 Okay welcome everybody we're going to get started. Thank you all very much for coming. My name is Owen Miller and I am a lecturer here at SOAS in the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures. I wouldn't describe myself particularly as a North Korean specialist but I have found myself as part of Korean Studies Lab project which Professor Andre Langkopf is going to tell you something about in a moment and that lab project is about North Korea and it has the title which you see on the screen here so this symposium today really is to sort of showcase some of the work that's being done in this lab project funded by the Academy of Korean Studies and also we have brought in other people we have brought in some PhD students who are working on North Korean history and North Korean international relations in the UK and we're very lucky also to have some scholars who work outside of North Korea and Korean Studies who work on Russia and Eastern Europe who are here to give us some some very valuable insights I think as well. So I'd just like to also welcome you on behalf of the Centre of Korean Studies here at SOAS which is hosting this event and our chair is not here today Dr. Anders Carlson so I will welcome you on his behalf. What can I say about Centre of Korean Studies? It's one of the older if not the oldest Centre for Korean Studies in the UK I'll probably get told I'm completely wrong about that but anyway it was founded in 1987 with of course support from South Korean organisations such as the Korea Foundation and it's been going since then and we hold regular seminars on a Friday evening so if you want to know about those our Centre's officer Charles who is here can take people's emails or you can email him directly and get on to our mailing list and of course we also organise events such as this one one-off events and small conferences and so on. So yeah please you know if you haven't been to Centre of Korean Studies events before please have a look at what we're doing and come in in the future. In terms of today I think people have probably looked at the programme I'll just quickly put it up here. It's as you can see we have quite a long session this morning I'm hoping that we can have short five minute break in between speakers we are being generous and allowing each presenter to have an hour of time you know to give their presentation and for the discussant to respond and for questions and comments from the audience so therefore we have a more or less three-hour session in the morning but we will as I said hopefully be able to have breather in between speakers I don't think there's anything else I need to say oh well there is tea and coffee as you've already discovered there will be tea and coffee again in the afternoon there is also going to be a buffet lunch outside there will be it's really first come first serve that's not an invitation to go and attack each other to get at the food but it is you know a reminder that scarcity is real and okay that's yeah that's about all I have to say really yes and welcome to everybody I'm going to hand over to Professor Lankov who's going to say something about oh yes there are exits please use them in the case of an emergency well I should say unfortunately you know so as always seems to have fired alarms at the most inopportune moment so please do expect one in the middle of someone's talk oh now I need to improvise well Professor Lankov is on the to open the floor for questions yeah so basically everybody everybody here is interested in North Korea and you know that North Korea has not only bad press worldwide it has a strange press it's seen as a kind of joke something irrational or something comical may well maybe sometimes it's irrational and comical but can you find me a country which is 100% rational 100% not comical it's quite irrational I will not talk about some peculiarities of the British political system yeah having said that so what's important however to stop exoticizing North Korea to have a serious look at the country maybe very unpleasant place because they would never like to live there well under salmon expat but yes place is a great deal of its own problems but still a place where after all 20 something million people live where over the last 75 five years maybe about 100 million people have lived their lives and it was not a life of kind of clones or irrational human beings it was in the life of normal human beings overwhelmingly and it's very good that we occasionally more friend more frequently have opportunities to do serious research on North Korea it's past it's present and to a small extent to it's definitely unpredictable future and this is a task of our laboratory which is fortunately we would like to express our gratitude is supported by the Korean Korean taxpayers and their loyal servants the academy of Korean studies so and our result we have a group of roughly 10 people and our goal our goal is to produce roughly equal number of book lengths academic studies of different things related to North Korea it can be market economy political system foreign policy popular culture and so on and so on and so on and not only books of course as the academic articles and we also have some series of seminars and two conferences two short conferences one of he one of which you attending for which I would like to express my gratitude and we will try to we'll do our best to make sure that everything will be interesting for you that you are not going to be disappointed for being here and we have another conference in June in Korea so those who are you happen to be in Korea you're also most welcome saying yes South Korea I think that I I I think that conference in North Korea is not going to happen for the next 50 years but you never know yeah so thank you right I should I should add that I'll be chairing the first session and that we're our first two speakers Tatiana