establishment in 1948 until his death in 1994. He held the posts of ...
, founder and former
president of North Korea
The president of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea () was the head of state of North Korea from 1972 to 1998. The position was only occupied by Kim Il-sung from 1972 until his death in 1994. Aside from being president, Kim was also the ...
. The memoirs, written in 1992 and published in eight volumes, retell Kim's life story through his childhood to the time of
Korean resistance
The Korean independence movement was a military and diplomatic campaign to achieve the independence of Korea from Japan. After the Japanese annexation of Korea in 1910, Korea's domestic resistance peaked in the March 1st Movement of 1919, which ...
. Initially, a total of 30 volumes were planned but Kim Il-sung died in 1994 after just six volumes; the seventh and eight volumes were published
posthumously
Posthumous may refer to:
* Posthumous award - an award, prize or medal granted after the recipient's death
* Posthumous publication – material published after the author's death
* ''Posthumous'' (album), by Warne Marsh, 1987
* ''Posthumous'' (E ...
. The work reveals early influences of religious and literary ideas on Kim's thinking. An important part of
North Korean literature
Reading is a popular pastime in North Korea, where literacy and books enjoy a high cultural standing, elevated by the regime's efforts to disseminate propaganda as texts. Because of this, writers are held in high prestige.
The partition o ...
, ''With the Century'' is held as a valuable if somewhat unreliable insight into the nation's modern history under late colonial Korea. The book is considered one of a few North Korean
primary source
In the study of history as an academic discipline, a primary source (also called an original source) is an artifact, document, diary, manuscript, autobiography, recording, or any other source of information that was created at the time under ...
s widely available in the West and as notable research material for
North Korean studies
North Korean studies is a sub-area of Korean studies. The number of researchers is comparatively small. The only fully dedicated institution to the study area is the University of North Korean Studies, Seoul, but many universities run undergraduat ...
.
Authorship of ''With the Century'' is disputed with claims that it was written by professional writers instead of Kim Il-sung himself.
History
Up until the 1960s, Kim Il-sung had encouraged his fellow revolutionaries to publish their memoirs, and generals such as
Eulji Mundeok
Eulji Mundeok (을지문덕) (Ulchi Mundok) was a military leader of early 7th century Goguryeo, one of the Three Kingdoms of Korea, who successfully defended Goguryeo against Sui China. He is often numbered among the greatest heroes in the m ...
,
Gang Gam-chan
Gang Gam-chan (; 22 December 948 – 9 September 1031) was a medieval Korean government official and military commander during the early days of Goryeo Dynasty (918–1392). Even though he was a career scholar and government official, he is best ...
and
Yi Sun-sin
Admiral Yi Sun-sin (April 28, 1545 – December 16, 1598) was a Korean admiral and military general famed for his victories against the Japanese navy during the Imjin war in the Joseon Dynasty. Over the course of his career, Admiral Yi fough ...
were featured in North Korean history books. Kim Il-sung's son and future successor
Kim Jong-il
Kim Jong-il (; ; ; born Yuri Irsenovich Kim;, 16 February 1941 – 17 December 2011) was a North Korean politician who was the second supreme leader of North Korea from 1994 to 2011. He led North Korea from the 1994 death of his father Kim ...
, however, called back such biographies and sought to reinforce
Kim Il-sung's cult of personality
The North Korean cult of personality surrounding its ruling family, the Kim family, has existed in North Korea for decades and can be found in many examples of North Korean culture. Although not acknowledged by the North Korean government, many ...
by controlling the works that made reference to him. In this regard, ''With the Century'' effectively replaced another work, ''
Reminiscences of the Anti-Japanese Guerillas
''Reminiscences of the Anti-Japanese Guerillas'' is a collection of memoirs of North Korean guerillas fighting during the 1930s and 1940s in Manchuria against the Japanese. It was used as a textbook for indoctrination until it was effectively ...
'', as one of the most important propaganda pieces.
