Korean War Research Articles

Empty old graves of the Korean War Hill Fight

The Hill Fight of the Korean War constitutes an important chapter of the formative military conflict of the mid-twentieth century where the South Korean and other UN forces confronted the Chinese and North Korean forces. Currently, it has become a vital site of contested memory, especially in relation to the growing contest of power between the United States and the People’s Republic of China. Describing South Korea’s recent initiative of missing in action (MIA)/killed in action (KIA) accounting activities on these old battlegrounds since 2000, this article looks at how public actions concerning the remains of war are intertwined with changing geopolitical conditions. This will be followed by a reflection on the limits of the prevailing art and technology of war-remains accounting.

The Soviet “Struggle for Peace,” the United Nations, and the Korean War

Abstract Before the Second World War the Soviet Union had been an isolated pariah state, but by the end of the war it had emerged as one of the world's two superpowers. Yet, the founding of the United Nations (UN) in October 1945 brought a new round of international isolation for the USSR, as a Western majority dominated the UN General Assembly during the first ten years of the organization's existence. This article focuses on the Soviet Union's attempt to overcome the Western-led majority during the Korean War, when the Soviet-backed World Peace Council became embroiled in an orchestrated propaganda campaign spreading false allegations that the United States had used biological weapons in Korea. Soviet officials used this campaign to try to discredit both the United States and Not until after the death of Joseph Stalin did Soviet policymakers curtail their support for the baseless allegations, though in public they refrained from acknowledging the falsity of the earlier claims.

From Irreconcilable Momentum to Establishment of Diplomatic Relations and Cooperation: On the Different Stages of Relationship Transformation between China and the United States after World War II

After experiencing the brutal and arduous Second World War, China and the United States, who fought alongside their allies during World War II, shifted their relationship from alliance to hostility due to their own interests, and continued to deteriorate after the Korean War in the 1950s, experiencing more than 20 years of complex international confrontation. During this period of more than 20 years, China and the United States continued to confront and conflict due to the Cold War and their own interests. However, in the end, due to their respective interests and considerations of national strategic planning, they shook hands and made peace, eventually moving towards normalization and peaceful establishment of diplomatic relations.

Review: The Korean War Remembered: Contested Memories of an Unended Conflict, by Michael J. Devine

Review: <i>The Korean War Remembered: Contested Memories of an Unended Conflict</i>, by Michael J. Devine

The Battle at Lake Changjin: The Influence of Korean War Memory on Contemporary Chinese War Films

Abstract The 2021 film The Battle at Lake Changjin (长津湖) is China’s highest-grossing film. Together with its sequel, its success as a political tool rests on appealing to a broad audience while engaging with familiar themes embedded in collective memory. The Chinese Communist Party, which commissioned the films, leveraged preexisting tropes regarding the conflict and repackaged them for a modern audience. This paper will proceed in three parts. First, it will trace the deliberate development of collective memory of the conflict from its inception up to President Xi Jinping’s gaining power in 2012. Next, it will explore the new emphasis on the Korean War in the 2010s and 2020s, and the political objectives Xi seeks to achieve by propagandizing the Korean War. Finally, it will provide a thematic analysis of the films and how the intended political messaging interacted with the embedded collective memory.

Women Playwrights at the Crossroads: A Comparative Study of Ireland and Korea in the Mid-Twentieth Century

This paper examines plays by Irish and Korean women playwrights whose work is often neglected in their national canons and in the male-dominated theatre scene of the mid-twentieth century. The cases of Ireland and Korea overlap in compelling ways with discussions of modernity that are being reconstructed from the perspectives of colonial subjugation (under Britain and Japan) and wartime experience (in the Irish Civil War of 1922-23 and Korean War of 1950-53). There is a close relationship between these women writers’ marginalised place in their respective countries’ literary and theatrical scene and the process of Irish and Korean modernisation. The paper conducts a comparative analysis of works by Teresa Deevy, Kim Ja-rim, Maura Laverty and Jeon Ok-joo, highlighting the various thematic, political and formal strategies that these playwrights adopted at a time when their nations were ‘at the crossroads’. Against the grand narratives of ‘the nation’, women playwrights focused on depicting the aesthetics of daily life, emphasising aspects that had been neglected or marginalised in the discourse of modernity/coloniality. They dismantled clichés of dutiful wives and pacifist mothers, choosing instead to create complex and authentic depictions of femininity, endowing their female characters with a potent political voice in the public sphere. By reassessing their plays from a transnational feminist perspective, the paper seeks to expand feminist discourses in both Irish and Korean theatre history. 

