Mountain worship and sanshin (mountain gods) legends are intrinsic to Korean culture. Central for narratives of anti-colonial struggle and contemporary policy of North Korea, Mt. Paektu also became a symbol of Korean national identity in South Korean popular culture. This paper engages two legends sited there, suggesting that their main protagonists represent contemporary sanshin. Firstly we consider the image of Kim Chŏng-suk of North Korea, and those narratives addressing her husband, Kim Il-sŏng’s guerrilla resistance in terrains surrounding Paektu. As a bodyguard of Kim Il-sŏng and a champion of revolutionary struggle, Kim Chŏng-suk transcends her human nature, and embodies female presence on Mt. Paektu. Secondly the paper investigates narrative from contemporary South Korean practice GiCheon (氣天 Kich’ŏn), intended for physical and moral cultivation of a person, reinvented in modernity on the basis of ancient East-Asian traditions. It recounts a mythic meeting of Bodhidharma with the Immortal Woman of Heaven (天仙女 Ch’ŏnsŏnyŏ) dwelling at Mt. Paektu. The Woman of Heaven overpowers Bodhidharma in battle, challenging patriarchal gender conceptions and contesting Chinese cultural superiority. Examined together, these two narratives demonstrate common cultural background. Ancient tradition, passed down from past to present, continuously accumulates and transforms, acquiring new forms in South and North Korean contexts.

The author’s questioning starts off from the series of suicides committed by Ssangyong Motors workers since 2009. She argues that “If the issue of suicide in Korean society is considered a problem of both Korean capitalism and social solidarity and morals, then we have to forge a social theory that is based on our reality.” (p.10) Based on such recognition, the author then identifies two tasks to be performed in her book. “First, I shall seek to manifest and rectify the structure and the error of the dichotomous interpretation that has been imposed on Marx and Durkheim. Second, by critically looking into the rational core shared by the social science methodologies of Marx and Durkheim and the theoretical and practical prospects built upon it, I shall search for a theory capable of effectively intervening into social suffering, i.e., the possibility of a naturalist social science.” (p.24; 106)

Linguistic divergence between standard varieties of Korean has been much studied, however, it has largely concerned itself with fine-grained analyses of single points of divergence, for example vocabulary, and the language policy behind such divergence. In contrast, this paper examines general trends of language in use in the ROK and DPRK in a specific genre of writing. We first briefly review prior research on the linguistic divergence which the standard varieties of these countries have undergone to contextualize our argument that a digital humanities approach could provide new insights for the field. This includes taking advantage of internet mediated data collection and quantitative analyses applied to relatively large amounts of data. In order to demonstrate the potential of this approach more fully, we present a small-scale stylometric analysis of ROK and DPRK journalistic texts. This pilot study suggests that national origin determines the stylistic characteristics of these texts to a greater extent than the topic and allows us to tentatively propose general characterizing features of ROK and DPRK journalistic style. We conclude with a prospectus for the incorporation of such methods into the study of ROK/DPRK linguistic divergence.

English is one of the major factors that impede the success of North Korean refugees’ adaptation to South Korea in terms of pursuing college education and getting a job. This article attempts to illustrate North Korean refugee college students’ hopes and anxieties about learning English through a reflective process. To examine comprehensive qualitative data about their perceptions toward English education, North Korean refugee college students were invited to English classes in private institutes in South Korea. After experiencing English classes for six months, in-depth interviews were conducted with twenty-four students ranging in age from twenty-one to forty-eight. Based on Gibbs’ reflective process framework that promotes meta-thinking about their own learning experience, the refugees’ reflections on English education were categorized into the following themes: education and meaning of life, importance of post-caring, determinants of motivation for class attendance, and ambivalent view on English education. Suggestions are made from the findings regarding North Korean refugee college students’ hopes and anxieties about education in Korea and future English programs.

