Kim Hyong-jik


Kim Hyong-jik was a Korean independence activist during Japanese rule. He was the father of the North Korean founder Kim Il Sung, the paternal grandfather of Kim Jong Il, and a great-grandfather of the current leader of North Korea, Kim Jong Un.

Biography

Kim Hyong-jik was born on 10 July 1894, in the small village of Mangyongdae, situated atop a peak called Mangyungbong just 12 kilometers downstream on the Taedong River from Pyongyang, Kim was the son of Kim Pohyŏn. Kim attended Sungshil School, which was run by American missionaries, and became a teacher at the Sunhwa school in Mangyongdae in 1913 and the Christian Myongsin school in Ponghwa-ri, Kangdong County in 1916 and later worked as a herbal pharmacist. According to the North Korean official sources, he died as a result of numerous medical problems, including third-degree frostbite.
Kim and his wife attended Christian churches, and Kim even served as a part-time Protestant missionary. It was reported that his son, Kim Il Sung, attended church services during his teenage years before becoming an atheist later in life.
Kim Il Sung often spoke of his father's idea of chiwŏn.
Kim Jong Il's official government biography states that his grandfather was "the leader of the anti-Japanese national liberation movement and was a pioneer in shifting the direction from the nationalist movement to the communist movement in Korea". Kim Hyong-jik is claimed by North Korea to have convened an important meeting of independence activists in November 1921 memorialized at the Sansong Revolutionary Site.

Family