Baik Bong () is a North Korean author known for writing the official

biography A biography, or simply bio, is a detailed description of a person's life. It involves more than just basic facts like education, work, relationships, and death; it portrays a person's experience of these life events. Unlike a profile or curri ...

Kim Il Sung Kim Il Sung (born Kim Song Ju; 15 April 1912 – 8 July 1994) was a North Korean politician and the founder of North Korea, which he led as its first Supreme Leader (North Korean title), supreme leader from North Korea#Founding, its establishm ...

Biography of Kim Il Sung

The first comprehensive

was published in Korean in North Korea in 1968. It was called ''Minjogŭi t'aeyang Kim Il-sŏng changgun'' (''Sun of the People, General Kim Il Sung''). Although it was most likely written by a collective, it appeared under the name of Baik Bong. Before that,

hagiography A hagiography (; ) is a biography of a saint or an ecclesiastical leader, as well as, by extension, an adulatory and idealized biography of a preacher, priest, founder, saint, monk, nun or icon in any of the world's religions. Early Christian ...

of Kim Il Sung had been identified with Han Sorya, but after he was purged, hagiography conventionally no longer appeared under the name of any one author. Baik's biography was published by the party in two volumes. It covered Kim Il Sung's life up to the end of 1967. That biography was translated into English in three volumes under the title ''Kim Il Sung Biography'' and was published by a Japanese publishing house. The first volume is titled ''From Birth to Triumphant Return to Homeland'', the second volume ''From Building Democratic Korea to Chullima Flight'', and the third volume ''From Independent National Economy to 10-Point Political Programme''. It has since become "the standard DPRK biography" of Kim Il Sung. In 1970, the three volumes were published in French by the Jeune Afrique Edition publishing house in Paris. A new version of Baik's biography was published in August 1972 as ''Ilyu haebang ŭi kusŏng Kim Il-sŏng wŏnsu'' (''Marshal Kim Il Sung, Liberator of Mankind''), prompted by the fact that the nascent ''

Juche ''Juche'', officially the ''Juche'' idea, is a component of Ideology of the Workers' Party of Korea#Kimilsungism–Kimjongilism, Kimilsungism–Kimjongilism, the state ideology of North Korea and the official ideology of the Workers' Party o ...

'' ideology had now been attributed to Kim Il Sung from his youth, which had to be written into the story. During the 1970s, Pyongyang intensified its massive campaign to publish the works and feats of Kim Il Sung in several languages in order to promote its ''Juche'' ideology throughout the world (and in the

Third World The term Third World arose during the Cold War to define countries that remained non-aligned with either NATO or the Warsaw Pact. The United States, Canada, Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, the Southern Cone, NATO, Western European countries and oth ...

in particular).

Factual accuracy

Baik devoted much of his work in the official biography to recount Kim Il Sung's struggle against the Japanese occupiers. The factual accuracy of many such anti-Japanese tales has been questioned. Baik also omits any mention of Kim Il Sung's association with the Northeastern People's Revolutionary Army. It has also been suggested that "Baik Bong" is a pseudonym and that the writer lives in Japan.

Works

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References

Works cited

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Baik, Bong 20th-century biographers Year of birth missing Kim Il Sung 21st-century North Korean writers Possibly living people 20th-century North Korean writers