Despite being located faraway from one another, North Korean leader Kim Il Sung and Zimbabwean leader Robert Mugabe formed an unlikely friendship during the late 1970s and 1980s. As guerilla fighters-turned postcolonial leaders, these two autocrats developed close emotional bonds built around admiration, fear, and trust. Using archival sources from the United Kingdom’s National Archives, North Korean press reports, and journalistic accounts, this article emphasizes emotions as a window into examining this Afro-Asian alliance. From wanting to emulate North Korea’s land reform program to sending a group of librarians and academics to the communist state to learn from Pyongyang’s educational system, Mugabe’s government admired the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) as a model of socialist development during the 1980s. Fearing instability at home, Mugabe also sought North Korea military assistance to squash his political rivals. Finally, Mugabe trusted Pyongyang as a “war-time friend” that had always been there for his African state. Thus, Zimbabwe continues to align itself in the post-Cold War era with North Korea while much of the world cuts off ties with the increasingly isolated state.

his article analyzes the diplomatic aspects of Egyptian-North Korean relations, with a brief overview of the era of Gamal Abdel Nasser and with a focus on Anwar el-Sadat’s presidency. On the basis of Hungarian, U.S., and Romanian archival documents, it investigates why the post-1973 reorientation of Egyptian foreign policy toward a pro-American position did not lead to a breakdown of the Egyptian-North Korean partnership. The article describes such episodes as North Korea’s military contribution to the 1973 Arab-Israeli War, Egyptian-North Korean cooperation in the Non-Aligned Movement, Kim Il Sung’s equivocal reactions to the Egyptian-Israeli peace process, and the militant Arab states’ dissatisfaction with Pyongyang’s unwillingness to condemn the “treacherous” Camp David Accords. It concludes that the main pillars of the Sadat-Kim Il Sung partnership were their simultaneous cooperation with China, their shared enmity for the USSR, and their fear of diplomatic isolation. Still, the North Korean leaders, anxious as they were to prevent an Egyptian-South Korean rapprochement, were more often compelled to adapt to Egypt’s diplomatic preferences than vice versa. The ambivalence, vacillation, prevarication, and opportunism that characterized Pyongyang’s interactions with Cairo belied the common image of North Korea as an iron-willed, militant state cooperating with other revolutionary regimes on the basis of equality, mutual trust, and anti-imperialist solidarity.

The Chosŏnwangjosillok (Annals of Chosŏn Dynasty; Sillok) not only contains the history of our ancestors, but also covers a broad spectrum of different fields, ranging from diplomatic relations with neighboring countries and economic issues such as taxation and land, to natural sciences such as astronomy and meteorology. The value of the Sillok as a historical record is already well recognized even outside of Korea. Unfortunately, the Sillok was written in hanmun, thus translation is inevitable. This thesis is indeed about the translation process of the Sillok, explaining, using concrete examples, various principles and careful considerations that need to be adhered to during translation.
The first principle in translating the Sillok is keeping to the original as much as possible. However, there are some problems inherent within the Sillok. There are many parts that only experts of that field can understand, such as science or music. Furthermore, the fact that, due to conflict between different political factions, revised annals exist also has to be taken into consideration. The next principle is that the Sillok must be translated using pure Korean and standard Korean language rules. Rather than mechanically transliterating the texts by simply adding Korean postpositional particles to hancha and hanmun-style expressions, the translator must be able to maintain characteristics of the original text, at the same time allowing people of the modern era to read and understand it. But one must also remain vigilant to make sure that the translation does not excessively modernize the text, thereby diluting the meaning of historical sentences. Translation is a process of rendering a text in a language different from the original. In order to be able to translate accurately, the translator has to have sufficient understanding of the original language. The major difference between Korean hanmun and Chinese hanmun is that the former contains idu. Although hanmun originally came from China, it changed according to Korean circumstances,leading to the development of Korean-style hanmun. It adapted to Korean culture but could also easily combine with Chinese hanmun. In regard to the use of idu, hancha words that are unique to Korean hanmun are particularly important. These characteristics are all reflected in the Sillok. Therefore, how to properly translate Korean-style hanmun sentences is very important in the translation process. This thesis explains these characteristics using concrete examples like names of places and people.
Various methodologies are required in translating a national heritage such as the Chosŏnwangjosillok to befit the modern era while maintaining its uniqueness. The most important thing is not to damage the original. The paper looks into various considerations that must be made in order to render a good translation, in order to contribute to future attempts to translate the Sillok.