Gabrusenko from Korea University and Xiaoning Lu who is my colleague here at SOAS in the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures who will be the discussants they are both joining us on zoom so our first just our first speaker and discussant will be on zoom and then after that it will be live people in the room so hello everyone so I am I'm going to present today on I changes which North Korean culture underwent in 1980s and I would just first to start with an apology because my understanding was that I will have only 15 minutes for presentation but I see you are twice as generous to us so it means that I had to rework a little bit my presentation to extend it because I try to when I presented the talk and the paper I shrink myself as much as possible but in any case here I'll try to compensate it now by in my talk so first what I'm going to talk about today North Korean culture of the 80s this is in my understanding this is a much underestimated phenomenon because when people consider consider this on this background of the other socialist cultures which underwent perestroika and preperestroika type of reforms which actually aimed some which aimed some rework and retreat from this and change of the socialist model North Korean culture of the 80s seemed to be quite stable and it didn't have so nothing nothing seemed to happen there while the whole nation the whole world of socialist culture was undergoing radical changes it seemed to stay stable but this is very wrong precision wrong impression because in fact North Korean culture of the 80s it had its own unannounced cultural revolution unannounced because it was not not comparable to what they had in the other in the other cultures of socialist bloc but still it's these changes were also very important but the changes were similar not to this case of perestroika but rather to this case of so so or typo as seen in russian so that was the process of the process the process of reforms of socialist culture without discarding of the ruling ideology but at the same time retreat from the mobilizational narrow immobilizational patterns and moving toward some so far precedental relaxation and liberalization the process which they experienced in the soviet union 1950s 1960s after Stalin's time so that was a similar kind of similar kind of changes which North Korea had so alexander loop chick later described this describe this process as socialism with human face so something which aims to widen the artistic horizon of socialism in order to make the system work better and some aestheticization romanticization of the communist ideas and the kind of renaissance of the communist ideas in the soviet union that's the process which happened there but North Korea North Korean culture in 1980s experienced something very comparable to what you see in the soviet union in that time the process which was denied and rejected in North Korea in 1950s and North Korea in fact chosen instead the course of national Stalinism or sticking to this previous moguls just strictly narrow mobilization way that's that was what happened in North Korea 1950s and 60s but in 1980s they seem to have its own delayed so this cultural revolution of the 80s and unlike the soviet process which happened in the soviet union allowed the announced by the soviet the soviet policymakers in North Korea this process was silent but we of course can have some hints on these changes in some speeches of Kim Jong-il who called for overcoming of overcoming of the overcoming of some strict schematics called for depiction of human relations and culture more humanly free way to be brought more broad minded etc so some hints show us that indeed North Korean leader tried to implement some processes in North Korean culture but even more than that this occasional occasional calls occasional speeches of the leader the culture itself shows the strict just this this shown us the wide implication of this new new artistic methods and topics if briefly describe all these patterns of the early 80s which North Korean culture in early and later and late 80s which North Korea introduced it was a general cooling of the militant spirit of the previous of the previous Cholima like culture and overall the slower and quieter culture a sentimentalization of the conventional political topics such as biography of Kim Il-soon or Korean war and even political campaigns they now were promoted through softer and more personal forms this process in North Korean culture led to introduction of the new people in new cultural figures the most important of whom was of course Rijunggu and Kim Seryon they were the new the new cinema scenario writers who turned just upside down the whole discourse before making it more sentimental and lyrical and also they worked on this introduction of more humanistic concept of the hero and generally it was written from the patterns of unbending passionaries who had no remorse or no no remorse or doubts and instead introduced hidden heroes so those characters of humble self humble self conscientious people who do not expect any rewards for their selfless work for the society and many of these characters had strong Christian illusions just with the Christian saints especially this was really important change in North Korean culture which was strongly inter-Christian before that in many works of Rijunggu we see direct quotation from bible and some biblical comparison with bible citation from bible of course without any without you know mention of the source but the parallels are very clear also this culture at this moment increased general realism and came closer to what actually was the society was actually interested in a discussion of highly topical social issues was the was the subject of this new cultural works so the characters who balance in between family and the work responsibilities or the the characters who have to choose between consumption