Politics

Pak Se Yong is a talented poet of the DPRK.

His name is widely known to the Korean people along with the National Anthem of the DPRK.

Born in July 1902, Pak grew up experiencing the grief of a ruined nation. He joined a progressive literary organization and later became a proletarian poet as member of the Korean Artists’ Proletarian Federation (KAPF).

After publishing his first poem "The Girl on the Seashore" in 1925, he composed "Threshing" (1928), “Night Attack" (1930), “Swift” (1936), etc.

While editing the proletarian children's magazine The Star Land, he wrote children’s dramatic poems and songs and other juvenile literary works.

When the magazine was closed and he was prevented from continuing his progressive literary production activities due to the harsh suppression by the Japanese imperialists, he worked as a clerk at a middle school until Korea was liberated and in those years he produced a collection of poems “Swift” (1937).

Only after liberation in August 1945 could Pak Se Yong lead a genuine life as a man of literature. He conducted his creative activities with burning love for and intense devotion to his country and fellow people and a fiery passion.

In those days, the Korean people desired to sing of their joy of having become masters of land, factories and the country for the first time in their life and such aspiration grew stronger with each passing day.

In order to meet their demand, President Kim Il Sung met with writers including Pak Se Yong. At the meeting he referred to the need to create the national anthem as soon as possible. Our country is really beautiful and ours is a resourceful and strong-willed people with a 5 000-year history and brilliant culture, he told them.

Pak Se Yong gained creative inspiration from the President’s instruction and buckled down to the writing of the words of the anthem, before completing the National Anthem of the DPRK under the meticulous guidance of the President.

In those days Pak wrote such songs as "The Glorious Country" (1947) and "Victorious May" (1947) to arouse the patriotic enthusiasm of the Koreans who were out in the building of a new country.

During the grim Fatherland Liberation War, he served as a war writer and produced such militant poems as "Ceremony of Appointment of Rifleman in the Forests" (1951) and "Bugler" (1952).

After the war, too, he brought forth masterpieces that suited the aesthetic tastes of the contemporary people. He created a large number of poems and lyrics on diverse and broad themes with a great creative zeal until the last moments of his life in 1989.

His grave is at the Patriotic Martyrs Cemetery in Sinmi-ri.