Official biography of kim il-sung

American and additional United Nations military forces got involved in the conflict, with casualties from all sides, including civilian deaths, eventually reaching 1 million. The war ceased at a stalemate with a signed armistice in July As head of state, Kim continued to have an agitative relationship with South Korea, with North Korea becoming known as a highly controlled, oppressive country whose people were allowed no contact with the West.

Under a propaganda-based social fabric, Kim aimed to foster the concept of economic self-reliance and came to be known as "Great Leader. There were also hints of more peaceful relations with South Korea in the form of the Red Cross Talks. North Korea's fortunes declined during the '70s as South Korea prospered, and foreign aid from the Soviet Union ceased when the Cold War came to a close.

With concerns about North Korea's nuclear program mounting, former U. Wikimedia Commons Wikiquote Wikisource Wikidata item. This is the latest accepted revision , reviewed on 28 January Leader of North Korea from to In this Korean name , the family name is Kim. Eternal President. See list. Kim Jong Suk. Kim Song-ae. Central institution membership.

Other offices held. Early life [ edit ].

Official biography of kim il-sung

Family background [ edit ]. Communist and guerrilla activities [ edit ]. Return to Korea [ edit ]. Claims that Kim Il Sung was an impostor [ edit ]. Leader of North Korea [ edit ]. Early years [ edit ]. Korean War [ edit ]. Main article: Korean War. Consolidation of power [ edit ]. Later years [ edit ]. Death [ edit ]. Main article: Death and state funeral of Kim Il Sung.

Contributions to political theory [ edit ]. Main article: Juche. Personal life [ edit ]. See also: Kim family North Korea. Awards [ edit ]. Main article: Awards and decorations received by Kim Il Sung. Legacy [ edit ]. The official posthumous portrait of Kim Il Sung, often seen in public areas. Kim depicted as the Sun on a propaganda mural.

The given name Il-sung means 'become the Sun'. Likewise, his birthday is called " Day of the Sun ". The one of Kim Jong Il was added much later. A mural in Pyongyang of a young Kim Il Sung giving a speech. Works [ edit ]. Main article: Kim Il Sung bibliography. See also [ edit ]. Notes [ edit ]. Kim Il-sung is another common transcription in English.

References [ edit ]. Yonhap News Agency. Archived from the original on 25 May Retrieved 17 February United Kingdom: Macmillan. ISBN Academy of Korean Studies. Retrieved 7 November Archived from the original on 29 January Retrieved 6 March Retrieved 17 October Encyclopaedia Britannica Holding S. Archived from the original on 3 December Retrieved 3 January Australian Economic History Review.

ISSN New York: Columbia University Press. Retrieved 19 September Scarecrow Press. Daily NK. Archived from the original on 11 February Retrieved 15 April Beirut, Lebanon: Dar Al-talia. The DPRK yesterday and today. Informal history of North Korea. Archived from the original on 2 August Retrieved 13 May The Independent. Archived from the original on 12 May Jefferson: McFarland.

Archived from the original on 7 November Rutgers University Press. International Business Times UK. Archived from the original on 6 October Retrieved 1 October The New York Times. Archived from the original on 30 June Manchuria Under Japanese Dominion. University of Pennsylvania Press. Archived from the original on 18 May Retrieved 8 February Honolulu: The University Press of Hawaii.

Modern China. S2CID Everyday life in the North Korean revolution, — OCLC The North Korean Revolution: — Cornell University Press. Martin Thomas Dunne Books. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Korea's Twentieth-Century Odyssey. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. Korea since Melbourne: Longman Cheshire. Archived from the original on 1 June Retrieved 1 June NK News.

The Making of Modern Korea 3rd ed. London: Routledge. Archived from the original on 14 October Archived from the original on 28 May South China Morning Post. Archived from the original on 27 February Oxford University Press. The North Korean Revolution, — The Korea Times. Archived from the original on 17 April Retrieved 14 April Retrieved 8 May Archived from the original on 6 March Vladivostok News.

Archived from the original on 10 June NetEase in Chinese. Archived from the original on 24 June Retrieved 28 May New York: Little, Brown and Company. The Making of Modern Korea. Basic Books. The Korean War — The DPRK, even under Kim's grandson, remains among the most closed and repressive regime in the world. Nonetheless, when Kim died he appeared to have sought normalization of relations with the United States —its enemy from the Korean War to the present—as a means of balancing North Korea's relations with its neighbor, China , in a post-Soviet world.

Kim Il-sung, who was the world's longest-serving head of state when he died, is officially referred to as the "Great Leader" and the DPRK constitution has designated him "Eternal President. Much of the early records of Kim Il-sung's life comes from his own personal accounts and official North Korean government publications, which often conflict with independent sources.