and ideological purity some family problems problems of socialist economy etc also North Korean culture of this moment of this decade reintroduced for glory and tradition in North Korean cultural discourse we see the renewed works of classical literature who emerge as entertaining and ideological tools you see many works based on folklore and classical stories just action cinema and melodramas such as Hong-Gil-Don in Kokchon story of Wondal of course story of Chun-Han and etc this was campaigned with the increase of romantic political comedies and melodramas important part of this discourse was a retreat from one-dimensional black and white enemy you see more complex images of foreign life more images of foreign friends and dependent enemies something which was inimaginable in North Korean culture just the decade before the enemies in general even the enemies who are not going to repent they still are presented as complex people just complex characters and also you see the emergence of counter narrative of the centers of socialism and even the motives of corruption and struggle with corruption in North Korean works of culture of course this topic I'm just talking now about the general background cultural background but of course it's a huge huge topic which is impossible to cover even in 30 minutes speech which is allowed to me now so I would like to investigate only one case study one case of when this which was changed in North Korean culture in 1980s and it was the topic of the Korean War this change in discourse of Korean War how it was just how all this changes of the ages just implemented were implemented in this discourse why I'm choosing the Korean War because this is one of the most important topics of North Korean of North Korean culture one of the central topic which because the mythology of the Korean War and South Korea as the separate entity became cornerstone of North Korean nation building process and never stops it's still Korean War is reconsidered constantly it's presented in many cultural works it's one of the most central topics in North Korean since the very beginning since 1950s the Korean War the discourse of Korean War had strong Soviet cultural influence but as we see even the cultural influence of the Soviet just so Soviet cultural influence it also has has changed too because different angles were implemented different angles were considered and the ages were the moment when North Korean discourse of the Korean War retreated from the militant pamphlets of the past and of the war more humanized and lyrical patterns just because it was about influence cultural influence on North Korean on Korean when North Korea this influence was really apparent really easily palpable is just visible even at the first glance as this famous poster which call which call the warriors of the Red Army save us so this is the Soviet post of 1942 and this is the poster of North Korea which as you see presented this the Korean people also calls for Korean people's army participation and saving people of Korea peaceful people of Korea but you see the structure the general images and the slogan is exactly the same also maybe it's Soviet war time films and fiction they became real bastards in the debate and they still are for example one of the favorite movies which North Korea really enjoy and it was the novel and the the fiction and the film made after this novel it's a young guard it's a romanticized narration about life and horridness of the members of anti-fascist underground organization young guards in the hands of German fascists one of the most popular films in North Korea also the Soviet influence on North Korean discourse was promoted through the poems of Chugichon the founding father of North Korean poetry of Soviet Korean origins who created the early narrative of Korean war such as in his view big poems very well known in Korea especially Korea is fighting Chosun Saunda so he established this pattern of presentation of the Korean war as the national liberation struggle so exactly like this World War II was presented in the Soviet Union following the Soviet mode of war against Hitler Korean war was presented as victorious national liberation war against foreign aggressors Americans it had no ideal of civil war so South Koreans present as victims or odd and often unwilling collaborators but one of the feature of this discourse which was extremely important in the early North Korean discourse of Korean culture it was rejection of pacifism and wolfphobia as they call it so this these things of personal pain of suffering separation with the loved ones etc they were strictly discouraged people who tried to challenge this discourse were severely and quickly punished for that typical were the Im Hoa and Kim Nam Chon the campaign against them began immediately after they they made they they published the works where I know no Uji In Inya by Im Hoa and Kim Nam Chon was his short story honey in 1951 and it was the deadly crime of pacifism because they portrayed try to portray war through personal feelings of people they wrote a lot about human suffering separation with the loved ones etc the other famous victim of this campaign against wolfphobia was Kim Chul now famous North Korean writer the poem which extremely irritated the policy makers at the moment it was Kim Wok-Tang Chul a button of military uniform so the poem narrates about the baby who has lost his mother and war and when a soldier takes him in the arms the baby start to suck a button of his uniform instead of the nickel of his mother so and the poem has the stanza sorry my dear I can liberate your country your home town but I can't bring you back your mother and the poem was rejected as two lyrical soft and lacking political meaning so any retrieval from black and white picture of Americans was considered a political crime as well typical was an attempt of Som Anil the Korean