The Cleanest Race (23 page)

10.
Kenez,
The Birth of the Propaganda State
, 5, 8-9.

11.
Ch’oi had once danced for Hitler. For more information on the former collaborators in the North Korean cultural apparatus, see Myers,
Han Sŏrya
, 38-39.

12.
Lankov,
From Stalin to Kim Il Sung
, 39-40.

13.
“Munhwa wa yesul un inmin ǔl wihan kŏs ŭro toeŏya handa,” 96-104.

14.
Hyŏn,
Chŏkch’i yungnyŏn Pukhan ǔi mundan
, 50-51.

15.
Ibid., 25.

16.
For more on this anthology see Myers,
Han Sŏrya
, 46-47.

17.
The original legend had not identified the mountain on which Tan’gun had been born.

18.
See, for example, the picture of a Korean girl tied to a rotary grain mill in Bratzke,
Kita Chosen ‘rakuen’ no zangai
, 109.

19.
Ch’oi, “Kangje tongwŏn chǒnbom omyŏng pŏsŏtta,” November 13, 2006.

20.
See for example Han Sǒr-ya’s
Nammae
(1949), or Yi Ch’un-jin,
Anna
(1948); both are short stories.

21.
For relevant excerpts see Myers, “Mother Russia: Soviet Characters in North Korean Fiction,” 82-93.

22.
Han Sǒr-ya,
Nammae
, 174.

23.
Postwar
, 61.

24.
Gabroussenko,
Soldiers on the Cultural Front
(manuscript), page 24 of Chapter 2.

25.
Han,
Hyŏllo
, 24.

26.
Gabroussenko,
Soldiers
, page 35 of Chapter 2.

27.
Han,
Ryŏksa
, 114.

28.
Gabroussenko, 117.

29.
Kimura Mitsuhiko, “P’asijŭm esǒ kongsanjuŭi ro,” 737-764.

30.
Cf. Dower, 191.

31.
Admiringly quoted by Han Sǒr-ya in, “Kim Il-sǒng changgun kwa minjok munhwa ǔi palchŏn,” 28.

32.
Hyŏn, 42.

1.
Weathersby, “Korea, 1949-50: To Attack, or Not to Attack?” 1-9.

2.
Sin, “Sinin’gan,” 733-734; Gabroussenko,
Soldiers
, 25-27.

3.
See Shen, “Sino-North Korean Conflict and its Resolution,” 9-38.

4.
The speech in question is “Chǒnch’e chakka yesulgadǔl ege,” in
Kim Il-sǒng sǒnjip
, 3:242-244.

5.
Kim Sa-ryang, “Uri nǔn irǒk’e igyǒtta,” in
Kim Sa-ryang sǒnjip
(Pyongyang, 1955), 341-369. The latter story is Yi T’ae-jun’s “Miguk taesagwan.” Gabroussenko,
Soldiers
(manuscript), page 32 of Chapter 4. The story would never have been published had it not pleased the party, and it was rumored to have been enjoyed by Kim Il Sung himself. But the unchivalrous conduct of the story’s Korean characters was held against the author during his purge in 1956. Gabroussenko,
Soldiers
(MS), chapter 4.

6.
Han Sǒr-ya, “Pabo k’ongk’ŭl,” 293.

7.
For a complete translation see my
Han Sǒrya and North Korean Literature
, 157-188.

8.
Shen, 19-20.

9.
Myers, “The Watershed that Wasn’t,” 101-103.

10.
Lankov,
Crisis in North Korea
, 29.

11.
Gabroussenko, 129; Szalontai,
Kim Il Sung
, 89.

12.
Schäfer, “Weathering the Sino-Soviet Conflict,” 40.

13.
Ibid., 39.

14.
Ibid., 40; Szalontai, “You Have No Political Line of Your Own,” 98.

15.
Szalontai,
Kim Il Sung
, 98-100.

16.
Schäfer, “Weathering the Sino-Soviet Conflict,” 33.

17.
Szalontai,
Kim Il Sung
, 251.

18.
Schäfer, “Weathering the Sino-Soviet Conflict,” 30.

19.
Szalontai, “You Have No Political Line of Your Own,” 131.

20.
Szalontai,
Kim
, 201, 55. The American Black Panther Eldridge Cleaver visited Pyongyang in 1970 and later complained about the “unsubtle racism” of his hosts.
Sŏul on Fire
, 122.

