[KS] War graves in socialist countries

[Heonik Kwon]

Ruediger made a great point about comparing North Korean war commemoration 
to mortuary arts developed in other pasts of the former socialist  bloc. 
Very little is written on this matter and I agree that this will be a very 
promising topic to talk about.

In general, I think there are no institutional bases in former socialist 
states that are remotely comparable to British Commonwealth War Graves 
Commission or the equivalent organization in the U.S. Maybe it is that only 
real empires have the means and the will to take real care of the bodies of 
their fallen. Or maybe the difference relates to technological inequality: 
all German soldiers wore identication tags (dog tags) during WWII, the 
bodies of Soviet soldiers being exhumed now in Germany show no such gadgets. 
Philosophy also may have played a part in that revolutionary states tried to 
go beyond the traditional, backward obsessions about funerals and religious 
rituals, and that they cared more about life-centered, deathless, secular, 
forward-looking, militantly enlightened view of human condition. Of course, 
Vietnam is a radical exception on this matter.

heonik