writer to rewrite a scenario of Hans Surya's jacals into more psychologically persuasive narration so but this this motif and a little bit complicate the image of the enemy American enemies it was quickly rejected reacted by the critic Kim Jong-Suk he says that in the play youngies are portrayed not as simple beasts but as people who have some consciousness this diminishes our hatred to the enemy very typical reaction and probably the most radical typical example of this narration were partisan movies they were presented even harsher versions of Soviet Stalinist film the most typical of them were a partisan boy of 1951 a partisan maiden of 1954 so the actors who played in these films they were stars of this time and indeed they were distinguished actors such as Han Chor, Moon Yebun and the others but it did not influence the result the result the works were apparently beneath the artistic level so here is the the the snapshot from Moon Yebun as the partisan maiden in the film 1951-54 so the common patterns of the partisan movie so they can be summarized by one phrase which was consistently repeated in this film there is no time for tears yet so all the characters the heroes in this movie they were presented in a type of fighting machines who reacted with two enemies atrocities acting very impulsively and apparently not knowing any fear at all so and this impulsiveness eventually leads the character to cruel deaths at the hands of the enemy but the reaction to this death should be revenge and no tears of these fallen heroes of course the heroes are guided and inspired in the sections not by some personal feelings of love but rather by the mother party so this is the snapshot from the film our partisan boy Sonyon Baltisan made in 1952 and this is the Moon Yebun as a heroic mother of the young partisan and another son the young communist so the enemies in this film as hero anti-heroes they presented as irrational beasts who killed just for fun without any provocation and any meaning for example that was the moment when the soldier simply see the woman with the baby in her in his arms he takes his pistol and shoot her why he's doing this it's completely it's completely irrational act why he's doing this it's just the mother it's a passerby on the street but that's a typical typical episode in this film all of them are physically ugly played by Koreans but with the big plastic nose here this is the typical typical anti-hero here irrational rude physically ugly and just the killing machine so of course why not Koreans did it at the moment it was more or less understandable because it was an attempt to dehumanize the enemy and make it a very easy target to destroy because you won't feel any any feelings to the character like that you would not associate associate yourself with the with such an ugly beast and of course the beast should be destroyed the relations between characters in the films like that they were also lack any personal warmth or any personal feelings this is the episode from the film the partisan boy so this is the young communist the older son of money bonds hero and heroines and this is your younger this is your younger son so this son the older son he is arrested by the police by by this occupational forces but when he meets with her in the prison instead of hugging his mother or trying to console her somehow the young communist instead rushes to her and the first phrase he was she issues his mother I have remained loyal to the communists that's what he says uh and so when he is shot at just uh before in front of your mother's eyes she stays completely her face stays completely emotionless she doesn't show any tears etc so most important thing for her that son fulfilled his his duty before the party and then the next scene will be the execution of the young partisan so the the young boy who is playing this role but again he is he tries to revenge his mother and his you know his older brother he also goes to the desk without any you know without any human feelings so this is just the desk of three fighting machines that's that's what we can say about them and the songs which were accompanied these films they were also very typical they were much like songs very harsh and the lyric was completely in accordance with the music they were in harmony with the music and a very famous song in north korea the song of young partisan which is very well known in north korea the song of 1950 a tool which was later reintroduced in the film of nineteen ages as well for north korean cultural works is typical these films are the the songs are reused many times so let me show the song to you so you see this song i'm not saying that the song is bad or unpopular the song is very popular in north korea by the way all kids know it in school and it's associated with any with any talks about young heroes it's a popular song but still the lyrics which tells about blood revenge and something associated extremely always fighting it's a typical part of that but in 1980s this cinnamon fiction about the korean war has changed the intonation under the influence of general liberalization and humanization of the discourse you see more images of human people of humane humanistic people's army sentimental images and the typical case of this was the film vol midore it was the example of this new cinematography about korean about korean war so vol midore tells narrates a tragic heroic episode of the korean war the battle for the island vol midore in june in june 1950 when a coastal most korean battery unit had to hold the important piece of this territory for three days against this well man us forces or everybody was killed here but the major focus of the film characteristically it's not the fight and sins but rather the motifs which were which drive the soldiers during the suicidal missions so what actually why they're doing this this is the focus of the film the film