SEOUL - In August 2007, North Korea
suffered severe flooding. Kang Hyong-kwon, a
factory worker from the city of Ich'on, was trying
to make his way to safety through a dangerous
stream. While leaving his flooded house, he took
the two most precious things in his life - his
five-year-old daughter and portraits of Leaders
Generalissimo Kim Il-sung and Marshal Kim Jong-il
(or so was reported in the North Korean media a
few days later).
Suddenly overwhelmed by
the current, he lost grip of his daughter, who
fell into the swollen waters, but he still managed
to keep hold of the sacred images. The next month,
Kang Hyong-kwon's devotion was widely reported by
the official media, and North Koreans were
extolled to emulate Kang Hyong-kwon, a real-life
hero.
North Korea is a country of
personality cults. Many would
probably even say that
this is the country of personality cults gone mad.
Many states in the 20th century went to
remarkable extremes in extolling the virtues of
their supreme leaders. Perhaps, since the times of
the late Roman Empire or even ancient Egypt, the
world has not seen personality cults reaching such
heights. Nonetheless, North Korea still stands out
- even if compared with such remarkable places as
Mao Zedong's China or Joseph Stalin's Russia.
Perhaps no other item is as important to a
North Korean personality cult as portraits of the
Kim family leaders - the Great Leader
Generalissimo Kim Il-sung, his son the Dear Leader
Marshall (posthumously promoted to Generalissimo)
Kim Jong-il, and the newly anointed Supreme Leader
Kim Jong-eun, Jong-il's son.
The portraits
of Kim Il-sung - the founder of the North Korean
state and its ruling dynasty - have been
ubiquitous in North Korea since the 1940s. That
said, in the early 1970s, North Korea began to
take the personality cult to new heights and this
was reflected in the treatment of the Great
Leader's visage.
In earlier times, the
portraits could be found largely in government
offices, military units and schools. But around
1972, it was decreed that every living room in
every single Korean house should have a portrait
of the Great Leader.
No diversity or
creativity could be tolerated in such a solemn
undertaking. All North Koreans were issued the
same standard portrait of the Great Leader.
There were rules as to how these portraits
should be treated. First, a portrait should be
hung on a wall which had no other adornments or
pictures. Preferably, a portrait of the Great
Fatherly Leader should be placed in the middle of
the wall as well.
Apart from individual
homes, portraits of Kim Il-sung had to be
displayed in all offices, class rooms and military
installations. A special large portrait of the
Generalissimo (to be more correct, back in the
1970s he still just a humble Marshall) greeted the
visitors of every industrial facility, since it
had to be placed above the doors of the main
entrance. The portraits were also placed above the
entrance of all train stations and at the sole
single-purpose civilian airport.
The same
standard portraits were also to be placed in
trains, but for reasons which remain unclear, not
in cars or buses.
Interestingly enough,
Pyongyang's subway cars were seemingly considered
to be a special case and were also equipped with
the portraits, unlike any other public transport
in the capital Pyongyang (perhaps, on assumption
that subway was, essentially, a railway which went
underground).
The use of the past tense in
the above description might be somewhat misleading
since these regulations are still in force. But
the number of portraits has since increased, so
the rules governing them have become more
intricate and complex.
In 1974, Kim
Jong-il was made the politburo member - and all
people in the know instantly understood that a
dynastic transition, first in the history of the
communist bloc, was to be launched. The official
media soon initiated a campaign aimed at Kim
Jong-il's deification. From the mid-1970s, North
Korean populace were issued standards portraits of
Kim Jong-il, to be hung next to the picture of his
father.
Interestingly enough, until the
mid-1980s, portraits of the younger Kim were not
normally displayed in offices or public places.
Obviously this was a way to show (as if someone
would believe it) that the admiration for the new
"genius of leadership, lodestar of the 20th
century" was essentially a spontaneous movement,
enrolling from below and not forced by
officialdom.
It was only around 1986 that
portraits of Kim Jong-il become an obligatory
feature of offices, train carriages and military
barracks.
Another type of portrait can be
found at the major crossroads and city squares.
Those pictures are less standard and depict Kim
Il-sung and/or Kim Jong-il being engaged in some
activities. They lead guerrillas to a battle
against the brutal Japanese, encourage soldiers
who are fighting US aggression, or conduct
on-the-spot-guidance in factories or mines.
These pictures are large, some four meters
in height, and are painted on the specially
constructed cement walls, complete with some
protection from the rain.
The style of
drawing is, predictably, socialist realism, but
the technical quality of these large murals is
quite impressive. One should not be surprised,
though: the Great Leader and his family members
can be depicted only by the employees of Mansudae
Art Studio, who have to pass harsh tests to be
admitted there.
The current image of Kim
Il-sung used in these portraits was made official
in 1994, soon after his death. The 1994 standard
portrait is officially known as the "image of the
sun" (as every North Korean knows Generalissimo
Kim Il-sung is the "sun of the nation").