Nevertheless, consensus exists on at least the basic story of his early life, corroborated by witnesses from the period. The deification of all things related to Kim in North Korea has obscured the exact history of Kim's family. The family always seemed close to poverty. Kim's family had strong ties to the Protestant church: His maternal grandfather served as a Protestant minister, his father had gone to a missionary school, and both his parents reportedly played very active roles in the religious community.

According to the official version, Kim's family participated in Japanese opposition activities, and, in , fled to Manchuria , where Kim became fluent in Chinese. The more likely reason his family settled in Manchuria, like many Koreans at the time, was to escape famine. Kim attended middle school in Jilin , where he rejected the feudal traditions of older generation Koreans and became interested in communist ideologies; his formal education ended when he was arrested and jailed for subversive activities.

The police discovered the group three weeks after its founding, jailing Kim for several months. Anti-Japanese Guerrilla. Kim joined various anti-Japanese guerrilla groups in northern China, and in became a member of the Northeast Anti-Japanese United Army, a guerrilla group led by the Chinese Communist Party. That same year, Kim received an appointment to serve as political commissar for the 3rd detachment of the second division, around soldiers.

Kim also took the name Kim Il-sung, meaning "become the sun. A retired Soviet army colonel who says he was instructed to prepare Kim in to lead North Korea, says Kim assumed this name while taking refuge in the Soviet Union in the early s from a former commander who had died. Kim's Rise in the Ranks. That accomplishment won Kim a measure of fame among Chinese guerrillas, and North Korean biographies later exploited the sortie as a great victory for Korea.

By the end of , Kim alone, among the only first Army leaders, survived. Pursued by Japanese troops, Kim and what remained of his army escaped by crossing the Amur River into the Soviet Union. The Communist Party of Korea, founded in , soon disbanded due to internal strife. In , Kim had joined the Chinese Communist Party. But in September , he returned to Korea with the Soviet forces, who installed and groomed him to be head of the Provisional People's Committee in the north.

During his early years as leader, especially from , he consolidated his power through purges and execution of dissident elements within the Korean Workers Party. Professional Army Established. Kim established the Korean People's Army, formed from a cadre of guerrillas and former soldiers who had gained combat experience in battles against the Japanese and later Nationalist Chinese troops.

From their ranks, using Soviet advisers and equipment, Kim constructed a large army skilled in infiltration tactics and guerrilla warfare. Before the outbreak of the Korean War, Soviet leader Joseph Stalin equipped the KPA with modern heavy tanks, trucks, artillery, and small arms at the time, the South Korean Army had nothing remotely comparable either in numbers of troops or equipment.

By , the Soviets succeeded in entrenching the communist party in the north without intention to allow democratization, and the DPRK became a client state that September. Kim Il-sung then became fixated with invading the South as means to forcibly bring unification with the American-governed southern zone which became the Republic of Korea in August , and repeatedly asked Stalin for permission and assistance to do so, which was denied until early However, as Stalin learned through his intelligence sources—verified by Secretary of State Dean Acheson 's January National Press Club speech [4] —that the United States had no intention of defending the mainland of Asia i.

He also told Kim to obtain approval from China's communist leader Mao Zedong , which was reluctantly given that May. The massive military buildup North Korea received from Stalin, and the extensive evidence of meticulous planning by Soviet military advisers, leaves no doubt that Stalin was ultimately responsible for the outbreak, as well as prolongation, of the Korean War.

When in the U. Pueblo was intercepted on a spying mission in North Korean waters, Kim managed to embarrass the United States by imprisoning the crew for 11 months. In , with nuclear material in his country, possibly a bomb or even two, Kim announced that North Korea would withdraw from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. On a visit to North Korea, former U.

President Jimmy Carter managed to ease tensions albeit controversially back home , and new United Nations talks had begun when Kim Il-sung died July 8, , in Korea, of an apparent heart attack. The depth and character of North Korea's mourning for Kim was difficult for Westerners to comprehend. It is said that every effort was made to keep Kim alive.

According to a North Korean defector, a former diplomat, a clinic had been established with the sole purpose of keeping Kim and his son, Kim Jong II alive. The clinic's staff of pharmacists, dietitians, biologists, cardiologists, pathologists, and other specialists numbered 2, Two teams of men, corresponding in age and body type to the Great Leader and his son, were used as guinea pigs for experiments with diets and drugs.

Kim Ilsung's cult of personality was such that when once he said he believed an extract of frog liver would be good for his health, volunteers from his People's Army collected 5, frogs from around the country and sent them to the presidential palace. After the mourning period, Kim was succeeded by his son, already groomed for the public as the Dear Leader.

In addition, consult Edwin O. Reischauer, John K. Fairbank, and Albert M. Cite this article Pick a style below, and copy the text for your bibliography. January 8, Retrieved January 08, from Encyclopedia. Then, copy and paste the text into your bibliography or works cited list. Because each style has its own formatting nuances that evolve over time and not all information is available for every reference entry or article, Encyclopedia.

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