[21], Kim Il-sung was born in Mangyongdae-guyok to Methodist parents. [26] He married Ri Sol-ju in either 2009 or 2010, and the couple reportedly had a daughter, Kim Ju-ae, in 2012. Outshining the boss is not usually a good idea in North Korea—Kim Jong Un’s now executed uncle Jang Song Thaek also made a similar highly publicized trip to Beijing before his own fall. A history of the Korean reunification movement: its issues and prospects. [2] Kim Jong-il had a sister, Kim Kyung-hee, who was North Korea's first female four-star general[12] and married to Jang Sung-taek, who was the second most powerful person in North Korea before his December 2013 execution for corruption. Choe was on a fence-mending mission to patch up Sino-North Korean relations after Kim Jong Un had irked the Chinese by carrying out another nuclear test in February of last year, resulting in further UN Security Council sanctions. [34] Kim Jong-nam was survived by his wife and two children. Ever since the death of his father, his whereabouts have been unknown. She was born in Japan to a Korean father and Japanese mother. Additional symbols used to depict the birth of Dear Leader Kim Jong Il on the sacred Mount Baekdu have included a star in the heavens—as with the Star of Bethlehem—and a simple log-cabin-like structure—as with depictions of the birthplace of the Great Emancipator, Abraham Lincoln. Choe, however, has something Jang lacked—a highly respected family revolutionary background. Choe’s reported mandate from Kim Jong Un was to restore party control over the military, which had eroded during the era of Kim Jong Il’s “songun” (military first) policy. In this familial Game of Thrones, another family may have a greater claim to legitimacy. Then his younger sister, Kim Yo Jong, was anointed with extraordinary new powers by the international press before she disappeared for more than two months herself. ), The “Baekdu bloodline” has, in fact, adopted some of the same mythological symbolism used in the past to surround other great leaders with a special aura. [6] Kim Il-sung was known as the Great Leader,[8] and his eldest son and successor, Kim Jong-il,[6] became known as the Dear Leader[8] and later the Great General. [15], The North Korean government denies that there is a personality cult surrounding the Kims. [28] Kim Jong-nam, Kim Jong-il's eldest son, fell out of favor when caught in a plot to visit Tokyo Disneyland in 2001. One group attacked the local police station, while another group set fire to the whole village and plundered at will.” The Daily Mail claimed that this new evidence suggesting that the leader of this crucial 1937 battle was in fact Choe Hyon and NOT Kim Il Sung has shaken the hierarchy in Pyongyang and has led to plans by Kim Jong Un to purge Choe’s son, Choe Ryong Hae. His father (Choe Ryong Hae’s grandfather) Choe Hwa-Shim, served in the Hong Beomdo Unit of the Korean Independence Army founded in 1907 just as Imperial Japan was moving to formally annex the Korean peninsula. [13] Their 29-year-old daughter overdosed on sleeping pills in 2006 while in Paris. [2] The strong and absolute leadership of a solitary great leader, known as the Suryong, is central to the North Korean ideology of Juche. This article is about rulers of North Korea since 1948. She continued public activities, but her health diminished. [29], Kim Jong-il had four partners,[13] and at least five children with three of them. [13] His sister Kim Yo-jong had fallen out of favor with her brother for a few years but in 2017, she was elevated by Kim Jong-un to the powerful Central Committee of the Workers' Party of Korea. [9] For a complete list of Kim Jong-Il's titles, visit List of Kim Jong-il's titles, Kim Jong-il was appointed to the Workers Party's Politburo (and its Presidium), Secretariat and the Central Military Commission at the 6th Workers Party Congress in October 1980,[10] which formalized his role as heir apparent. These Soviet archival records are not, however, conducive to the official North Korean narrative. Choe Hyon may well have been the key leader in the anti-Japanese colonial struggle in Manchuria and along the Korean border. [13][28] He had a reputation as a troublemaker within the family,[5] and publicly stated in 2011 that North Korea should transition out of his family's dynasty. Only those from the “Mount Paektu bloodline,” or those with a direct lineage to the country’s founder Kim Il Sung, are deemed legitimate successors. Pp. He took over as Vice Chairman of the powerful Central Military Commission (CMC) around the same time (2012) when leading General Ri Yong Ho was purged. In an interview with Finnish media in 2012, Kim Han-sol openly criticized the reclusive regime and the government saying that he has always dreamed that one day he would return to his homeland to "make things better". Choe Ryong Hae, considered by many as Kim Jong Un’s right-hand man following the execution late last year of Kim’s uncle Jang Song Thaek, has his own blood-line connections to North Korea’s revolutionary past. Kim Il-sung had three children with his second wife, Kim Song-ae: Kim Kyong-il (born 1951), Kim Pyong-il (born 1953), and Kim Yong-il (born 1955). Korea was divided after Japan's defeat in World War II. When the school opened in west Pyongyang one year after its foundation, Kim Jong-suk also unveiled the country's first statue to Kim Il-sung. [6] He led their military beginning in 1990,[11] and had a 14-year grooming period before he became North Korea's ruler. [13] Scholar Virginie Grzelczyk wrote that the Kim Dynasty represented "one of the last bastions of totalitarianism as well as perhaps 'the first Communist Dynasty'". This is not the first time that Kim Jong Un has visited the mountain. [25], Kim Jong-un's two older brothers were considered "black sheep" of the family. The juche philosophy of “self-reliance”—that the North Korean people are the masters of their country’s fate—was long promulgated by North Korea’s founding Great Leader Kim Il Sung as the primary justification for regime legitimacy. SEOUL—For seven decades, North Korea’s ruling Kim family maintained its grip on power with a simple conceit: nobody but the Supreme Leader could rule the country. The Kim family claims its legitimacy through the "Paektu bloodline" – the idea that their family has been destined, by a sacred Korean mountain, to lead the country. 2020 has been another mysterious year for the Paektu bloodline: First, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un went missing from the public eye for several long periods as rumors mounted over his ill-health. [32][33] Two women, an Indonesian and a Vietnamese, smeared the agent on Kim Jong-nam's face; both women were released after it was determined that they had been tricked by North Korean operatives, who had told them that the act was a prank for a Japanese comedy program and that the substance was lotion.