The Prosody of Working and the Narrative of Martyrdom: Daily Life and Death in North Korean Literature during the Great Famine and the Early Military-First Age (1994–2002)

Abstract

The government of Kim Jong Il (Kim Chŏngil) modified the meaning and purpose of during the North Korean famine and the early Military-First period (1994–2002). During the economic recession after the Soviet bloc collapsed, the North Korean government was incapable of providing material rewards to workers. Thus, the state attempted to transform labor into a spiritual rather than material practice. Despite the shortage of material resources and energy, the regime had to make the workers stay in their workplaces to maintain social stability. At that time, North Korean fiction often described people who worked for spiritual enlightenment rather than for material gain. In the novel and historical prose of this period, protagonists work not for their livelihoods, but for their honorable death; they voluntarily martyred themselves for their country, party, and leader Kim Jong Il. This study explores Song Sangwŏn’s Ch’onggŏm ŭl tŭlgo (Taking up bayonets) (2002) to examine how North Koreans worked, lived, and died at the turn of the twentieth century.