21.
“Document No. 3: Report, GDR Embassy in the DPRK, 2 April 1965,” 43.

1.
See Schäfer, “North Korean ‘Adventurism’ and China’s Long Shadow, 1966-1972,” in particular the first chapter, 3-16.

2.
Hwang Chang-yŏp describes the events of the latter half of the 1960s as a “miniature version” of China’s Cultural Revolution. Hwang,
Hoegorok
, 187.

3.
One of these plays,
The Flower Girl
, was made into a movie in 1972 that became an enormous hit not only in North Korea, but in China as well; the novelist Tie Ning describes a theater full of weeping Beijing residents in her well-known short story “How Long is Forever?” (Yingyuan you duo yuan, 1999).

4.
Kim is said to have led troops on a march across north-east China in the winter of 1938/39.

5.
Hwang Chang-yŏp asserts that Kim relied heavily on a team of speechwriters and ghostwriters, asking them to “read” the unexpressed ideas in his head. Hwang,
Hoegorok
, 136.

6.
For a longer discussion of the speech, see Myers, “The Watershed that Wasn’t,”
Acta Koreana
, January 2006, 89-115. See also Zagoria, 11-12.

7.
Hwang Chang-yǒp,
Hoegorok
, 195-196.

8.
Kim Il Sung, “Uri tang ŭi chuch’e sasang,” 27:394-395.

9.
Cumings,
Origins of the Korean War
, 2:313.

10.
See for example Harrison,
Korean Endgame
, 21-22.

11.
See for example “Widaehan ǒmǒni tang,”
Rodong sinmun
, October 3 2003, and
“Rodong sinmun
on Role Played by WPK as Mother Party,” KCNA, December 14, 2007.

12.
Sŏ Sŏng-nyong, “Pom hanŭl,” in
Ch’ŏngnyŏn munhak
, October 1990, 11.

13.
Maggie Jones, “Shutting Themselves In,”
The New York Times
, January 15, 2006.

14.
Having worked in the late 1990s in China for a German car-maker, I well remember hearing colleagues marvel at the North Koreans’ orders of large numbers of luxury sedans.

15.
Haggard and Noland, 27.

16.
“By 1993 imports from Russia were only 10 percent of their average 1987-90 level.” Noland,
Avoiding the Apocalypse
, 98.

17.
Ibid., 58. The “campaign for emulating hidden heroes” had been formally launched back in 1979.
A Handbook on North Korea
, 89.

1.
Ch’inaehanŭn chidoja Kim Jŏng-il tongji ǔi t’ansaeng 50 tol
(70 minutes), Pyongyang, 1972.

2.
See the novel
Yŏngsaeng
(1997) for the standard account of the events of 1993/94.

3.
See for example, “K’ŭnak’ŭn ŭnjǒng ŭl norae hanŭn p’ungnyǒn taeji,”
Rodong sinmun
, September 2, 1994.

4.
Pukhan chumin ǔi ilsang saenghwal kwa taejung munha
, 29.

5.
Hwang’s autobiography confirms widespread refugee reports of human flesh being passed off as animal meat in city markets.
Hoegorok
, 349.

6.
Haggard and Noland, for example, estimate that the famine killed between 600,000 and one million people.
Famine in North Korea
, 1.

7.
Shin,
Ethnic Nationalism in Korea
, 93.

8.
See Yi U-yǒng,
Pukhan ǔi chabonjuŭi insik pyǒnhwa
, Seoul, 2000, 15.

9.
War is a common “flight-from-grief device” in tribes going through extreme hardship. Turney-High,
Primitive War
, 142.

1.
“Uri ŭi kangnyǒkhan chǒnjaeng ǒkcheryǒk ŭn Chosŭn pando p’yǒnghwa ŭi tambo ida,” KCNA, May 28, 2003.

2.
Ch’ǒllima
, August 2003, 49-59;
Adong munhak
, August 2003, 48-56;
Chosŏn munhak
, August 2003, 44-61.

3.
“Haksŭp chegang: isaekchǒgin saenghwal p’ungjo rŭl yup’o sik’inŭn chǒkdŭl ŭi ch’aekdong ŭl ch’ǒlchǒhi chitpusilte taehayǒ,” Pyongyang, 2005, 1. There is no reason to doubt the authenticity of the document, not least because it would be much less dull and repetitive if someone had forged it!