proved to be extremely popular in north korea and if we try to analyze the attractions these attractions are mostly related to this new presentation of heroes the new presentation of the korean war so the characters are driven by sentimental recollections about peaceful pre-war country so the images of the loved ones and the family members with whom they are separated now it's always emerge before them the soldiers and the officers they are related to each other with with warm brotherly relations they support each other as family members and of course the major the embodiment of this new mood of the wartime film war themed film was the son melodious son of the 17 year old radio operator yung gok which narrates about beauty of the countryside of korea the song i know it now so the it was performed and played by the suyun the young actress who was the star of wall middle extremely popular actress now in oscar is still still working in oscar in cinema but that was her debut extremely popular debut here so let me show you this song so this you see that in this song you see all this film in brief in just in brief sequences what happened with the heroes they all are killed one by one but still what is important that they are all connected with love with connection just with love with care for each other etc what was really interesting that one of the typical a sign of the liberalized humanized humanized approach to this culture of war became the sequence of this death the first character to die at this hands of the enemy is this the most peaceful character this is the chief of the chief of this military union very funny bubbly guy who likes to make fish and soup so he just reading about this special soup which is going to to cook for the commanding officer and for this little girl you know yung gok and at the moment of when he was fishing he was killed by the enemy the same as yung she died while trying to reconnect the storm the storm telegraph course and she did it with clutching her hands and then died as well so she sacrificed for people but even this smiling relations between between the softness of the characters they present as the contrast to all their heroic deaths and all their this the harsh here is which they have to this harsh heroic actions which they committed here so this the film actually laments this death of every every hero and the moment which is emphasized that that everybody had something to do at this on this land so this commanding officer played by trechan by trechan so he was not able to to propose to his girl whom he love so this the chef he was not able to meet with his only daughter and the girl yung gok she was not able to finish the school so everybody has something to do but they had to stop the life was broken by by the wool and by all these things and the interesting case is the american enemy so here of course he is the anti-hero here but still he is presented as the anti-hero with some consciousness in some moments when he witnesses the relations of north koreans between each other when he witnesses these cases of heroes he writes the the far well note to his to america to his american friends saying that the u.s.a. can win the battle but not the war with such a people so north koreans are not the intruders they are protecting their land etc so we see the character who is not probably repainting but at least understands the high noble spirit of this korean hero heroes in fact this is a little bit of you know moving from the previous from the previous models of black and white models of of the just of american enemies important thing to remember however that this film overall was not followed the revisionist course of perestroika style art when which tried to undermine the values of previous discourse and the film does not carry pacifist messages and doesn't question the value the necessity of this death the necessity of korean war the film as i told you laments the fallen heroes but it make the audience understand that the sacrifices are no not in vain the characters died protecting their the country they fulfill the orders before the country and we have to cherish this sacrifice war middle has has strong legacy on oscarine in oscarine culture and the first thing which the most important probably overall legacies was the change in lyrical in the songs devoted to the army and the war soon after war middle you see the emergence of this such classic sonnet tell me about soldier sloth marche duree peonsai saraner very popular very beautiful lyrical song or the song pretty girl yippie knee which was produced in 1989 so all the songs combined the motif of self-sacrifice of the characters with soft lyricism and just the stairs over them and more important it was the motif of the existent existential victory of the hero over death especially typical was the song pretty girl the song which is which narrates about the girl who threw herself under tank with the grenades but still this the land which she protected it's still thriving and after her death this the birds sing the flowers bloom and we live happy life on the land protected by this by this girl the how we have a wood can we say about this the change of what can we say about the other legacies of war middle and this the other lyrical songs about the lyrical works about Korean people's army victories in 1990s the the songs were also augmented with the general the idea of liberalization melodrama and sentimental mood of the 80s in 1990s it was aided just augmented by general positive mood so the positive cherry mood which was carried by which was carried by the new narrative of nos korea in 1980s 1990s the narrative of the artist march which had the slogan the the slogan even if we go a steep way we had to go it with we had to go it with smile so the smile actually covered touched every subject of nos korean just of nos korean art and nos korean culture included the