Star and Stripes: History of the North Korean Flag and its Place in State Ideology
This article deals with the national flag of North Korea. The author explains in detail the history behind the creation of the North Korean flag, debunking the official DPRK version that claims Kim Il-sung as responsible for its creation. Existing evidence shows that the flag was in actuality designed in the Soviet Union instead. The author then proceeds to describe how this flag was established as the DPRK`s state flag in 1948 and why this decision became a cause for some unrest and even open opposition among the contemporary North Korean political elite. Furthermore, the article describes the process of distortion of the flag`s history in North Korea. From the late 1950s, any notions that North Korea may have had for a different flag were systematically erased from DPRK books and monuments, and the creation of the flag retroactively attributed to Kim Il-sung. Finally, the author presents his findings on the place of the flag in DPRK ideology. Following the dramatic increase in the intensity of the personality cult in 1967, rhetoric about loyalty to the country was to a large extent substituted with rhetoric about loyalty to the Leader, and thus the ideological role of the flag-as the symbol of the state-was reduced, giving way to symbols representing the Kim dynasty
Downloadable Article, 2016