Andrei Lankov gave us a Christmas present in the Asia Times:
Back in the 1970s, when I was a teenager in the then Soviet Union in my native Leningrad, many barbershops stocked copies of Korea magazine, a lavishly illustrated North Korean propaganda monthly. What was such a publication doing in the barbershops? The answer, I suspect, would be quite embarrassing for its editors: it was subscribed to in order to amuse the patrons who were waiting for a haircut.
The magazine was heavily subsidized by Pyongyang, so its annual subscription rate was dirt-cheap while its content was both bizarre and funny. Thus the magazine, which was published to inspire worldwide love and admiration for the Great Leader and his son and successor, the Dear Leader, was often (I would say from my experience, in most cases) subscribed to by people who saw it as a laughingstock and opened its pages only to make fun of the Great Men. The North Korean propaganda appeared very weird to the Russians - not least because it looked like a grossly exaggerated version of their own official propaganda. The grotesquely bad Russian translation of the texts also provided unintended comical effects.
By all means, read the rest on your own — it’s a really good overview of Soviet/Russian attitudes toward North Korea from 1945 to 2004.
Dr. Lankov also linked to two Russian-language sites — Kimirsen and Hroniki Syevyernoi Korei — which are reportedly amusing, but I can’t read ‘em and the wife is asleep, so their entertainment value remains unconfirmed by this blogger.
And, in case you didn’t read it the first time I posted on the phenomenon, there are always the anti-Juche Stalinists.
(Hat tip to GI Korea)
16 Comments
Dr Lankov, isnt ‘blog’ a Russian name?
No, and this word itself is almost unknown in Russia. There are many bloggers, but they overwhelmingly post at the Live Journal, and its name became a kind of name for a blog.
Dr Lankov. The North Koreans are not strange. They are rational by their own standards. It is Kim Jong Il & Co. that are strange. They are eccentric in the same sense that Emperor Nero was or Catherine the Great. You, being Russian, a scholar, and having lived in a totalitarian state as well, should know better than to pander to Western sensibilities. To paint the North Koreans irresponsibly as strange beasts, in these volatile times, is to portray them as something less than human and THAT, my dear scholar, is a kind of propaganda in itself. Besides, nothing is strange on this earth than goth chicks in our own good olde US of A.
bluejives, a comment and a question
1) Finger-shaking, tut-tutting “you-should-know-better”-ism doesn’t do anything but make those who disagree with you dislike you, and those who agree with you consider jumping to the other side. Try not doing it - I guarantee your results will improve (unless your specific goal is to make everyone dislike you on purpose).
2) Where exactly does Dr Lankov (as you say) paint the North Koreans as strange beasts? Where does he refer to them even as strange? Nowhere in the piece referred to above does he say anything of the sort, either directly or indirectly, and I challenge you to back up your patronising claim.
^^ was i talking to you? let the man speak for himself.
The fact that the UN Security Council hasn’t passed several resolutions against goth chicks is a damning indictment of their uselessness and a testament to the power of those black-eyeliner wearing menaces to world peace.
Hell jives, I’m sure you think even you yourself are rational. By your own standards of course.
I imagine there were several within FDR’s cabinet that thought along the same lines in 1941. “Well Franklin, we shant judge. Hitler may be an eccentric, but we mustn’t confuse that with being dangerous. His aims of propogating a master race and wiping out tens of millions of Jews may seem irrational by our ‘Western sensibilities,’ but surely they’re completely rational to he and his ilk. After all, to each his own standard. And to each his own holocaust. Who are we to judge?”
Then again jivesy old boy, having the daehanminguk running through ye olde veins, you’re quite familiar with master race fantasies then, are you not?
Ever had a pint of Franziskaner at the Third Reich bar in Shinchon on one of your pilgrimages back to the motherland? Ever look lovingly up at old Adolf and all the Nazi paraphanelia and think, “Right ideas, wrong race”?
Or are you too comfortable here in the good olde US of A to bother making a trip or two back to the motherland you love so dearly? You know what I’m talking about, right? The good olde US of A, where women can’t even walk down the streets at night alone? The place you despise, yet have chosen to pledge your allegiance to and call home?