culture related to war related to tragic incidents etc so the music in the songs were extremely positive so something that you would never without lyrics if you don't if you don't hear the lyrics you would never understand that the song is about war or something tragic and you know sad so the song is extremely positive and the images are extremely positive even moreover the films of the the films and works of culture of 1990s and of 2000s they moved toward the other side they almost completely made completely disappear any tragic moments of korean war in general so typical in this regard is the song going to the front so the this going to the front the song which was performed by by moran bond band and again you would never understand without this lyrics that you are talking about soldiers who are going to fight and apparently meeting some at least some chances are that they will die in this in this battle but the song would never give you this impression so let me show this to you oh yeah that's all so I can uh this is at least you see the impression of the song you see the uh just things on the uh the covers uh this some snapshots from uh this from this video clip uh accompanied this song and uh so I think it's more or less clear that this uh this is we're talking about something very positive experience so very positive and funny and interesting etc so that's how this this new war theme songs look like in oscarine so this is all what I would like to say so this is an end of my presentation thank you very much thank you very much so shall I come in yes please shouting uh yes dr lou please take okay so first of all thank you so much tatiana for this wonderful presentation I am a specialist in chinese socialist cinema I'm not a specialist in korean cinema so my comment is really from an outsider's perspective um so we all know each socialist country has its own unique historical trajectory but some experiences do echo across the national borders within this socialist world your presentation just reminded me how many parallels we can draw actually between north korea culture and chinese culture in the 1980s because the dominant theme in chinese cinema in the 1980s was also to search humanism but uh our search for humanism was motivated by uh the party sanctioned self-reflection on the traumatic past especially the catastrophic 10 years of the cultural revolution and so the filmmakers they also adopted a male dramatic mode poetic mode to search the so-called humanity to rediscover humanity so stories value humanism humanity over collectivity etc and the films you showed me also reminded me of the heavy soviet inference on chinese cinema etc so there are so many parallels I'm really glad to to hear your presentation so my first question is really about the the larger motivating factor behind north korea's general liberalization in the 1980s was that motivated by external factors such as the changing geopolitical order in the whole world or something coming from within for instance ex socioeconomic pressures from from the people or because I think in your draft you mentioned about King Chung Ye demanded the writer's artist to raise their creativity and the political insights to respond to the developing reality so what is that developing reality okay and the second question is about the lyricism so the clip you showed me you showed us I think it's very interesting that I'm not sure about maybe it's electronic musical instruments in the background in the soundtrack in the 1980s chinese filmmakers also use that electronic instrument it was like considered as a very modernist modernist or very modern at the time so my question is really about how do you understand lyricism of course you show the lyrical intonation for example the soundtrack but how about a cinematography narrative structure is this lyricism related to for example pre-modern korean culture or traditional you know poetry etc for a painting yeah so these are my two questions thank you yeah thank you very much so yeah my question will be first about the reasons thank you very much for for your good reading of my very short and very imperfect things which I send to you I'm really sorry yes but still yeah about this external factors you know the factors which actually moved just stayed behind these changes in 1980s I think these factors just first thing to say that we don't know for sure so I can only guess because we don't know any all this all the things were all just still not not declassified so this is the thing which is close to us so but what we can say I think that's multi multi factors so many factors which employed just which influence this process and when we're talking about noscaria we can't get rid of we can't we can't avoid them the discussion of the personalities of the leaders and this is really important I understand that the social processes this they are important things they're driven by many many factors including economics and social factors etc but in noscaria when we discuss in noscaria there's such a strictly controlled society we can't avoid talking about the personality of the leader and I think this is the case when the personality is really important because when we see when we look at the way how noscarian cinema and you know the culture was led by 1950s it was the person who led it who controlled it it was the father leader so the first leader kim jong-il kim kim olson i'm sorry kim olson so the person who had a very limited interest to art in general but at the same time the person who was very concerned about his you know the safety of his leadership because 1950s was the moment when it was very unstable moment for his leadership for his supremacy in noscaria he was it was challenged by pro-soviet just so soviet faction and chinese faction in noscarian in noscarian leadership so he was under danger and of course all this talks about liberalization all this