In 1974, Kim announced that he would write his memoirs. According to Kim himself, before that he had spared little thought about writing his memoirs. When Kim Jong-il assumed the office of
Secretary for Organizational Affairs
A secretary, administrative professional, administrative assistant, executive assistant, administrative officer, administrative support specialist, clerk, military assistant, management assistant, office secretary, or personal assistant is a wh ...
, Kim Il-sung was allowed more time to focus on his writing. Kim also describes being encouraged to write his memoirs by literary people and foreign statesmen. ''With the Century'' was written in 1992 when Kim was in his 80s, two years prior to his death. Initially the memoirs were supposed to span 90 chapters in 30 volumes comprising five parts: "The Anti-Japanese Revolution", "People's Country", "Along the Road of Socialism", "The Nation's Desire", and "Turning Point of Century". However, only the first six volumes of part one, "The Anti-Japanese Revolution", were completed before Kim's death and two additional volumes were published posthumously.
Kim Il-sung's ideological influences
The memoirs suggest that Kim Il-sung was influenced by
communism
Communism (from Latin la, communis, lit=common, universal, label=none) is a far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology and current within the socialist movement whose goal is the establishment of a communist society, a s ...
,
Christianity
Christianity is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. It is the world's largest and most widespread religion with roughly 2.38 billion followers representing one-third of the global pop ...
,
Confucianism
Confucianism, also known as Ruism or Ru classicism, is a system of thought and behavior originating in ancient China. Variously described as tradition, a philosophy, a religion, a humanistic or rationalistic religion, a way of governing, or ...
,
Cheondoism
Cheondoism (spelled Chondoism in North Korean sources; ) is a 20th-century Korean pantheistic religion, based on the 19th-century Donghak religious movement founded by Ch'oe Che-u and codified under Son Pyŏng-Hi. Cheondoism has its origins i ...
and wide range of other traditions. Kim Il-sung was born to a
Presbyterian
Presbyterianism is a part of the Reformed tradition within Protestantism that broke from the Roman Catholic Church in Scotland by John Knox, who was a priest at St. Giles Cathedral (Church of Scotland). Presbyterian churches derive their nam ...
family, even though he downplays their devotion in his memoirs. The anti-foreign pro-independence Donghak Movement, founded by a Korean scholar
Choe Je-u
Choe Je-u, who used the pen name Su-un (18 December 1824 – 15 April 1864), was the founder of Donghak, a Korean religious movement which was empathetic to the hardships of the minjung (the marginalized people of Korea), opposed Catholicism and ...
and influenced by
Catholic missionaries
Missionary work of the Catholic Church has often been undertaken outside the geographically defined parishes and dioceses by religious orders who have people and material resources to spare, and some of which specialized in missions. Eventually, p ...
, is one of the fascinations of his youth that Kim Il-sung treats at length in the memoirs. The Donghak rebellion served as a model for other contemporary Korean movements combining religion with nationalism. Kim Il-sung describes being intrigued by the native Korean Cheondoism movement that evolved from the Donghak rebellion. Cheondoism believes in the idea that all men are equal and bear the spirit of heaven in themselves.
The memoirs disclose that the Chinese author and
Communist Party
A communist party is a political party that seeks to realize the socio-economic goals of communism. The term ''communist party'' was popularized by the title of ''The Manifesto of the Communist Party'' (1848) by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. A ...
member Sang Wol (Shang Yue) was Kim Il-sung's teacher in literary matters at private Yuwen Middle School in 1928, where Sang Wol taught for six months. This was young Kim's most decisive and the only formal educational influence on his background with both literature and
esthetics
Aesthetics, or esthetics, is a branch of philosophy that deals with the nature of beauty and taste, as well as the philosophy of art (its own area of philosophy that comes out of aesthetics). It examines aesthetic values, often expressed th ...
