The implantation of socialist realism in the DPRK and North Korean literary politics 1945-1960

Abstract

The first decade of North Korea's history was a formative period for the country's political and social institutions, and its literature was no exception. The system of political management of literary affairs, sets of established cliches and officially sanctioned topics which were promoted in these years redefined North Korean culture and moved it in a novel direction. The present thesis outlines the history of North Korean literary policy from 1945 to the early 1960s and discusses how this development reflected the contemporary political situation in the DPRK and influenced the subsequent cultural and social history of that country. It pays special attention to two major intertwined problems of early North Korean cultural history: the implementation of the Soviet-originated model of "socialist realism" and the political campaigns directed against the famous intellectuals Yim Hwa, Yi T'ae-jun, Kim Nam-ch'on and their colleagues. The research traces how imported notions of "proper" Communist literature were imposed on the North Korean cultural world and how the North Korean intellectuals struggled to adjust themselves to these new demands. We also analyse the factors behind the purges of the early 1950s, consider possible reasons which determined the fates of particular writers and trace the impact of these campaigns on the North Korean cultural and political atmosphere in general. The thesis draws on a variety of sources ranging from interviews with Korean and Soviet participants in the events, materials from public and family archives, memoirs of North Korean defectors, items from the contemporary press, original literary and critical texts and other documents. Show more