Unlike the portraits of a stern-looking
Kim Il-sung used in the 1980s and before, in the
"image of the sun", the late Generalissimo is
depicted as smiling and happy. Following the
established tradition, a few weeks ago the North
Korean authorities began to replace the old
portraits of recently dead Kim Jong-il with new
ones which closely resembles the "image of the
sun". Kim Jong-il is also shown with shining
smile, an embodiment of joy and happiness.
In the early 1990s, there was another step
in the proliferation of portraits. Nowadays, North
Koreans are expected to display not two pictures,
but three. Two pictures were the same portraits of
Generalissimo and Marshall Kims, but the third was
different from house to house.
The exact
composition of the small family altar depends on
the official standing of the house's occupants.
Commoners are issued with a picture of Kim, father
and son, busy discussing matters of statecraft.
People with some status in the official hierarchy
are instead issued with a picture of Kim Jong-suk,
the long-dead mother of Kim Jong-il and the first
wife of Kim il-sung (well, she might have actually
been his second wife, but we will not go into
excessive details here).
The portrait of
the three was known as "The Three Generals of the
Paektu Mountain". The image of the "Three
Generals" is proudly displayed by socially
ambitious Koreans as proof of their earthly
success. Some entrepreneurial North Koreans sell
the triple set on the black market, with buyers
would use it to hint at their high official
standing and importance. In the earlier times such
things would not be tolerated by the authorities,
but amidst the social disintegration of the last
two decades, it is possible to do it with relative
impunity.
So far, the assent of Kim
Jong-eun has not led to the emergence of his
portrait in the dwellings of the North Korean
commoners. But one might suspect that this is
merely a matter of time: Kim Jong-il died
unexpectedly, and his successor has had little
time to promote his greatness.
One type of
portrait is on badges which, from 1972, have been
worn by all adult North Koreans. These badges
usually depict Kim Il-sung, but there is also a
rare type of badge which depicts Kim Il-sung and
Kim Jong-il side-by-side in two separate
portraits, placed on the same badge (there is also
an extremely rare badge that depicts Kim Jong-il
alone).
Badges are distributed through the
workplace and since more privileged workplaces -
like, say, party institutions - are issued their
own particular type of badges, an experienced
observer can guess the official association and
approximate position of a North Korean simply by
looking at his/her badge.
Badges are not
for sale, and most of the badges that can be found
as collectables overseas are actually Chinese
fakes produced for South Korean and Western
tourists. A few years ago, the old rules were
slightly relaxed and now only party members are
required to wear their badges all day round. But
most North Koreans still remain suspicious of this
relaxation and believe it to be safer to continue
to display proof of their continued loyalty.
Portraits are treated with great
reverence, and stories of heroes who risked or
even sacrificed their lives to save the sacred
visage are a staple in North Korean media.The
self-sacrificial behavior of Kang Hyong-kwon was
already mentioned above, but similar stories are
reported frequently.
Some of these stories
might be fakes, to be sure, but one cannot rule
out that some North Koreans indeed risk their
lives to protect the images (after all, true
believers did save icons from burning churches).
In 2003, South Koreans, then full of
sympathy towards their Northern brethren, were
given a subject lesson in ways of how visage of
the leaders should be treated. At the time, a
group of North Korean cheerleaders were
participating in the Universiade in the South
Korean city of Daegu. This was a rare visit, so
the girls were widely admired and instantly became
darlings of the South Korean public.
However, one day, when being driven in
buses, they noticed a picture which depicted Dear
Leader Marshall Kim Jong-il talking to a South
Korean president. To their outrage, the picture -
obviously placed by some enthusiastic
reconciliation-minded South Koreans - was hung
improperly and was exposed to the rain.
The girls screamed and demanded the driver
to stop the bus immediately. Then the busloads
(there were a few buses) of beauties - much to the
shock and amusement of onlookers - rushed to the
picture and "saved" it, as good North Koreans
should do. One can doubt to what extent the girls
were sincere at that moment, but there is little
doubt that they followed the official code of
behavior. The girls reacted very similarly in each
bus.
Deliberately destroying a portrait or
even seriously damaging it, needless to say,
constitutes a grave political crime. Surprisingly,
some mild neglect in portrait maintenance - like
failing to dust the pictures every day - is not
seen as a big deal, therefore many Koreans can
mention this during their regular weekly
self-criticism sessions when North Koreans are
supposed to admit some wrongdoings (needless to
say they always admit only the least dangerous
infractions).
There is little doubt that
the Kim family regime cannot last forever. But
even if it will collapse in the near future (and
this is not particularly likely) it will still
mean that at least two generations of Koreans have
spent a most of their lives under the gaze of
Generalissimo and Marshall Kim Jong-il.
Andrei Lankov is an associate
professor at Kookmin University in Seoul, and
adjunct research fellow at the Research School of
Pacific and Asian Studies, Australian National
University. He graduated from Leningrad State
University with a PhD in Far Eastern history and
China, with emphasis on Korea. He has published
books and articles on Korea and North Asia.
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