kotaji 거타지

For the next in my antiquarian books series I wanted to show off an interesting Korean language textbook from 1950s North Korea. This book, entitled simply ‘Kugŏ’ (Korean) was intended for adult education and is clearly about a lot more than just learning how to read and write the mother tongue. As much as anything this was obviously seen as the ideal opportunity to propagandize and explain the virtues of the regime to the uneducated peasant masses (I’m certainly not making any argument for the uniqueness of North Korea - South Koreans I know who went to school in the 1970s have told me very funny tales about the sorts of anticommunist propaganda that appeared in their school textbooks). Anyway, this is a fascinating book to leaf through full of rather quaint pictures and short essays from which a lot could be learnt about the DPRK of the 1950s.

The first part of the book takes the learner through the sounds of the Korean ‘alphabet’ - han’gŭl, with illustrated examples of words formed using various letters and letter combinations. In this picture we are shown a farming scene to illustrate the words maŭl (마을 - village) and kaŭl (가을 - autumn) which use the sound ŭ (으).

In this one a construction scene illustrates the double siŏt sound used in the verb ‘to pile’ (쌓다) as the two workers pile bricks. The interesting subtle propaganda message here is the woman working alongside her male comrade on the building site. One doesn’t get the feeling that North Korea has always been that keen on sexual equality, but certainly in the mid-fifties it appears that the powers that be were attempting to reform the traditional notions of gender roles in Korean society.

This rather heartwarming scene shows a couple at a clothes shop (or perhaps a department store) buying material, in this case to illustrate the slightly tricky sound combination ps (ㅄ) as in the word 값, meaning price. If anyone knows what the word 코신 means I’d be interested to know.

In the second part of the book, the more advanced learner, having grasped the han’gŭl letters moves on to reading passages which become progressively more difficult. This is one of the earlier ones that caught my eye because of its content. It’s a celebration of the 11th anniversary of Korea’s liberation from colonial rule, but it is written in a way that would not be allowed in modern North Korea and would probably have been banned even a year after this book was published. The problem is the praise that it heaps on the Soviet army as the liberators of Korea. The mid-fifties in the DPRK was a time of change as the rulers reacted to changes in the USSR and the Eastern Bloc (Krushchev’s denunciation of Stalin, the Hungarian uprising and Polish workers’ riots) and to the growing importance of China. The leadership turned away from the Soviet Union and settled on a course of greater independence, symbolised in the Juche philosophy and the huge cult of personality built up around Kim Il-sŏng. By the late 50s it was General Kim himself who had liberated Korea, perhaps with a little help from the Russians. But here is a rough translation of this passage from the textbook:

This day commemorates the 11th anniversary of the Great Soviet Army’s liberation of our country. [The language used in this sentence very firmly indicates that it was the Soviets who did something to Korea.]
The sky is endlessly clear and blue.
To celebrate this national holiday with due reverence, countless workers have gathered in the vast square.
The workers, made the masters of their own nation by the righteous leadership of the Chosŏn Workers’ Party and the government of the Republic, are marching, demonstrating to their utmost their loyalty and strength.

etc…