[KS] request for help to verify a birth date

[Frank Hoffmann]

Hi :

There are several authors pointing to 1902 as her year of birth.
Hô Chông-suk's far famous father, the leftist 
lawyer Hô Hôn, a native of North Hamgyông 
Province, was only born in 1885. That would make 
him only 16 or 17 when he became Chông-suk's 
father. At that time it would have been a quite 
common case, as boys were still being married at 
rather young age.

Hô Chông-suk's younger sister, Hô Kûn-uk, went to 
the South during the Korean War and had a career 
as a writer here. Her article "My father Hô Hôn 
and my older sister Hô Chông-suk" appeared in 
_Yôksa pip'yông_, two years after Sô Hyông-sil's 
1992 piece on Hô Chông-suk, in the same journal 
(_Yôksa pip'yông_, vol. 19, 1992, pp. 278-287, 
and vol. 26, 1994, pp. 211-232). I only have the 
Sô article in front of me. Sô is pretty decisive 
about the birth date and place: 1902 in Myông-jôn 
in North Hamgyông Province -- and then goes on 
about her communist activities right from the 
beginning of the 1920s. Of course, if she were 
born in 1908, then that would make her a very 
youthful heroine, probably too young for her 
activities.

In any case, I suppose her own sister should get 
the year right ... writing from South Korea after 
her sister's death, and under no pressure to see 
her sister compete with Kim Il Sung in terms of 
youthful heroism. But I don't have vol. 26 of 
_Yôksa pip'yông_ at hand -- maybe someone else on 
the list has.

http://www.dbpia.co.kr/view/ar_view.asp?arid=8974



Best,
Frank


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Frank Hoffmann
http://koreaweb.ws