Witnessing a War of Others, 1958-2022: Memory Practices of Colombian Veterans and Descendants of the Korean War (1950-1954)

Objective/Context: Based on the categories of practices and social frameworks of memory, this article analyses the testimonies of ex-combatants and descendants of the Batallón Colombia, a contingent of the Colombian Army that participated in the Korean War (1950-1954). It reconstructs the contexts in which these narratives of the past were produced, the public they addressed and their transformations over time. The analysis covers the period between 1958, when the first veterans’ association was founded, and the collection of testimonies in 2021 and 2022. Methodology: To account for the above, we used qualitative techniques, such as memory workshops and interviews with ex-combatants and relatives identified through the associations of veterans and family members or descendants. Originality: The research is based on aspects that are not usually contemplated by historiography, such as testimonial analysis, which shows how ex-combatants and descendants describe their participation in the Korean War, the enunciation places of their stories, the changing historical contexts in which they move and the uses of these ways of naming the past. Conclusions: The analysis allows us to account for the historicity and transformation of how direct and indirect witnesses of this war—whose memories do not play an important role in the public debate—narrate the past and show the role of identity and social demand played by the testimonies in forming social organizations.

Technology diplomacy in early Communist China: the visit to the Jingjiang Flood Diversion Project in 1952.

This article focuses on the 1952 visit to the Jingjiang Flood Diversion Project, the first large-scale water infrastructure built on the Yangzi river after the founding of the People's Republic of China, by a foreign delegation from the Asia-Pacific Peace Conference. Serving as a form of technology diplomacy, this trip advanced two main purposes for the newly established country - to build up closer ties with 'foreign friends' who advocated international peace in the context of the Korean War, and to demonstrate China's own technical capabilities and achievements as part of the national campaign of 'peaceful construction' of the early 1950s. I argue that vernacular technologies, which were grounded in indigenous knowledge and practices for water control in the mid-Yangzi region, were essential in shaping China's self-reliant modernization and China's public diplomacy, which targeted individuals without scientific or technical backgrounds.

What Was the Repatriation Controversy at the End of the Korean War?

What Was the Repatriation Controversy at the End of the Korean War?

The Excavation of the Remains of Soldiers Killed in the Korean War: Implications and International Cooperation

The main purpose of this article is to explore the significance of the objectives by focusing on activity theory, as well as the legal and institutional establishment of the Ministry of National Defense (MND) Agency for KIA Recovery &amp; Identification (MAKRI), the subject of the Korean War remains excavation project, and the implications of expanding the excavation of remains in the DMZ and the repatriation of the remains of US and UN soldiers on the 70th anniversary of the Armistice Agreement. The excavation project, which began in 2000, aimed to build public trust by realizing the noble will of national unlimited responsibility that “the state is responsible for those sacrificed for the country forever.” Thus, it has allowed social integration beyond ideological and generational conflicts. It expanded the issue of excavating remains from South Korea to Arrowhead Hill and White Horse Hill in the DMZ area under the September 19 Inter‐Korean Military Agreement in 2018. Also, the ROK–US MOU was signed in 2000 in terms of international cooperation in the excavation of remains and carries out joint identification and repatriation of remains. The repatriation of the remains of Chinese troops and the remains of UN combatant countries has important implications for strengthening military diplomacy in legal and humanitarian aspects.

The Impact of U.S. Foreign Aids on the Post-War Development of South Korea

The United States mainly exerted influence on the stability of the Korean regime and the historical development of the Korean Peninsula from the two aspects of military and economic aid, thus enabling the post-war Korean society to establish rapid development into a capitalist country. The topic of this article is how Syngman Rhee's government shaped South Korea's postwar development through U.S. foreign aid during and after the Korean War. The actions and decisions of the U.S. and South Korean governments during and after the Korean War influenced the path of development in Korea. The study found that the United States has aided South Korea both militarily and economically. The reason South Korea receives aid is for national reconstruction, political stability, and economic stability. Syngman Rhee's government maximized the use of foreign aid for these three goals and established the authority of its political position while achieving social development in South Korea.