. Sang Wol introduced Kim Il-sung to the classics of
Chinese
Chinese can refer to:
* Something related to China
* Chinese people, people of Chinese nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity
**''Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic concept of the Chinese nation
** List of ethnic groups in China, people of ...
, and
Russian literature
Russian literature refers to the literature of Russia and its émigrés and to Russian language, Russian-language literature. The roots of Russian literature can be traced to the Middle Ages, when epics and chronicles in Old East Slavic were c ...
such as
Maxim Gorky
Alexei Maximovich Peshkov (russian: link=no, Алексе́й Макси́мович Пешко́в; – 18 June 1936), popularly known as Maxim Gorky (russian: Макси́м Го́рький, link=no), was a Russian writer and social ...
's ''
Mother
]
A mother is the female parent of a child. A woman may be considered a mother by virtue of having given childbirth, birth, by raising a child who may or may not be her biological offspring, or by supplying her ovum for fertilisation in the cas ...
proletarian writer
Proletarian literature refers here to the literature created by left-wing writers mainly for the class-conscious proletariat. Though the ''Encyclopædia Britannica'' states that because it "is essentially an intended device of revolution", it is ...
'. Outside of school, Kim Il-sung also came into contact with
Joseph Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili; – 5 March 1953) was a Georgian revolutionary and Soviet political leader who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until his death in 1953. He held power as General Secreta ...
's writings.
The memoirs reveal the impact of Kim Il-sung's knowledge of religion and scholarship of literary classics and art on the theory of ''
Juche
''Juche'' ( ; ), officially the ''Juche'' idea (), is the state ideology of North Korea and the official ideology of the Workers' Party of Korea. North Korean sources attribute its conceptualization to Kim Il-sung, the country's founder and ...
''. ''Juche'' ideology has been interpreted as being similar to Cheondoism, as both think that people are the masters of their own fates. Despite the various early religious influences, Kim Il-sung frowned upon the practice of religion, and instead demanded near-religious loyalty and adherence to the militaristic rules that are part of living in North Korea. In the preface of ''With the Century'', Kim writes: The people are my God' has been my constant view and motto. The principle of ''Juche'', which calls for drawing on the strength of the masses who are the masters of the revolution and construction, is my political creed."
Volumes
Reception
The well-liked ''With the Century'' holds an important part in North Korean culture and society. Domestically, it is a major source of the myth of the "anti-Japanese" struggle in propaganda. Western scholars, on the other hand, have focused on the historicity of events portrayed in the memoirs and have critically assessed the value of ''With the Century'' as a historical source. The omnipresence of ''With the Century'' has also been linked to Kim's cult of personality. The book is banned in South Korea from the general public similarly to other printed material originating from North Korea. In August 2011, the South Korean Supreme Court regarded ''With the Century'' as “anti-state expression” under the National Security Law.
Popularity in North Korea
Despite its political nature and conformity with the official political line of the state, ''With the Century'' enjoys genuine popularity in North Korea. It is considered Kim Il-sung's most popular work, and the first volume was released, it supposedly became an instant hit. As a child, defector Jae-young Kim remembers reading "every page with fascination, despite the highly ideological subject matter" and being particularly intrigued with stories about Kim Il-sung's first wife,
Kim Jong-suk
Kim Jong-suk (; 24 December 1917Suh Dae-sook. Kim Il Sung: The North Korean Leader. New York: Columbia University Press, 1988. – 22 September 1949) was a Korean anti-Japanese guerrilla, a Communist activist, North Korean leader Kim Il ...
. Defector and former
propagandist
Propaganda is communication that is primarily used to influence or persuade an audience to further an agenda, which may not be objective and may be selectively presenting facts to encourage a particular synthesis or perception, or using loaded ...
