Abstract On August 22, 1945 the Ukushima-maru set sail from the northern Japanese port city of Ōminato with the apparent intention of delivering an undisclosed number of Koreans to Pusan, Korea. The laborers had been both recruited and conscripted for construction work necessary to fortify the naval base that had been strategically located in this…
There are various ways in which it is possible to talk about ‘Translating Korean Poetry’, it might be best to combine several in this paper. First, I will evoke some of the earliest pioneers in the field and then put on record some of the main stages in my own career as a translator. Next,…
Abstract In March 1958, delegates from across North Korea met in the National Art Theatre in Pyongyang for the First Conference of the Korean Worker’s Party. To date, it has an event largely overlooked by South Korean and Western historians of North Korea because of a lack of source material. The newly unearthed official minutes,…
Abstract Despite Chosŏn Korea having been nicknamed the ‘Hermit Kingdom’ by the American William Elliot Griffis in 1882, Englishmen had already been there in the early half of the nineteenth century. This paper considers three journeys by westerners to the Korean peninsula in 1816, 1832 and 1845, utilizing these explorers’ travel diaries to analyze lifestyles…
Abstract In current day South Korea pseudohistory pertaining to early Korea and northern East Asia has reached epidemic proportions. Its advocates argue the early state of Chosŏn to have been an expansive empire centered on mainland geographical Manchuria. Through rationalizing interpretations of the traditional Hwan’ung- Tan’gun myth, they project back the supposed antiquity and pristine…
Abstract The present article deals with one of the attempts by South Korea’s privileged stratum to undermine the very basis for any criticisms against the colonial-age behaviour of its institutional—and in many cases familial—forefathers, namely the so-called New Right movement. Simultaneously an academic and political movement, it was launched in 2004 and had been acting…
Abstract One scenario put forward by researchers, political commentators and journalists for the collapse of North Korea has been a People’s Power (or popular) rebellion. This paper analyses why no popular rebellion has occurred in the DPRK under Kim Jong Un. It challenges the assumption that popular rebellion would happen because of widespread anger caused…
Abstract This study attempts to shed light on how missionaries marginalized the role played by local Koreans engaged in the translation of an evangelical tract, The Peep of Day (1833), into Korean by comparing the English source text with its Chinese and Korean translations. The subjects of comparison for this exercise were the translators’ choice…
Abstract The Ŭnhasu Orchestra was a major North Korean ensemble in 2009–2013. It was established by Kim Jong Il (Kim Chŏng’il, 김정일) and was composed of young musicians and singers of both genders, several of them having studied in foreign higher educational institutions in countries like Austria, Italy, Russia and China. Its members represented the…
Introduction Since the 1990s, when previously classified and top secret Russian archival documents on the Korean War became open and accessible, it has become clear for post-communist countries that Kim Il Sung, Stalin and Mao Zedong were the primary organizers of the war. It is now equally certain that tensions arising from Soviet and American…