Immortal Exploits of Comrade Kim Il Sung in Conserving National and Cultural Heritage

The great leader Comrade Kim Jong Il said;

"We should make Party members and other working people fully aware of his greatness and immortal exploits."

The great leader Comrade Kim Il Sung, with his deep concern about the succession and development of the cultural heritage of our nation, scored the great exploits in conserving the national and cultural heritage as the precious wealth of our people throughout his life.

National and cultural heritage includes the books and other recordings handed down historically from the elder generations.

Above all, he had scored the immortal exploits by leading the work of collecting and conserving the national and cultural heritage.

With long history and splendid culture, our nation has left the excellent national legacies from the olden times. Our nation deserved to be called the country of literature as it was famous for the large number of publications but many of them have been lost and disappeared due to the miserable history of the nation.

As the great leader Comrade Kim Il Sung valued the history and culture of the nation, he suggested to launch a campaign to find out and conserve the precious relics of the ancestors immediately after the national liberation when the situation was difficult and complex.

Noting that the new and excellent culture of the new country can develop when the national relics are found and conserved, he made the campaign of finding and conserving the national relics nationwide and mass-based.

Resolution of the Provisional People's Committee "law on conserving national treasure, historic sites, scenic beauties and natural monuments" was adopted in April 1946 and 1948 witnessed the foundation of the Committee of Finding and Conserving Material and Cultural Relics of Korea. The adoption of the resolution of cabinet "regulations on conserving material and cultural relics" in August 1949 was an important occasion in laying the legal guarantee of finding and conserving the national and cultural relics.

The President Kim Il Sung successfully led the campaign collecting the ancient national literature from individual families and private bookstores with the money granted by the government and called upon the entire organizations and people to donate the old books.

He suggested to take measures to conserve the old books collected in the post liberation period in main museums and libraries such as Korean History Museum, Central Library and the library of Kim Il Sung University.

Even under the grave situation of the Fatherland Liberation War when we were fighting do-or-die battles, he noted that we can never tolerate the enemy incinerating and robbing the national relics of our nation and organized and commanded the operation to rescue the Chronicles of Korean Dynasty which is of great value. The world had never witnessed the war in which the measures were taken to rescue and conserve the national relics. He also dispatched many cadres to find out the national relics during the war.

In the whole course of socialist construction, he occasionally instructed to find out and inherit all the valuable relics and led the campaign to collect the relics from inside and outside the country.

Attentions were paid and measures were taken to conserve the complete collection of Buddhist Scriptures from 80 000 wooden blocks in Mt. Myohang forever and other valuable relics and thus ensured that our people can cherish the national pride through the relics.

He had also scored the immortal exploit by leading the campaign of translating the old books in Chinese characters.

Recognizing the importance of the translation, he led the campaign wisely.

He visited Kim Il Sung University in Paeksongri in August 1952 during the war period and suggested to wage the campaign to translate the old books such as "Tonggukbyonggam" (war encyclopedia of Korea) and contribute to arming the service personnel and people with patriotism and studying and systematizing the history, science and culture of the nation.

A large number of the old books are translated into modern Korean in 1950s and they include the "Tales of famous generals in Haedong (medieval Korea) ", "Richungmugongjonso" (collection of works of Ri Sun Sin and works relating to him), "Samguksagi" (history of the Three Kingdoms-Koguryo, Silla and Paekje) and "Tongguksesigi" (collection of festivals and folk customs) and, in 1960s, "Samgukyusa" (collection of the chronicles and stories of ancient states and Koryo Dynasty) and "History of Koryo Dynasty" and other history books such as "Songhosaesolryuson" (book of astronomy, geology, philosophy, history, politics, economy and military), "Jingbirok", "Jibongryusol", and "Kwanongsocho" and "Taekriji" and books of medicine such as "Tonguibogam" (complete collection of the Korean medicine) and "Hyangyakjibsong" (medical encyclopedia work).