,
Jang Jin-sung
Jang Jin-sung ( ko, 장진성; born c. 1970–1971) is the pseudonym of a North Korean poet and government official who defected to South Korea. He had worked as a psychological warfare officer within the United Front Department of the Korean Wor ...
recalls in his book ''Dear Leader: My Escape from North Korea'' how when he wants to impress a fellow escapee, he brags that his friend's "grandparents are mentioned in our textbooks as leading anti-Japanese resistance fighters, as well as in Kim Il-sung's own memoir, ''With the Century''." According to
Hwang Jang-yop
Hwang Jang-yop ( ko, 황장엽; 17 February 192310 October 2010) was a North Korean politician who served as the Chairman of the Supreme People's Assembly from 1972–1983 and was largely responsible for crafting ''Juche'', the state ideology o ...
, a high-ranking
North Korean defector
Since the division of Korea after the end of World War II, North Koreans have fled from the country in spite of legal punishment for political, ideological, religious, economic, moral, personal, or nutritional reasons. Such North Koreans are re ...
, the book's contents were as if they were straight out of revolutionary movies making it a very pleasant read.
The work typifies the attitude of North Korean propaganda toward military affairs. Military decisions are not based on strategy and reason but emotional conviction to a cause.
Western commentary on historicity and authorship
''With the Century'' is one of few North Korean
primary source
In the study of history as an academic discipline, a primary source (also called an original source) is an artifact, document, diary, manuscript, autobiography, recording, or any other source of information that was created at the time under ...
s widely available in the West, and is therefore considered an important source for scholars of
North Korean studies
North Korean studies is a sub-area of Korean studies. The number of researchers is comparatively small. The only fully dedicated institution to the study area is the University of North Korean Studies, Seoul, but many universities run undergraduat ...
. However, the accuracy of portrayal of historical events in the book has been questioned by scholars. According to
Fyodor Tertitskiy
Fyodor, Fedor (russian: Фёдор) or Feodor is the Russian form of the name "Theodore" meaning “God’s Gift”. Fedora () is the feminine form. Fyodor and Fedor are two English transliterations of the same Russian name.
It may refer to:
Giv ...
, ''With the Century'' compromises accuracy and molds events to support the view point of North Korean ideology. For instance, the autobiography recounts the official version of the birth of Kim's son, Kim Jong-il, on
Mount Paektu
Paektu Mountain (), also known as Baekdu Mountain and in China as Changbai Mountain ( zh, s=长白山, t=長白山; Manchu: Golmin Šanggiyan Alin), is an active stratovolcano on the Chinese–North Korean border. At , it is the highest moun ...
, widely discredited in the West. Hwang Jang-yop calls ''With the Century'' a "masterpiece of historical fabrication". Others like
Bradley K. Martin
Bradley is an English surname derived from a place name meaning "broad wood" or "broad meadow" in Old English.
Like many English surnames Bradley can also be used as a given name and as such has become popular.
It is also an Anglicisation of t ...
note that ''With the Century'' is more truthful about Kim's life than official sources published before the 1990s. While it is impossible to verify his writings on his early childhood, Kim's account of events in his youth during the resistance are often more believable than his contemporaries'. For instance, Kim's association with the Church in his childhood is not denied, and neither is the fact that he joined the foreign
Communist Party of China
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP), officially the Communist Party of China (CPC), is the founding and sole ruling party of the People's Republic of China (PRC). Under the leadership of Mao Zedong, the CCP emerged victorious in the Chinese Civil ...
in 1931.
According to Hwang Jang-yop, ''With the Century'' was not written by Kim Il-sung himself but was composed by professional writers and journalists. These writers were supposedly revolutionary film authors, tasked with giving the work movie-like scenes. According to Jang Jin-sung, the authors were novelists of the
April 15 Literary Production Group
April is the fourth month of the year in the Gregorian and Julian calendars. It is the first of four months to have a length of 30 days, and the second of five months to have a length of less than 31 days.
April is commonly associated with ...