Passports speak louder than words jives.
Bluejives… 10 points for a perfect deflection!
So I’m guessing in your mind, he’s wrong until he offers a rebuttal to your unsubstantiated jibberjabber? Nice logic.
By the way, did you see the excellent response to your earlier post (scroll all the way down)? Can’t wait for your response to that one.
Great article, great insights.
BTW, why is this ‘bluejives’ troll being fed? Other than it’s blog ratings week and the Marmot’s slipping in the polls, I can see no reason.
Dear ?€? dkapflzks?€™ (Marmot’s note: I think Dr. Lankov means Bluejives)
I strongly suspect that you did not read the article but limited itself to reading Marmot?€™s posting alone. Actually, I am sure you did not. I do not think I?€™ve ever used the word ?€™strange?€™ in the entire article. And generally it is not about ?€™strangeness?€™ or even about current affairs, but about changes in perception of North Korea in Russia over the last 60 years: from a ?€œheroic younger brother?€? in the 1950s, to a strange (yes, this time I say ?€™strange?€™) and weirdly amusing ?€œStalinist theme park?€? in 1960-1990, and a rather mixed feelings now, from adoration of a ?€™small brave country who challenges the Yankee?€™ to ?€?Oriental tyranny, of course, but it?€™s none of our business?€™. Please, read the article if you have time, and then express your veiws, positive or negative?€?
Talking about irrationality. They are very rational (if brutal) and efficient. But once again, it has nothing to do with the article…
Dr Lankov,
I apologize for launching a Bush-style preemptive attack on your article. I read your article. I found no weapons of mass distraction. Sometimes it is hard to distinguish valid comments from the cacophony of what I deem ‘white noise’. Like the FOX News channel, conservative AM radio, Sean Hannity’s “Deliver us from Evil”, you know, stuff that the likes of Haminjoke likes to regurgitate. So much to respond to, so many ignant fools yapping their lips to bitch-slap, where does one begin?
Dear bluejives,
It’s OK, it happens. I also often make opinion about books, articles etc., by reading just few paragraphs! Now, I see that I am not alone…
And about rationality. Right now I read a long and interesting article with new data about the ‘loans affair’ of the 1970s. It was when NK cheated on major international banks. The NK guys are so good in manipulating powerful partners! The problem is that the results of this brilliant (if utterly cynical) diplomacy are wasted due to inefficiencies of the domestic economy and politics.
^ Dr Lankov, there is a strange freedom and power that comes from being in a position with very little to lose. North Korea is like that.
Good to know you admire the freedom and power associated with murdering millions of North Koreans. Then again, North Korean lives amount to “very little,” eh jivesy old boy? Better to keep coddling the despot and feeding his killing machine in the name of brotherhood.
South Koreans are courageous like that.
>>>BTW, why is this ?€?bluejives?€™ troll being fed? Other than it?€™s blog ratings week and the Marmot?€™s slipping in the polls, I can see no reason.
Maybe there is an Obnoxious Asian Troll awards that we don’t know about. As virtually the only troll, bluejives has no competition in any of the blogs I pay attention to. Again, may I suggest that the Korea Herald bulletin board is a more suitable place for his, um, talents….
Dr Lankov:
In the article you mention a Soviet documentary showing young kindergarden kids performing the “My Heavy Maching Gun” dance.
I’m working on my own documentary on North Korea, primarily focused on the bizarreness mentioned in your article. Do you know any specifics about this Soviet documentary or any other bizarre North Korean footage?
I remember once seeing footage of a KPA unit storming down a road on rollerskates…
Dear Harry,
Re Soviet documentary. It was widely discussed in the late 1970s. As far as I remember, it was shot by Kazverznev, a well-known and extremely popular TV journalist of quite liberal views. If you are looking for NK footage, contact ex-Soviet archives, especially Archive of video documents in Krasnogorsk. Otehr person to talk if Leonid Petrov, from NKstudies. His is from a Russian ‘cinema family’ and does research on the NK history - good combination. Check his site north-korea.narod.ru
I e-mailed you with some details.
Regards
Al