soviet style at the moment of eastern european style was something completely inappropriate for kim olson because he not without reason he would he considered this to be a bomb which was thrown under his you know under would thrown under his leadership this is one factor he was unsafe in this moment and the other factor is that he was the person who is quite deaf i think in to all this cultural niceties etc he was not mausodon and not stalin and not kim jong-il he was the person who is completely senseless to such things you know he was not artistically he was not interested in any artistic collaboration just elaborations so when the culture was under his control they the writers they try to avoid all this complexities all this double meanings all this gray areas they try to be very straightforward just much like styles so this clear cut way but his son was very different personality just his personality it was much more complex person so the person who first he did not have the fears of his father for the legacy so his country was under his strong control at the moment so he he could be safe you know he could be you know completely secure in his position and on the other hand he was the person who was extremely interested in art because we know now that if not his legacy of him as the son of the great leader he would probably become very good noscarine cinema maker he was the cinema guy who was he who liked all this complexities who loved all this double meanings and i think that when the power over culture was in his hands he could play you know it was his playground where he could do whatever he wanted so that's why he so he tried to implement lots of foreign foreign cultural things we know for example that him journal he had huge collection of foreign movies and that is why in world me though and the other films made under his leadership we see lots of foreign influences for example this the film world middle can find lots of parallels i won't specify this right now that's one thing and of course the other thing was less important factor but still the fact it was of course the factor of external influences because the world was shaking the world was changing just in this moment and even pionyan was actually playing with the idea that probably moving toward relaxation more of relaxation more of liberalization would be a good idea because if we look at the soviet union if we look at china nothing wrong happens with them and probably it would be a good idea here but they didn't move it in perestroika style uh understandably because it was their country they didn't want to lose control but they still played with the idea of some relaxation but at this process they try to shut it a little bit or not shut completely but try to uh downplay it a little bit in 1990s when uh there was the collapse of the soviet bloc when kim kim olson personally witnessed uh by by television the execution of nekolai chaukhescu and he understood that liberalization would be probably have to wait for a little bit more for korean art etc but as we see it was it it failed to completely uh so this liberalization of the ages it never shut was shut completely it was it had legacy to to uh to repeat uh later to develop in on a little bit different uh ground uh but still it was that was the factor of external external influences they were important uh important things too about lyricism this is really interesting thing a very complex very difficult question which you asked me because what is really difficult very very different about north korean version of lyricism in comparison to south korean or in korean in general and pre-liberation korea is very positive style of lyricism very positive style what i mean by that if you ever come uh if you ever read uh contemporary south korean novels for example so the first thing which we want to say uh just to do after reading a novel you will go and hunt yourself i think it's so they're so depressing they're so they're so awful because my first uh i was specialized in in oscar in korean literature i graduated from uh yonsei university and specialized in contemporary and i i understood that one year more and i will do something wrong with myself you know after all this often this very very lots of people lots of characters commit suicide lots of characters die of cancer etc etc so it's very depressing style of a style of of uh culture in general and then this regards uh north korean culture actually uh just this south korean culture it's true to almost the pattern of colonial literature because the colonial literature such as uh hyeong-jin gwon or anybody else like that they also are very negativist they are very depressing style of literature in north korea however no matter what topic they touch they in their attitude to even saddest moments of life they remain very positive and why this happens like that uh i would say that it's probably something to do with this soviet uh literature soviet culture which is we tended to be more positive for chinese culture as well but anyway north korean lyricism if place it on this background of you know of this whole korean culture this is very happy lyricism in general it's very happy very positive lyricism very even the works which are you know which touch very deadly topics of war of illness or something like this uh so the typical is the son uh ye pune the son pretty girl which actually uh playing with the idea or the girl he went to the front she was so so pretty blah blah blah blah blah but then the girl go and she she committed suicide under just she threw herself under tank blah blah blah blah but we are still happy to hear so even this tragic utterly tragic motif is presented in very positive style and that is why i would like to say that north korean style of lyricism is it's it's a little bit different from what we see in korean culture in general that's my observation so i hope i could