Adult children in Canadian military families (1950–91): Balancing demands with capabilities

LAY SUMMARY The focus of this study was on family and community. Interviews with 23 adult children of Canadian Armed Forces Veterans who served between the Korean War and the Gulf War suggested key capabilities were developed that supported them in meeting demands and contributed to adaptation over the course of their lives. Living on military bases was identified as a significant resource shaping identities, intensifying bonds with others who also grew up as military children in that era. Participants shared insights on how their experiences could inform contemporary military family support programs and policies.

Japanese popular songs brought home: Histories and current circulations of post-Second World War audible souvenirs from US military bases in East Asia

This article focuses on the transpacific circulations of Japanese popular songs alongside touring American military personnel in East Asia between 1945 and 1958: that is, from the end of the Second World War, across the span of the Korean War, and up to the year of the American ground forces’ withdrawal from ‘mainland’ Japan. By first tracing the trans-oceanic travels of musical souvenirs such as phonograph records and music boxes, and then by delving into their ‘afterlives’ as ex-souvenirs variously lost or preserved, this article reveals the seemingly minor yet no less significant histories and memories of musical objects containing within them the traces of post-war Japanese popular song. Over this period, musical souvenirs entered into postwar American households with returning military personnel, imparting to family and friends an auditory sensation of ‘Japan’ that carried with it the fantasy of knowing a place and culture that lay far across the Pacific. Although many of the Japanese pop songs contained therein lost their ‘souvenir’ status in the late 1960s, their recent revival via transnational online media suggests new ways of re-‘discovering’ and circulating a wealth of music that might have otherwise fallen into obscurity.

South Korea and North Korea: Differences in Ideology and Their Impact on War

This article analyzes the ideological differences between South Korea and North Korea and their impact on war, especially the Korean War (1950-1953). South Korea adheres to the ideology of liberal democracy and capitalism, while North Korea practices the ideology of Juche, socialism and autonomy. These differences have deepened conflict on the Korean Peninsula, reaching its peak in the Korean War. The impact is felt to this day with military tensions in the DMZ. Despite this, reconciliation efforts have been made, offering hope for peace in the region. This research was conducted descriptively using a literature study which was then analyzed to identify ideological differences between South Korea and North Korea and their impact on the war.

The Intersection between Diplomatic Security and Cooperation: South Korea’s Veteran Diplomacy toward Türkiye

The article attempts to probe veteran diplomacy with the case of Türkiye and adopts its meaning from the distinct historical case of the Korean War. Veteran diplomacy gets attention as a means of new diplomacy as the changes in global political and economic order have brought limitations to state-centric diplomatic relations since the late 20th century. Veteran diplomacy can be utilized as an opportunity to expand South Korea’s soft power in the new public diplomacy era of the 21st century. It engages diverse diplomatic actors and interacts with war veterans of the UN allied nations based on diplomatic security policies. It led to the effect of public diplomacy via open and multilateral communication between the countries and creating amicable and favorable environments to strengthen ties as well as improve South Korea’s reputation in international society. It also paves the way for security cooperation with Türkiye.

Genetic identification of human remains from the Korean War.

The genetic identification of skeletal remains from Chinese People's Volunteers (CPVs) of the Korean War has been challenging because of the degraded DNA samples and the lack of living close relatives. This study established a workflow for identifying CPVs by combining Y-chromosome short tandem repeats (Y-STRs), mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) hypervariable regions I and II, autosomal STRs (aSTRs), and identity-informative SNPs (iiSNPs). A total of 20 skeletal remains of CPVs and 46 samples from their alleged relatives were collected. The success rate of DNA extraction from human remains was 100%. Based on Y-STRs, six remains shared the same male lineages with their alleged relatives. Meanwhile, mtDNA genotyping supports two remains sharing the same maternal lineages with their alleged relatives. Likelihood ratios (LRs) were further obtained from 27 aSTRs and 94 iiSNPs or 1936 iiSNPs to confirm their relationship. All joint pedigree LRs were >100. Finally, six remains were successfully identified. This pilot study for the systematic genetic identification of CPVs from the Korean War can be applied for the large-scale identification of CPVs in the future.

