Kang Pan Sok (Korean: 강반석; MR: Kang Pansŏk; 21 April 1892 – 31 July 1932) was the mother of North Korean leader Kim Il Sung, the paternal grandmother of Kim Jong Il, and a great grandmother of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.
Biography
She came from the village of Chilgol and raised Kim on a small farm in Mangyongdae, both near Pyongyang. She accepted, but rarely participated in her husband's pro-independence activism. After the family fled to Manchuria to avoid arrest, she did not return to Korea. 21 April is a day of memorial for her in North Korea, when a wreath-laying ceremony is held at Chilgol Revolutionary Site.
Legacy
In North Korea, Kang Pan Suk is referred to as the "Mother of Korea" or "Great Mother of Korea". Both titles are shared with Kim Jong Il's mother and Kim Jong Un's grandmother Kim Jong Suk. However, it was Kang Pan Suk who was the first family member of Kim Il Sung to have a cult of personality of her own to supplement that of her son, from the late 1960s onwards. In 1967, Rodong Sinmun praised her as the "mother of all". The same year, the Democratic Women's League initiated a campaign called "Learning from Madame Kang Pan Suk". There is a song by the name of "Mother of Korea" in her honor, as well as a hagiographic biography, also called The Mother of Korea (1968).
The Protestant Chilgol Church in Pyongyang is dedicated to the memory of Kang Pan Sok, who was a Presbyterian. Her name meant "rock", having been named for Saint Peter.
References
Further reading
- The Mother of Korea. Pyongyang: Foreign Languages Publishing House. 1978. OCLC 6695920.
- Mrs. Kang Ban Sok, mother of the great leader of Korea. Pyongyang: Central Committee of the Korean Democratic Women's Union. 1968. OCLC 11370735.
External links
- Chilgol Revolutionary Site picture album Archived 6 March 2016 at the Wayback Machine at Naenara
- Chilgol Revolutionary Site (video) Archived 4 March 2016 at the Wayback Machine at Naenara