answer your questions thank you very much really appreciate i think you have a question yes um so we're predictably running a bit behind schedule um i feel it would be unfair not to have any questions from the floor we have one i see already in the q and a here um perhaps we could take this question are there any questions in the room i will maybe have take one question i see one hand up here would would would you like to ask a question yes yeah and we just to emphasize we need to do this quite quickly um and and professor gabrasenko could answer quite quickly that would be good yeah um i'll speak up sure thank you professor for your presentation um my question is about soviet representations in the north korean popular culture so very quick question how is soviet union's military support depicted in the north korean movies that means korean war are they even mentioned or depicted in any case because i was reading north korean's official account of external relations which was published in the 1983 i think and they kind of obliterated the soviet vestiges giving providing support to the north korea's asian founding so i wonder if this is the case and well in the popular culture whether you see any reference to soviet union or not just stylistically but in the narrative itself do you see actually uh any any mentioning of soviet union supporting north korean story and korean war in those movies thank you thank you okay i hope you heard that professor gabrasenko i would like also just like if you could take at the same time the question that is and it's it's also sort of related in a way because it's in the q and a can you see that just a moment so the question there is about foreign characters portrayed in in films can you give some examples did korean actors play them do russian actors ever appear in korean films so both questions are kind of related so perhaps you can take them together they're about depictions of soviet role or or depictions of russians or other foreigners in north korean films you know this about it's very big big big question again i will try to narrow it as soon as much as possible so it depends on the time of the work of popular the work of popular culture because in fact when if in 1950s so at the moment of soviet era in north korea this the service were referred to as not as participants of koreans just of korean war liberation of korea but at least as people who had some just made some help to north koreans but then for political reasons of course when this north korea distanced from from this soviet union so this mention of these characters it radically decreased only to be about again not about korean war in korean war the participation of the service were completely downplayed and not only the service whose which role was not very not comparable to the role of chinese but even the chinese participants they were they were downplayed in north korea and to the extent that it's a little bit denigrate and just contempt in references to the people like that so though we know we know this actual role of the actual role of chinese so-called volunteers in korean war but in north korean literature and arts and the films they were just referred to as only as some helpers of korea assistance of korean of korean not as independent not as people of not as the people of independent values so something like shim purim how to say this so this helping boys helping hands to koreans and no more as for just in the so just the soviets they were normally related the reference to the soviets in north korean culture was related mostly to the moments of liberation of korea and the moments of the first after liberation period especially the films like eternal any eternal friend about the exploiter yakov nevichenko who saved kim wilson from who saved kim wilson during the assassination attempts to assassination 1946 was extremely important and the actor andrey martynov who played this role he was extremely popular in north korea this the role of yakov nevichenko but it was all related to the later period 1980s not 50s not 70s but only 80s the late ages in fact in the late 80s north koreans produced two works two cinema one after another relating to the heroes of the soviet heroes who died at who died or sacrificed themselves for for korea that was mario tsukanova the film from from five to five i think that that's that was the title of this film so this story was completely fictionalized had nothing to do with the real story of mario tsukanova who died when during the launch of the soviet army in tronjin in 1945 she was presenting at the film again as the helper of koreans as the fan of korean of korean nations so the person who tried to save them from the bacterial bacteriological weapon of japan so who blasted herself in order to blast some den of the japanese who tried to who tried to poison koreans with some bacteriological weapon something that never happened and mario tsukanova was actually she was killed by the she died at the hands of the japanese when she was caught by them captured by them in 1945 so this is a completely different story so they made this completely different story of her but this is this is what we can say not not korean war but the liberation of korea that's that's the historical role of sovets in north korean in north korean films north korean works of art and they had a very important and very big question the area of question is the representation of contemporary russians representations of russians after perestroika and that was an extremely important role which they play in north korean culture but this is this is another story so i will try to keep myself short yeah and so that's thank you thank thank you very much to both of both professor gabrusenko and dr lu for a very interesting session and i will take full responsibility for going rather over time on that session but thank you very much again let's give them a