The Resurrection of Confucianism in North Korea

While Juche ideology, emblematic of socialism in North Korea, was first formed based on Marxist-Leninism, it was gradually infused with the traditional Korean thought of Confucianism as the North Korean regime, as well as the personal power of Kim Il Sung, stabilized on a firm footing. As a result, socialism in North Korea began to transform in its own ways. The traditional Confucianism of the five-hundred-year Joseon Dynasty, particularly the ethics of the Three Bonds and Five Relationships, impacted all aspects of Korean lives in an immeasurable ways. This tradition, however, was severely criticized by the new twentieth century intellectuals who were exposed to new Western thoughts and academic trends during the Japanese colonial period. The North Korean regime, which, after liberation, adopted Marxist-Leninism as the founding ideology of the regime, severely criticized and denied traditional Confucianism as a pre-modern and feudal ideology based on anachronistic idealism. Korean Confucianism, initially abandoned by the North Korean regime in its formative years, however, was resurrected in Juche ideology in order to justify the dictatorial regime of Kim Il Sung. In this article, I sought to closely follow the process of denial-to-resurrection of Korean Confucianism in great detail. Starting with the discourses of denial produced by reformist intellectuals of the colonial period such as Yun Chiho and Yi Gwangsu, I move on to the praise of Soviet-style socialism and concomitant erasure of traditional Confucianism by the likes of Baek Namun during the early years of the North Korean regime, and finish with the processes of resurrection of Confucianism during the 1970s and 1980s as the Juche ideology became formalized and stabilized. North Korea’s Juche ideology is a resurrection of Confucianism in a mystical way, and socialism in North Korea therefore can be seen as an ideology with a strong mutual affinity with pre-modern ideologies

Aesthetics · Ancient history · Korean studies · Neo-Confucianism · Political science · Sociology · Anthropology · Demography · Gender Studies · History · Korean Peninsula Historical and Political Studies · Philosophy

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