Beyond trauma: Positive postmemories among second- and third-generation North Korean war refugees

In this article, I discuss how children and grandchildren of North Korean war refugees who were displaced during the Korean War construct identity and belonging in relation to their North Korean heritage. Drawing from the concept of postmemory, I examine how their northern heritage is experienced, constructed, mediated, and even solidified across generations who did not directly experience the Korean War. Unlike existing literature that predominantly focuses on the traumatic aspects of postmemory, I found that one’s construction of postmemory also encompasses positive family memories. These affirming memories exist alongside traumatic ones, countering the overdetermined paradigm of trauma across memory studies. Thus, I propose alternative ways of remembering that capture a nuanced understanding of how the second and third generations construct positive postmemories alongside the traumatic memories of their ancestors.

Identifying Guarantors of War Veterans Using Robust-SEAL: A Case of the Korean War

Most countries provide veterans with various benefits to reward their sacrifice. Unfortunately, many veterans have failed to prove their status due to loss of military records. Thus, some governments allow the verification of those veterans through "buddy statements" obtained from the people who can vouch for the buddy's participation in the war. However, it is still challenging for veterans to find guarantors directly. With this background, we suggest to utilizing historical war records of combined operations to increase the pool of potential guarantors for the buddy statements. However, a combined operation network among troops can have missing edges and perturbations on attributes of the troop due to inaccurate information. In this study, we learn from some recorded interactions which might be incomplete and noisy, and predict missing linkages among the troops that might have interacted together in the war, by proposing Robust-SEAL (learning from Subgraphs, Embeddings, and Attributes for Link prediction). It combines two Graph Neural Network (GNN) architectures: robust Graph Convolutional Network which considers the uncertainty of node attributes with a probabilistic approach, and SEAL which improves the expressive power of the GNN with a labeling trick. Our proposed approach was applied to Korean War data with perturbations. For experimentations, we hid some actual interactions and found that Robust-SEAL restores missing interactions better than other GNN-based baselines.

Joseon-Soviet Culture (Jo Sso Munhwa) and Baek Seok’s translation

ABSTRACT Baek Seok, who returned to his hometown Jeongju via Manchuria after 1940, is a poet who experienced liberation of Korea from Japanese colonial rule (1945) and the Korean War (1950) in North Korea. During this period, he worked on translation rather than creating poetry. For this reason, researchers who attempt to examine Baek’s activities during his time in North Korea have focused on discovering and studying his translation works. As this article will elaborate, during the mid-twentieth century after his return home, Baek Seok also published a large number of translated poems in Joseon-Soviet Culture (Jo Sso Munhwa), the journal of the Joseon-Soviet Culture Association. Joseon-Soviet Culture, which was published from 1946 to 1963, is a major channel for investigating how North Korea’s so-called “official” literature was established through the influence of the Soviet Union. Baek Seok’s translation works have been largely understood as “indirect writing” during the period when creation was directly and indirectly banned. It is expected that, by reviewing various translations by Baek in Joseon-Soviet Culture, Baek’s literary activities in North Korea before writing freely was banned, can be confirmed more empirically. In this article, I will show how Baek Seok’s literary longing during this period can be traced through the analysis of his translated poem I want to say to you “You are my wife!”  … by Konstantin Simonov. I argue that this poem shares an atmosphere similar to Baek’s existing creative poetry and translation practices are linked to reading practices.

The Checkpoint of History: Testimony and Intertextuality in the Documentary Literature of the Korean War, 1960s–1970s

Abstract Korean War literature has historically encompassed a wide range of ideologically disparate texts. If canonical works of literary fiction have critically interrogated the violence of war and division, the civil war itself has continued to generate institutionalized cultural production purporting to document the crimes of the other side. Working against the categorical separation of these two traditions, this article explores their mutual and intertextual constitution. The sponsorship and commercialization of North Korean defector memoirs (kwisunja sugi) in 1960s South Korea, the article shows, influenced the development of two other popular genres of Korean War literature that alternately reinforced and undermined statist anticommunism. First, the novelist Yi Pyŏngju (1921–1992) employed kwisunja sugi as historical records in his works of the 1960s and 1970s, even as he demonstrated an awareness of the historicity and duplicity of Cold War testimony. Second, while autobiographical essays (ch’ehŏm sugi) submitted to the amateur nonfiction contest (1965–80) of the monthly Sin tonga mimicked kwisunja sugi, charting their authors’ immersion in and escape from the scene of communist violence, these texts also applied this structure to subaltern life in the militarized, capitalist South, reaffirming subversive understandings of the Korean Civil War as a reciprocal system.