4.
Ibid., 3-4.

5.
Ibid., 4.

6.
“Underground Christians Keep Faith in a Hostile North Korea,” Doug Struck,
Washington Post
, April 12, 2001.

7.
Good Friends, 72.

8.
“2005-nyǒn Pukhan,”
Chosǒn ilbo
, December 12, 2004.

1.
“Two Koreas’ Top Brass Resort to Racist Mudslinging,”
Chosun Ilbo
(English Language Edition), May 17, 2006.

2.
This practice is still going strong. See for example the reference to North Korea as a “secretive Stalinist state” in Harden, “All Nuclear Efforts Disclosed, North Korea Says,”
Washington Post
, January 5, 2008.

3.
Ch’oi, “ ‘Ta’minjok, tainjong sahoe,’ ”
Rodong sinmun
, April 27, 2006.

4.
Sternhell, “Fascist Ideology,” 324.

5.
Between January 1996 and December 2006 there were 575 KCNA articles referring to the motherland, and 1,930 referring to the fatherland. And yet one finds references to a motherland in other English-language sources, such as Choe In Su’s official biography of Kim Jong Il (see page 5 and elsewhere).

6.
See for example, Sŏ Man-sul, “Ŏmŏni choguk e tŭrinŭn kŭl,”
Rodong sinmun
, September 17, 2003.

7.
Pang Chae-sun, “Choguk ǔi p’um,” 70.

8.
This summary derives primarily from the entry on Korean history in the official encyclopedia,
Chosŏn taebaekkwa sajŏn
, 18:118-193.

9.
The Denial of Death
, 133.

10.
There is a photograph in
Chosŏn taebaekkwa sajŏn, 18:128
.

11.
Ethnonationalism
, 140.

12.
North Korea’s first constitution (1948) still designated Seoul as the republic’s capital.

13.
“P’yŏngyang ǔi nunbora,” 145.

14.
“Chin’gyŏk ǔi narut’ŏ” (1971), in
Pukhan misul 50-nyŏn
, 144.

15.
See the painting “Yugyŏk kŭn’gŏji naekka’esŏ” (1970) in
Pukhan misul 50-nyŏn
, 84. Kim Jong Il notoriously told Kim Dae Jung during the 2000 summit that women should stay home and do laundry. Ch’oi Chin-hŭi, “Puk ǔi yŏsŏng ch’abyŏl ŭn chongnyu to mant’a,”
Nkchosun.com
. August 5, 2005.

16.
The motif of a South Korean man rescuing a countrywoman from a gang of menacing foreigners has been a staple of TV dramas for decades, as in the KBS drama
Sarang handa, mian hada
(Sorry, I love you, 2004)._

17.
Kim Il Sung quoted in
Widaehan suryŏng Kim Il-sǒng tongji ǔi pulmyŏl ǔi hyŏngmyŏng ŏpchŏk
, 13. Kim Jong Il quoted in “Usuhan minjok yusan ǔi kalp’i sok esǒ,”
Ch’ǒllima
, November 2006, 87.

18.
Chosŏn taebaekkwa sajŏn
, 18:125. See for example the entry for Confucianism (yugyo) in the same source, 26:353. Whereas serious historians in South Korea do not attribute an obsession
with female modesty and chastity to all of Yi Dynasty society, but only to the Confucian
yangban
class, the North Koreans regard it as an instinct inherent to the entire race.

19.
See for example Na P’ung-man’s short story, “Kong e kittŭn iyagi,” (1975), in the anthology
Kŭm medal ǔi muge
, Pyongyang, 2006, page 30. In the visual arts the North Koreans are shown towering over insect-like Yankees, but this is of course purely symbolic.

20.
Kim is quoted in
Chosŏn taebaekkwa sajŏn
, 18:118;
“Rodong sinmun
on Korean People’s Inexhaustible Mental Power,” KCNA, January 29, 2008. The article makes clear that the Korean people’s perseverance and fighting spirit are meant, not any special intelligence.