The campaign to translate a huge amount of the Chronicles of the Korean Dynasty was conducted vigorously under the wise leadership of the President Kim Il Sung and this is a good example of translation of the old books in our country.

The Chronicles of the Korean Dynasty is a valuable cultural heritage of our nation as it is a diary of the dynasty in 1763 volumes which records the historical events of 519 years.

The Chronicles which had been rescued during the Fatherland Liberation War thanks to the wise leadership of the President Kim Il Sung were conserved in the bibliographical library at Kim Il Sung University.

With the far-reaching plan of making the national heritage the precious wealth of our people, the President Kim Il Sung suggested to launch a campaign to translate the Chronicles of the Korean Dynasty when he visited Kim Il Sung University in Oct. 1970 and led the campaign to success by giving instructions on several occasions.

He taught everything about the translation from the deviation in translation of the past to the fundamental principles in the translation campaign.

Thanks to the energetic and outstanding guidance of the President Kim Il Sung, the translation campaign was conducted from 1970s to 1990s and thus the Chronicles of the Korean Dynasty was translated in 400 volumes at the highest level and became the common cultural wealth of our nation and the mankind and the genuine possession that our people can enjoy.

The complete collection of Buddhist Scriptures from 80,000 wooden blocks is well known to the world since it is of huge amount and the oldest among the existing Buddhist literature and renowned as the standard with the abundant content and its correctness. The translation of the Scriptures were published in 17 volumes and the old books of medicine including "Tonguibogam" (complete collection of the Korean medicine), "Hyangyakjibsong" (medical encyclopedia work)and "Uibangryuchi" (complete collection of medical encyclopedia) were translated in modern Korean.

He also led the campaign of collecting, arranging and translating the old literary works.

Since 1980s, the old literary works of our nation had been translated in modern Korean in 100 volumes in total. These include many popularnovels such as "Tale of Chun Hyang" and "Tale of Sim Chong", poetical works such as "Collection of short lyric poems" and "Book of lyrics", works of individual writers such as "Poems of Kim Si Sup" and "Novels of Pak Ji Won" as well as "travels", "works of commanders of Imjin volunteer armies (1592-1598) " and "collection of appeals" and all these works made a contribution to educating the entire nation with the Korean-nation-first-spirit.

His immortal exploits also include his leadership to establish the system of educating the experts in ancient national literature.

The collection and translation of the ancient literature is impossible without the experts.

The ancient national literary works are in huge amount and they had all been written in Chinese characters of Korean style since our ancestors introduced Chinese characters and thus the translation into modern Korean cannot be done in a short period.

In order to carry out and accelerate the translation work for a long period of time, efforts should be channeled to educating the experts in ancient literary works.

With the insight into the reality, the President Kim Il Sung initiated to take measures to set up the Chinese characters course and train the experts.

Paying deep attention to the training of the experts in ancient literary works in 1960s and 1970s, he led the development of the Chinese characters course into the ancient literature course and to the national ancient literature course and the formation of subjects and educational system, the provision of textbooks and reference books for the experts. He initiated to establish the University of Social Science in 1980s which trains the experts in ancient national relics together with Kim Il Sung University.

Under the wise leadership of the President Kim Il Sung, the system of educating the experts in the ancient national relics has developed and trained many experts and thus the subjects relating to the classic literature such as "fundamentals of the classic literature", "Chinese characters", "history of compilation of the old books" and "Ridu"(Chinese characters used for their sound values to write Korean particles, endings, and auxiliary verbs in order to facilitate the reading of Chinese texts) were founded as well as the graceful reference books such as "new dictionary of Chinese characters", "dictionary of 10 000 Chinese characters" and "guide to the ancient names".

Successes were also achieved in collecting and translating other ancient national literature thanks to the experts trained in the education system.

We should hold fast add luster to the immortal exploits of the President Kim Il Sung for eternity who led our people to enjoy the national and cultural heritage as their precious national wealth.