The Enlightenment-Period Songs, Inherited and Developed as Part of the Precious National Music Heritage under the Guidance of Chairman Kim Jong Il

Chairman Kim Jong Il said:

"It is one of our Party's consistent policies on art and literature to value and properly preserve the cultural heritage created by our nation historically."

Part of the cultural heritage, created by the wise Korean people, are the enlightenment-period songs, which were written from 1920's to before the liberation of the Korean nation.

The enlightenment-period songs, which reflected the Korean people's pathetically tearful situations, national wrath and emotion of resistance against the Japanese imperialists, were written in a great number by conscientious Korean literary artists so as to preserve the folk music and enlighten people with the anti-Japanese spirit even during the Japanese imperialists' colonial rule.

The enlightenment-period songs were of significance and progressiveness in a sense that they expressed the Korean people's hatred and resistance, through their nostalgia for their hometown and country, against the invaders who plundered and oppressed the country, and were characterized by lyricism and vitality which made the songs easy to sing.

In the past, however, that genre was undervalued by some narrow-minded people with faulty attitudes towards the enlightenment-period songs, not as the precious music heritage of the Korean nation, thereby resulting in it almost being buried in history.

Chairman Kim Jong Il, who always treasured the national cultural heritage and cared about its inheritance and development, made sure that the enlightenment-period songs were discovered and checked with the right viewpoint and attitudes, and gave a wise guidance to the appropriate inheritance and development of the songs in accordance with the needs of the times.

First of all, he gave a correct understanding of the enlightenment-period songs for having the right view and attitude to them.

In the talks with senior officials of the Central Committee of the Workers' Party of Korea on Sep. 8th, Juche 91(2002), on January 2nd, Juche 92(2003) and with senior officials from the Party Central Committee and the sectors of literature and arts on March 20th and on March 31th, Juche 96(2007), he gave instructions to have a correct understanding of the enlightenment-period songs.

He said that the enlightenment-period songs, written from 1920s to before the liberation of the country, were of progressive traits but after the liberation, some people who misunderstood them had insisted that the songs were decadent popular songs and should be forbidden. It was absolutely wrong, he also pointed out, that some people still kept the enlightenment-period songs from being sung.

He taught the officials in detail that the word popular song began to be used in the country as songs were propagated through phonograph records and thus the then-composers called it popular song in such a sense that their songs were more widely sung than folk songs.

He continued that the enlightenment-period songs had some limitations but were precious music heritage of the Korean nation, emphasizing that correcting the misunderstanding of and regaining the enlightenment-period songs was like a great event in the history of the Korean music and also a valuable achievement in preserving the Juche and national characters and inheriting the national music heritage on the principles of fidelity to historical truth.

Next, he gave detailed instructions to propagate the enlightenment-period songs on the basis of the right viewpoint of them.

Chairman Kim Jong Il said that it was important to discover and check up the enlightenment-period songs, as well as to distinguish between enlightenment and enlightenment-period songs, as a priority to do good propagation of the enlightenment-period songs.

He said that enlightenment songs, which had been influenced by the patriotic cultural movement from late 19th century to early 20th century, were characterized by songs of cultural enlightenment as its mainstream, e.g. ‘Song of Students', ‘Song of Illiteracy Abolition', ‘Song of Temperance' while enlightenment-period songs, which had been set against the background of from 1920's to before the liberation, were mainstreamed by those more characteristic of anti-Japanese enlightenment compared to enlightenment songs, thereby resulting in them having different time backgrounds and different ideological and thematic contents.

He continued that we should be careful in checking and using the names for genres of enlightenment-period songs — e.g. ‘Tongyo'(or ‘nursery rhyme') and ‘Yesulgayo'(or ‘artistic song') had been used before the liberation, but some scholars had renamed ‘nursery rhyme' children's song and ‘artistic song' lyric song — thus it would be good to use ‘nursery rhyme' and ‘artistic song' that had been used until before the liberation because ‘children's song' and ‘lyric song' did not show the phase of the times.

Therefore, measures were taken to further advance the project for the extensive discovery and collection as well as historical research and arrangement of enlightenment-period songs, thereafter followed by scientific discussions between musicians.

Chairman Kim Jong Il also made sure that enlightenment-period songs were theoretically and widely introduced.

He also said that the enlightenment-period songs could be introduced in the aspects of their thematic and ideological, musically depictive characteristics, detailed story of their creation, the Japanese imperialists' pressure on them, as well as in the aspects of the relationship between the enlightenment-period songs and other traditional national music.

He made sure that correct assessments should be given to writers and artistes who had made contributions to the production and propagation of the enlightenment-period songs, pointing out that,in the writing of enlightenment-period songs, principles of fidelity to historical truth and the standpoint of Juche should be kept and thus led to the right analysis and assessment of their progressiveness, significance in music history and limitations in relationship with the then-social and historical conditions.

He gave the details of reproduction and propagation of selected good songs, of genre-appropriate depiction of the songs in the singing and of giving the explanation of the songs during the broadcasting.

Thus, newspapers, journals and other kinds of publications, like ‘The enlightenment-period songs, the national music heritage' covered the concepts and history, contents and genres of the enlightenment-period songs and the writers, helping to have a better understanding and singing of the songs, to artistically and wonderfully produce and broadcast the songs in cassettes, CD karaoke.

In particular, ‘The KAPF Writers' of a multi-part feature film ‘The Nation and Destiny' covered the life route as well as literary and artistic activities of literary artists before the liberation and depicted the enlightenment-period songs in connection with them, helping to widely propagate them.

Like this, thanks to the wise leadership and care of Chairman Kim Jong Il, who had an ardent love for the nation and far-sighted, unusual acumen, the enlightenment-period songs are perpetuated as the valuable music heritage of the Korean nation in the history of national music and keep a vital music heritage widely sung and loved by the Korean people.