, a "First class" institution reserved to serve the Kim family (Jang also claimed that in 1993, Kim allegedly told a group of
Chongryon
The General Association of Korean Residents in Japan, " ''
members how much he enjoyed reading ''With the Century''), while Hwang attributes the writing to the staff of the Party History Center. The production of the memoirs may have been supervised by Kim Jong-il. Hwang, who held a top position in the party at that time, was opposed to publishing the posthumous volumes as he thought that the ones published so far were "too intriguing to be true". Hwang also opposed rewriting post-liberation history because later events would be easier to verify, and historical revisionism could anger North Korea's diplomatic allies.
Release details
The first six volumes of ''With the Century'' were published before Kim's death in 1994. The seventh and eight volumes were published posthumously. The volumes have been reprinted as part of at least two collections: the 50-volume ''Kim Il-Sung: Works'' () and the 100-volume ''Complete Collection of Kim Il Sung's Works'' (). The volumes are also included with the North Korean made
tablet computer
A tablet computer, commonly shortened to tablet, is a mobile device, typically with a mobile operating system and touchscreen display processing circuitry, and a rechargeable battery in a single, thin and flat package. Tablets, being comput ...
Samjiyon
Samjiyŏn is a city in Ryanggang Province, North Korea. It takes its name from three lakes in the city, which are collectively known as the Samjiyŏn. Samjiyŏn is situated near Mount Paektu, and tour groups fly to the city's airport to see th ...
. In addition to the full eight volumes, the electronic library on the tablet includes the 50-volume ''Works'' which holds the first 18 chapters of ''With the Century''.
Translations exist in 20 languages, including Chinese, Japanese, English, French, Spanish, Russian, German and Arabic.
In April 2021, the memoirs were published by a publisher in South Korea, causing great controversy. On 23 April 2021,
Kyobo Book Center
The ''Kyobo Book Centre'' (, also known as ''Kyobo Mungo'') is the largest bookstore chain in South Korea. It has ten stores in seven cities, with the flagship Main Store, or Gwanghwamun-jeom in Seoul, which is located in the basement of the Kyobo ...
, South Korea's biggest bookstore chain, decided to cease sales of the memoirs, in order to "protect customers". Several conservative organizations, such as New Paradigm of Korea, sought an injunction to ban the sales of ''With the Century'', because "distribution of the memoirs 'glamorizing the Kim family' infringes on human rights and harms the dignity of South Koreans as well as the country's democracy." The junction was rejected by the Seoul Western District Court on 16 May 2021. The court said that the memoirs did not directly involve the plaintiffs, so their rights have not been violated by the book's content. On 26 May 2021, South Korea police raided the office of the publisher ''Minjok Sarangbang'', confiscated materials as evidence, as the publication of the memoirs allegedly violated the National Security Act.
See also
*
Korean nationalist historiography
Korean nationalist historiography is a way of writing Korean history that centers on the Korean '' minjok'', an ethnically or racially defined Korean nation. This kind of historiography emerged in the early twentieth century among Korean intell ...
*
Kim Il-sung bibliography
Kim Il-sung (15 April 1912 – 8 July 1994) was the leader of North Korea for 46 years, from its establishment in 1948 until his death in 1994.
According to North Korean sources, the works of Kim Il-sung amount to approximately 10,800 spee ...
*
Kim Jong-il bibliography
Kim Jong-il (16 February 1941/1942 – 17 December 2011) was the Supreme Leader of North Korea from 1994 to 2011.
According to North Korean sources, Kim Jong-il published some 890 works during a period of his career from June 1964 to June ...
Voice of Korea
Voice of Korea () is the international broadcasting service of North Korea. It broadcasts primarily information in Chinese, Spanish, German, English, French, Russian, Japanese and Arabic. Until 2002 it was known as Radio Pyongyang. The inter ...
Marxists Internet Archive
Marxists Internet Archive (also known as MIA or Marxists.org) is a non-profit online encyclopedia that hosts a multilingual library (created in 1990) of the works of communist, anarchist, and socialist writers, such as Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels ...