{"id":52183,"date":"2022-07-05T17:30:21","date_gmt":"2022-07-05T08:30:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.dailynk.com\/english\/?p=52183"},"modified":"2026-04-05T12:42:45","modified_gmt":"2026-04-05T03:42:45","slug":"tracing-real-birthplace-north-korea-kim-il-sung","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.dailynk.com\/english\/tracing-real-birthplace-north-korea-kim-il-sung\/","title":{"rendered":"Tracing the real birthplace of North Korea&#8217;s Kim Il Sung"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">An aspect of the life of North Korean founder Kim Il Sung that researchers often find inaccessible is the man\u2019s childhood.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Not only Kim\u2019s behavior after taking power in 1945, but also his activities with anti-Japanese guerillas in Manchuria and his service with the Soviet Red Army can be traced in considerable detail in Chinese, Japanese and Soviet documents.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">But very few sources cover the time before Kim joined the Communist Party of China and founded his guerilla unit. That was an issue I encountered recently while writing a biography of Kim. I would like to share with our readers the research method I discovered.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">First of all, sources from that time may be very few, but they do exist. Kim Il Sung\u2019s father Kim Hyong Jik took part in the March 1 Movement and later fled to Manchuria with his family. For that reason, he is mentioned in Japanese police records as being an anti-Japanese activist.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Along with Kim Hyong Jik\u2019s participation in the March 1 Movement, those records also shed light on his property. As of 1925, the Kim family\u2019s property was worth around JPY 1,000 \u2014 a little more than the average wages for two years of work in Manchuria.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In addition to such contemporaneous records, other sources include the testimonies of people who knew the family of Kim Il Sung. Perhaps the two key witnesses here are Kim Hyeong Seok, professor emeritus at Yonsei University, and Lee Yong Sang, a poet.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In his childhood, Kim Hyeong Seok heard a lot about Kim Hyong Jik\u2019s family, while Lee Yong Sang provided a detailed description of Kim Yong Ju, younger brother of Kim Il Sung, in his memoirs, \u201cMilitary Uniforms in Three Colors.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Through that book, we learn that Kim Yong Ju was an interpreter for the Japanese military. Further confirmation of Kim\u2019s outstanding command of Japanese appears in the memoirs of Kazuko Kobayashi, a Japanese woman who worked as a housekeeper for the family of Kim Il Sung in 1945 and 1946.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">A final set of sources is North Korean books from the early 1960s. For a student of history, this is a fascinating period. It was a time when the cult of personality around Kim Il Sung had developed but not yet become the official narrative.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">That gives us insight into facts that were concealed in the years to come. For example, we learn from a book called \u201cMangyongdae,\u201d published in Pyongyang in 1960, that Kim Il Sung was born not in the neighborhood of Mangyongdae, as North Korea currently claims, but in the nearby neighborhood of Chilgol.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Furthermore, a book called \u201cSunset over Mangyong Peak,\u201d published in 1964, says that Kim Hyong Jik had an adopted son named Kim Ryong Ho. We can also infer that Kim Ryong Ho and Kim Il Sung (who was one year younger) were half brothers, born to the same father, but different mothers.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">To be sure, North Korean books were later stripped of all mention of Kim Ryong Ho.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">While no figure in North Korean history is more important than Kim Il Sung, there is very little information about his early years. My hope is that the points mentioned above will prove useful to future researchers.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><i>Views expressed in this guest column do not necessarily reflect those of Daily NK.<\/i><\/p>\n<p><em><strong>Translated by David Carruth. Edited by Robert Lauler.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Please direct any comments or questions about this article to dailynkenglish@uni-media.net.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailynk.com\/20220704-3\/\"><em>Read in Korean<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>An aspect of the life of North Korean founder Kim Il Sung that researchers often find inaccessible is the man\u2019s childhood. Not only Kim\u2019s behavior after taking power in 1945, but also his activities with anti-Japanese guerillas in Manchuria and his service with the Soviet Red Army can be traced in considerable detail in Chinese, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":187,"featured_media":42069,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wikipediapreview_detectlinks":true,"footnotes":""},"categories":[644],"tags":[274,750],"class_list":["post-52183","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-analysis-and-opinion","tag-pyongyang","tag-kim-il-sung"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v27.7 (Yoast SEO v27.9) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Tracing the real birthplace of North Korea&#039;s Kim Il Sung - North Korea News \u2014 Daily NK | Latest DPRK Updates 2026<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dailynk.com\/english\/tracing-real-birthplace-north-korea-kim-il-sung\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Tracing the real birthplace of North Korea&#039;s Kim Il Sung\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"An aspect of the life of North Korean founder Kim Il Sung that researchers often find inaccessible is the man\u2019s childhood. Not only Kim\u2019s behavior after taking power in 1945, but also his activities with anti-Japanese guerillas in Manchuria and his service with the Soviet Red Army can be traced in considerable detail in Chinese, [&hellip;]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.dailynk.com\/english\/tracing-real-birthplace-north-korea-kim-il-sung\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"North Korea News \u2014 Daily NK | Latest DPRK Updates 2026\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2022-07-05T08:30:21+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2026-04-05T03:42:45+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.dailynk.com\/english\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2019\/09\/Kim-Il-Sung.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1280\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"960\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Fyodor Tertitskiy, Kookmin University\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Fyodor Tertitskiy, Kookmin University\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.dailynk.com\\\/english\\\/tracing-real-birthplace-north-korea-kim-il-sung\\\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.dailynk.com\\\/english\\\/tracing-real-birthplace-north-korea-kim-il-sung\\\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Fyodor Tertitskiy, Kookmin University\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.dailynk.com\\\/english\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/04590bc15c697ec9ef17b3bebd5f3f31\"},\"headline\":\"Tracing the real birthplace of North Korea&#8217;s Kim Il Sung\",\"datePublished\":\"2022-07-05T08:30:21+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2026-04-05T03:42:45+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.dailynk.com\\\/english\\\/tracing-real-birthplace-north-korea-kim-il-sung\\\/\"},\"wordCount\":583,\"commentCount\":0,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.dailynk.com\\\/english\\\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.dailynk.com\\\/english\\\/tracing-real-birthplace-north-korea-kim-il-sung\\\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.dailynk.com\\\/english\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/sites\\\/2\\\/2019\\\/09\\\/Kim-Il-Sung.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"pyongyang\",\"kim il sung\"],\"articleSection\":[\"Analysis &amp; Opinion\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/www.dailynk.com\\\/english\\\/tracing-real-birthplace-north-korea-kim-il-sung\\\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.dailynk.com\\\/english\\\/tracing-real-birthplace-north-korea-kim-il-sung\\\/\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.dailynk.com\\\/english\\\/tracing-real-birthplace-north-korea-kim-il-sung\\\/\",\"name\":\"Tracing the real birthplace of North Korea's Kim Il Sung - North Korea News \u2014 Daily NK | Latest DPRK Updates 2026\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.dailynk.com\\\/english\\\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.dailynk.com\\\/english\\\/tracing-real-birthplace-north-korea-kim-il-sung\\\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.dailynk.com\\\/english\\\/tracing-real-birthplace-north-korea-kim-il-sung\\\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.dailynk.com\\\/english\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/sites\\\/2\\\/2019\\\/09\\\/Kim-Il-Sung.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2022-07-05T08:30:21+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2026-04-05T03:42:45+00:00\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.dailynk.com\\\/english\\\/tracing-real-birthplace-north-korea-kim-il-sung\\\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/www.dailynk.com\\\/english\\\/tracing-real-birthplace-north-korea-kim-il-sung\\\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.dailynk.com\\\/english\\\/tracing-real-birthplace-north-korea-kim-il-sung\\\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.dailynk.com\\\/english\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/sites\\\/2\\\/2019\\\/09\\\/Kim-Il-Sung.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.dailynk.com\\\/english\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/sites\\\/2\\\/2019\\\/09\\\/Kim-Il-Sung.jpg\",\"width\":1280,\"height\":960,\"caption\":\"An image of now deceased President Kim Il Sung created by thousands of participants in the Arirang Mass Games. 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