Kim Song-ae

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In this Korean name, the family name is Kim.
Kim Song-ae
First Lady of North Korea
In role
17 December 1963 – 15 August 1974
Supreme LeaderKim Il-sung
Preceded byOffice established
Succeeded byRi Sol-ju (2018)
Chair of the Central Committee of the Korean Democratic Women's League
In office
1993 – 25 April 1998
Supreme LeaderKim Jong-il
Preceded byVacant
Succeeded byCheon Yeon-ok
In office
1971–1976
Supreme LeaderKim Il-sung
Preceded byKim Ok-sun
Succeeded byVacant
Personal details
Born(1924-12-29)29 December 1924
Kangso-guyok, South Pyongan Province, Japanese Korea
DiedSeptember 2014 (aged 89)
Kanggye, North Korea
Political partyWorkers' Party of Korea
SpouseKim Il-sung (m. 1952–1994; his death)
ChildrenKim Kyong-jin (daughter)
Kim Pyong-il (son)
Kim Yong-il (son)[a]
Korean name
Chosŏn'gŭl
김성애
Hancha
金聖愛
Revised RomanizationGim Seong-ae
McCune–ReischauerKim Sŏng-ae

Kim Sŏng-ae (Korean: 김성애, born Kim Song-pal 29 December 1924 – September 2014[1]) was a North Korean politician who served as the First Lady of North Korea from 1963 to 1974. She was the second wife of the President of North Korea, Kim Il-sung.

Biography

Born Kim Song-pal on 29 December 1924 in South Pyongan Province,[2][3] Kim Song-ae began her career as a clerical worker in the Ministry of National Defense where she first met Kim Il-sung in 1948. She was hired to work in his residence as an assistant to Kim Jong-suk, Kim Il-sung's first wife. After Kim Jong-suk's 1949 death, Kim Song-ae began managing Kim Il-sung's household and domestic life. During the Korean War she looked after Kim Jong-il and Kim Kyong-hui.[2] She married Kim Il-sung in 1952, although due to the war no formal ceremony was held. One source indicates Kim Il-sung had had an affair with her even before his first wife died.[citation needed] She gave birth to a daughter (Kim Kyong-jin, 1951) and two sons (Kim Pyong-il, 1954; Kim Yong-il, 1955).[4]

Kim Song-ae later rose in political power. From the mid 1960s until the mid 1970s, Kim Song-ae allegedly held a significant amount of political influence in North Korea.[5] As her tenure of political significance occurred in about the same period as that of Jiang Qing in China during the culture revolution, Jang Jin-sung referred to Kim Song-ae as the "North Korean mirror image of Jiang Qing".[5]

In 1965, she became vice-chairwoman of the Central Committee of the Korean Democratic Women's League (KDWL), and in 1971, she rose to be chairwoman.[6] In December 1972, she became a representative of the People’s Supreme Assembly.[6]

According to Jang Jin-sung, Kim Song-ae had the ambition to place her son, Kim Pyong-il in the position of successor to her spouse Kim Il-sung, rather than his son from his first marriage, Kim Jong-il.[5] In this, she was supposedly supported by a faction of the North Korean political elite, among them her brother Kim Kwang-hop, and Kim Il-sung's brother Kim Yong-ju, and opposed by the faction of her stepson Kim Jong-il.[5] In the 1970s, her influence was reportedly seen as excessive by the party, who started to curb it.[5] In parallel, her stepson Kim Jong-il became the designated heir of Kim Il-sung, and his faction worked to remove her from influence.[5][6] In 1976, Kim Song-ae lost her position as chair of the KDWL, which removed her communication channel to the public and effectively curbed her power base.[5] Reportedly, Kim Song-ae, as well as her brother-in-law Kim Yong-ju, who had supported her plans to place her son in the position of heir instead of Kim Jong-il, was placed in house arrest in 1981 upon the wish of the designated heir Kim Jong-il.[5]

In 1993, she was reinstated by Kim Jong-il as chair of the KDWL, but her position was purely symbolic and nominal, and she was removed a second time in 1998.[7] Since 1998, little information about her has reached the outside world.[8]

There are rumours that she was killed in a car accident in Beijing in June 2001.[8] Other reports claimed she was still alive as of July 2011, though in poor health, and that Kim Pyong-il returned to Pyongyang from his posting in Poland to visit her. In 2012, a report from a North Korean defector claimed that Kim Song-ae had been declared insane in the early 1990s, even before the death of Kim Il-sung, and since then been kept under supervision of a psychiatric nurse in her house arrest.[6]

She was later reported to have died in 2014,[9] a date which was confirmed by the Ministry of Unification in December 2018.[10]


Works

  • Kim Song-ae (1969). Let Us Women Become Revolutionary Fighters Infinitely Loyal to the Party and Reliable Builders of Socialism and Communism by Revolutionizing and Working-classizing Ourselves. Pyongyang: Foreign Languages Publishing House. OCLC 253679297.
  • — (1970). On the Women's Emancipation Movement in Korea. Report at the Meeting Held in Honour of the 25th Anniversary of the Founding of the Korean Democratic Women's Union, November 17, 1970. Pyongyang: Foreign Languages Publishing House. OCLC 1012367.

See also

Notes

  1. ^ Not the same person as former premier Kim Yong-il

References

  1. ^ 김일성 부인 김성애 사망설 제기
  2. ^ a b "Kim Song Ae (Kim So'ng-ae)". North Korea Leadership Watch. Retrieved 25 October 2020.
  3. ^ http://nkinfo.unikorea.go.kr/nkp/theme/viewPeople.do?nkpmno=933
  4. ^ "Kim Family". North Korea Leadership Watch. Retrieved 28 September 2020.
  5. ^ a b c d e f g h Jang Jin-sung: Dear Leader: Poet, Spy, Escapee – A Look Inside North Korea, 2014
  6. ^ a b c d NF|New Focus. Kim Il-sung’s wife was declared insane over 20 years ago. Politics. Tuesday 18 September 2012
  7. ^ NF|New FocusRo Song Sil: a key-elite of the North Korean system? Politics. Monday 8 April 2013
  8. ^ a b Lee Su-gyeong (이수경) (2 May 2006). "김부자 실체: 김정일의 계모 김성애". Radio Free Asia (Korean service). Archived from the original on 27 June 2007. Retrieved 20 May 2007.
  9. ^ 김일성 부인 김성애 사망설 제기
  10. ^ NK founder’s second wife died in 2014: Unification Ministry
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