[KS] Kim Il Sung children's stories...

Ross King king1775 at shaw.ca
Wed Jun 5 12:20:29 EDT 2002


Hi Keith:

>Does anybody on the list have details of the children's stories Kim Il 
>Sung (possibly with Kim Jong Il) is alleged to have written? I have been 
>trying to find a reference and any details about such ventures for some 
>time...and any help would be much appreciated.

This won't be a lot of help, but two of these stories are featured on North 
Korean postage stamps in the 1970s. The first to get its own set of 
commemorative stamps was the story "A cock chasing a butterfly," 
illustrated in cartoon style on North Korean postage stamps nos. 1148-1153 
(1973; the numbers are from the North Korean Korean Stamp Catalogue 
(1946-1998)). The captions read:

1148: Cock appearing in the village of butterflies
1149: Butterflies discussing how to repulse cock
1150: Cock chasing butterfly
1151: Butterfly luring the cock
1152: Cock faced with danger
1153: Cock drowned

This set of 6 got a detailed, two-page write-up in Korean Stamps, nos. 
11-12 (1974, pp. 24-25). The article starts: "Featured in the stamps are 
scenes from the fable "A Cock Chasing a Butterfly" authored by the great 
revolutionary leader Comrade Kim Il Sung and told to the men of the Korean 
People's Revolutionary Army during the Anti-Japanese armed struggle.
         Through a fight between a butterfly and a cock, the leader 
explained that the victory in a fighting could never be won only by the 
might of strength, but it could be attained by wisdom, determination and 
skilled strategy..."

The second story is commemorated in another set of 4 stamps from 1979 
titled "Story about Two Generals"  (nos. 1785-1788). The captions read:

1785: Game of military arts
1786: Game of sending feather of chicken over fence
1787: Two generals smashing Japanese invaders
1788: Two generals returning in triumph

This set, too, got a two-page write-up in Korean Stamps (1980, no 2, pp. 
22-23, but I seem to have only p. 22). The write-up begins: "This story was 
told personally by the great leader Comrade Kim Il Sung.
         Upon a time [sic] there were two villages called Torae and Naru in 
a coastal area of our country. Engaged both in fishing and farming, the 
people of village Torae and village Naru lived intimately.
         And, one day they were informed of the fact that the overseas 
robbers were making preparations for attacking the villages. Then the 
villagers began to make preparations to defend their homeland from the 
enemy's invasion..."

Philatelically yours,
Ross King

PS My Eudora 'Miss Manners' censoring function really would have preferred 
'rooster' in the North Koreans' translations!
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://koreanstudies.com/pipermail/koreanstudies_koreanstudies.com/attachments/20020605/312e9fb3/attachment.html>


More information about the Koreanstudies mailing list