The Valuable Teachings on Myths and Legendary Tales

Chairman Kim Jong Il said:

"Myths and legendary tales constitute valuable materials in studying history. They contain the demands, aspirations and life of the people in the given period."

Chairman Kim Jong Il issued many immortal classic works related to history to make clear vital guiding principles for Korean history during his revolutionary activities at Kim Il Sung University.

Among them is the classic work, "Myths and Legendary Tales Constitute Valuable Materials for Studying History", a talk given by Chairman Kim Jong Il to the students of Kim Il Sung University on January 27, Juche 50 (1961).

Some students who attended the lecture on the history of the national economy with Chairman Kim Jong Il in attendance said that the issues of the structure and economic development of the primitive society in ancient Joson, which were taught in the lecture, were very interesting, for they was based on the archaeological relics, myths and legendary tales, but myths and legendary tales were unreliable because they were all groundless.

Seeing through the actual conditions, Chairman Kim Jong Il told the students that the ancient myths and legendary tales were all fabricated, but they reflected the demands, aspirations and life of the people in those days, so that they should have a correct viewpoint on them. He also said that the myths and legendary tales handed down from ancient times should be analyzed correctly and used as valuable materials in studying history.

He said that they should not approach myths and legendary tales in a nihilistic way to use them as valuable materials for studying history.

Ancient people could not understand the law of various changes in nature and society on a scientific basis, so they mystified it and were afraid of it. They thought that all things and phenomena in natural world or human life were the consequences of some supernatural power, and they imagined about the being with such power and regarded it as God. So they were unable to explain about the nature and law of all things in the world, divorced from God, and all their cognitive and practical activities were intimately associated with God. So was the ancient mythology.

In "Tangun Mythology", the birth-myth of ancient Joson, appeared God, heavenly king, and his son, God Hwanung. And there, bear and tiger were personified.

The Gods in ancient Greek mythology were all human-shaped, and the Jewish mythology told that the terrestrial world came into being because God created man with earth.

It is true that the ancient people tried to fabricate their demands and aspirations in a fantastic way, associating them with the divine beings, not directly with human beings, in their myths and legendary tales. But it is not advisable to try to approach the myths and legendary tales in a nihilistic way, regarding them as groundless ones without giving any reason. There is an essence in the fictitious content, which reflects the demands and aspirations and actual social conditions in those days.

Therefore, it is necessary to make clear the actual social conditions in those days and get a correct understanding of the demands, aspirations and life of people in those days, by means of the myths and legendary tales.

Chairman Kim Jong Il said that it was very important to have a scientific grasp of various historical events and facts in myths and legendary tales. Looking into the groundless and mysterious contents of the "Tangun mythology", we can see that our ancestors did farming as their main occupation, and that society was gradually divided into classes and the ruling class was formed in the historical period when the primitive society collapsed and class society appeared.

The epic "Ilias", written by the ancient Greek poet Homer, seems to be a fantastic work in which appeared a lot of men of Herculean strength who were semi-anthropomorphized and semi-deified, for it was written, based on a number of legendary tales and myths, but it reflected the then actual historical facts concerning the Trojan War.

The myths and legendary tales of the ancient times contain the absurd and fantastic contents, but looking into them, we can see that they mirror the historical events and facts in those days.

In addition, Chairman Kim Jong Il stressed that we should hold fast to the working-class stand in using myths and legendary tales as valuable materials for studying history.

Myths and legendary tales were invented in keeping with the demands and interests of various classes and strata over a long period of time. The kings in the past were depicted as the heaven-born men, as the beings with mysterious power, different from the ordinary people in the myths or legendary tales invented under the influence of the ruling classes. Therefore, myths and legendary tales reflecting the contents for advocating the king or ruling classes should be critically analyzed from the working-class standpoint.

The fact that King Tangun who founded Ancient Joson in "Tangun mythology" was depicted as the descendant of God, heavenly king, tells it well. This reflected the intention of the ruling classes who had oppressed the masses of working people relying on theocracy, regarding the ancient royal authority as divine.

In particular, it is necessary to have a correct understanding of the fact that the legendary tale such as "the story of Kija's move to the East", which mirrored the intention of the great-power chauvinistic historians and feudal historians of flunkyism, was absolutely unscientific and absurd, and analyze its unscientific nature and groundlessness strictly from the standpoint of Juche-oriented and the working class.

Indeed, Chairman Kim Jong Il was a great teacher of history who put forth the original idea that even one myth or legendary tale represents the demands, aspirations and life of the people in those days and clarified even the issues of principle arising in using it as valuable materials for studying history.