page_title: North Korean cult of personality
section_title: Kim Jong-suk
hierarchical_section_title: North Korean cult of personality / Others / Kim Jong-suk
caption_attribution_description: Kim Jong-il in North Korean propaganda
context_page_description: The North Korean cult of personality surrounding its ruling family, the Kim family, has existed in North Korea for decades and can be found in many examples of North Korean culture. Although not acknowledged by the North Korean government, many defectors and Western visitors state there are often stiff penalties for those who criticize or do not show "proper" respect for the regime. The personality cult began soon after Kim Il-sung took power in 1948, and was greatly expanded after his death in 1994.
  While other countries have had cults of personality to various degrees, the pervasiveness and extreme nature of North Korea's personality cult surpasses that of even Stalin or Mao. The cult is also marked by the intensity of the people's feelings for and devotion to their leaders, and the key role played by a Confucianized ideology of familism both in maintaining the cult and thereby in sustaining the regime itself. The North Korean cult of personality is a large part of North Korean socialism and totalitarianism. It is also the world's only remaining imperial cult.
context_section_description: Kim Jong-suk, mother of Kim Jong-il, is described as "a revolutionary immortal" and "an anti-Japanese war hero [who] upheld the original idea and policy of Kim Il Sung and performed distinguished feats in the development of the movement for the women's emancipation in Korea." She is typified as a model revolutionary, wife, and maternal figure, and North Korean society looks to stories of her as examples of how to live life.
  Although she was first lady of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea in the first year of its founding in 1948, she died in 1949, and starting in 1974, in conjunction with her son Kim Jong-il's rise to position as the heir apparent, she was increasingly praised and her accomplishments memorialized throughout the nation. A museum and statue was built in her home town in her honor and she was called an "indomitable Communist revolutionary" by Kim Sung-ae who was Kim Il-sung's then present wife, despite being largely ignored until this point. Thus, originally she was honored as a guerrilla, but not necessarily as a mother or wife. In the 1990s, Kim Jong-suk's portrait was even added to those of Kim Il-Sung and Kim Jong-Il, which were displayed in every household and building and treated as sacred objects of veneration and worship. Furthermore, when referring to the "three Great Generals of Paekdu Mountain," a sacred dormant volcano on North Korea's northern border with China, North Koreans understand this to mean Kim Il Sung, Kim Jong Suk, and their son Kim Jong Il.
  There is a wax replica of her in the International Friendship Exhibition.
caption: A painting of both Kim Jong-suk, the mother of Kim Jong-il, and Kim Il-sung
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