21.
T’aeyang sungbae ǔi yŏngwŏnhan hwap’ok
, 42-44; Bratzke,
Kita Chosen ‘rakuen’ no zangai
, 109.

22.
Ryang, “The Great Mother Party” (Widaehan ŏmŏni tang),
Rodong sinmun
, October 3, 2003.

23.
The poet is Kim Ch’ǒl. See “Kŭ p’um ŭl ttǒna mot sara sǒjǒngsi ǒmǒni rŭl ŭlp’ŭmyǒ,” KCNA, October 9 2003; “ǒmǒni,”
Ch’ǒllima
, October 2005, 12-13.

24.
Fromm,
Heart of Man
, 107.

25.
Weber, “Revolution? Counterrevolution? What Revolution?” 438.

26.
Clark,
The Soviet Novel
, 15ff.

27.
This “master plot” dates back to the very beginnings of so-called “proletarian” fiction in the 1920s.

28.
“Kukchejŏk myŏnmo katchwŏganŭn P’yŏngyang yŏnghwa ch’ukchŏn,”
Nkchosun.com
, September 20, 2004.

29.
The South’s Caucasian-style ideal, in contrast, is attainable only through plastic surgery.

30.
“Nuga pwado choŭn tchalpŭn mǒri hyǒngt’ae,”
Ch’ǒllima
, Jan 2005, 97.

31.
Kongsanjuŭi todŏk
, 1995, 1:4-5.

32.
July 22, 2009. The nightly news usually closes with one or two maxims attributed to Kim Jong Il.

33.
See, for example, the short story “Transition,” which is discussed in the chapter on Kim Jong Il.

34.
This is a lyric from the song, “Let Us Venerate the Supreme Commander With Our Weapons” (
“Mujang ǔro pattǔlja, uri ǔi ch’oigo saryǒnggwan.”
)

35.
Han Sǒr-ya,
Ryŏksa
, 57.

36.
“Ttangk’ ŭ 214 ho,” 563.

37.
“Sajin sogae,”
Ch’ǒllima
, January 2005, 5-8.

38.
“Changbyǒngdŭl ǔi hwanhosǒng,”
Ch’ǒllima
, August 2006, 24.

39.
“Kunmin ilch’i ro sŭngni rŭl haja,”
Rodong sinmun
, May 26, 1998.

40.
Pauer,
Japan’s War Economy
, 2-3.

41.
The most famous North Korean film version is
Love, Love, My Love
(Sarang, sarang, nae sarang, 1984).

42.
See the film
My Happiness
(Na ǔi haengbok, 1988), which deals with a female military doctor.

43.
Kim Il Sung, “Chosǒn rodongdang che 4-ch’a taehoe esǒ,” 15:189.

44.
See for example Yi Ki-yǒng’s novel
Ttang
, 442-444, or Han Sǒr-ya’s
Charanŭn maŭl
, 265.

45.
Specific reference is made here to Ri Ryul-sŏn’s land-reclamation-themed painting
Kansŏkchi kaegan
(1961), Ch’oi Kye-gŭn’s painting
Yonghaegong
(1968), in
Pukhan misul 50-nyŏn
, pages 132 and 41 respectively, and to the film
Kalmaegi ho ch’ǒngnyǒndŭl
(1961).

46.
Toraji kkot’
, 1988,
Tosi ch’ǒ’nyǒ sijip wayo!
1993.

47.
The classic examples are Mikhail Sholokhov’s
Virgin Soil Under the Plough
(Podnyataya tselina, 1932), and Ding Ling’s
The Sun Shines Over the Sanggan River
(Taiyang zhao zai Sangganhe shang, 1948).

48.
The scene comes in the latter half of
My Happiness
(Na ǔi haengbok, 1988).

49.
Ch’ukbok hamnida
, 2001.

50.
Han Yun,
Ssiat
, 34.

51.
The novel became a bestseller in South Korea. Hong Sŏk-chung,
Hwang Jin’i
, Seoul, 2003.

52.
See
The Bellflower
(Toraji kkot’, 1988).

53.
Han Sǒr-ya, “Hugi,” in
Ch’ǒngch’un’gi
, 398.

54.
See also Paek Nam-nyong,
Pǒt
, 1988.

55.
“Sahoejuŭi hyǒnsil ǔl panyǒnghan hyǒngmyǒngjok yǒnghwa rŭl tǒ manhi ch’angjak haja,” 89.

56.
Hwang, “Tasi toraon taramjwi,”
Adong munhak
, December 2005, 42-45.

57.
Typical is
My Happiness
(Na ǔi haengbok, 1988).