Background

According to several sources, the newspaper had an August 1922 predecessor published in Anuchino, Primorsky Krai called either the March 1st Newspaper^{[2][1][lower-alpha 2]} or Red Flag,^{[lower-alpha 3]} but scholar and former reporter for Koryo Ilbo Kim Byeong-hag is skeptical of these claims.^[3]

The predecessor (if it existed) and the eventual actual paper were published in response to the violent suppression of the 1919 Korean March 1st Movement by the Empire of Japan.^[1][4] Thousands of Koreans went into exile after the crackdowns, going mainly to Russia, China, and the United States. Many of the paper's staff were also active in the independence movement, and their coverage of the movement has been the subject of study by recent scholars.^[5][6]

Sŏnbong

On 1 March 1923 in Vladivostok, Soviet Union, the March 1st Newspaper was published on the fourth anniversary of the March 1st protests.^{[1][4][7][8][3][6]} A few years afterwards, the newspaper changed its name to Sŏnbong.^{[1][lower-alpha 4]} It was published from Khabarovsk around 1929 to 1934, then from Vladivostok again.^[7] Like other Soviet newspapers of the time, Sŏnbong was managed by the government, and local Communist officials had control over the staff and content of the paper.^[5]

The first editor was Lee Paik-cho (28 December 1895 – 12 July 1934).^{[9][10][lower-alpha 5]} Lee also served as the third, sixth, and eighth chief editor.^[9] He was born in Seoul and was a lifelong Communist, independence activist, and advocate of Koryo-saram socialist literature.^[11] He later died in a car accident.^[10]

Around 1925, it began publishing Korean-language literature, and made literature a prominent regular feature of the paper in 1933 due in part to efforts by Cho Myung-hee, a prominent Koryo-saram author.^[12][13] This became a significant platform for Koryo-saram to showcase their work.^[14]

1937–1938 hiatus

During the 1930s, large-scale political purges took place in the Soviet Union, which intensified toward the later part of that decade with the nationalities deportations.^[1][8] On 12 September 1937, after the publication of the 1644th issue of Sŏnbong, the newspaper had a hiatus until March 1938 due to the deportation of Koreans in the Soviet Union, who were forcibly resettled in Soviet Central Asia.^[1][8][15] Restrictions were also placed on the use and teaching of Korean.^[16][8] The executive staff were arrested, and some were executed.^[1][17]

The staff who survived were relocated to Kyzylorda (now in Kazakhstan), where they began publishing an unofficial temporary newspaper.^[17] They also began attempting to obtain permission from Uzbek and Kazakhstan government officials to officially restart the paper, but their movement was restricted and the government initially refused. The Uzbek government even arrested a staff member who was never seen again.^[17] However, staff member Yeom Sa-il managed to get permission by disguising himself as a Kazakh,^{[lower-alpha 6]} secretly traveling to Almaty and getting permission, and returning to Kyzylorda.^[18]

Lenin Kichi

Before the migration, there had been three Koryo-saram newspapers: Sŏnbong and two regional papers. In March 1938, the local communist party decided to merge the papers into Sŏnbong.^[19] The Central Committee of the Communist Party of South Kazakhstan initially wanted to name the paper For Rice,^{[lower-alpha 7]} but the national committee decided on the name Lenin Kichi.^{[20][lower-alpha 8]}

Lenin Kichi was first published as a state newspaper on 15 May 1938 in the Sirdaryo Region of Uzbekistan.^[22][20] Since then, its publication has been uninterrupted.^[4] It is allegedly the first Korean newspaper to use horizontal, left-to-right type, as most others at the time wrote vertically and right-to-left.^[4]

It initially had around eighteen employees and was allowed to publish issues of four pages, three times per week.^[23] Due to limited space and fear of censorship, it initially published less literature than before, but it did publish works from authors like Cho Ki-chon, who later became a significant North Korean poet. Its initial circulation was stated to be around 6,000, but in reality it was likely around 2,000 and later 4,000 in the late 1940s.^[23] The staff appealed for more space for articles, higher publishing frequency, and larger circulation for years. The Soviet government allowed them larger pages and five issues on 21 March 1940, but they continued appealing. After Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin's death in 1953, the Kichi began publishing more literature and were allowed national circulation on 1 January 1954.^[23] Around this time, their circulation reached around 7,000.^[23] It became the only Korean-language newspaper available nationwide in the Soviet Union,^[24] although On the Path of Lenin was available locally in Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk.^{[4][lower-alpha 9]}

The contents of the paper aligned closely with Soviet messaging,^[25] and featured prominently themes of multi-ethnic families, internationalist unification and collectivism, and the lives of Soviet Koreans.^[4][26] At the time, it was published six times a week, and had branches in cities with significant Korean populations like Tashkent, Dushanbe, and Bishkek.^[23] Beginning in the 1950s, reporters from North Korea, Moscow, and Sakhalin joined the newspaper, and local reporters on the ground in various republics across the Soviet Union.^[23]

Shortly after the liberation of Korea, many Koryo-saram moved to North Korea, although a number returned between 1955 and 1957 and turned towards Lenin Kichi to publish writing about their experiences.^{[27][lower-alpha 10]} As such, Kichi newspapers from this period are now considered valuable resources for studying the Korean War.^[28]

In the 1970s and 1980s, during a boom in collectivized farming among Koryo-saram, the paper had over 40,000 copies in circulation and around 60–80 employees.^[4][7][29]

In August 1978, it relocated to Almaty, where it now remains.^[4][29] The paper had actually wanted to relocate since 1954, but this decision was caught up in bureaucracy until 1978.^[4] It published its first issue from Almaty on 2 September 1978.^[30] Despite its recent successes, in Almaty it struggled with dated printing technology, meaning it could only publish four-page papers twice and two-page papers three times per week.^[31] After requesting newer equipment, it switched from movable type to photolithography printers.^[30]

Koryo Ilbo and decline

However, the newspaper began a period of decline in the last years of the Soviet Union.^[32][29] One significant and still-relevant issue was the decreasing number of Korean speakers.^[29] After regional languages were suppressed in the Soviet Union in the 1930s and minorities were given more freedom of movement after Stalin's death in the 1950s, fewer and fewer Koryo-saram spoke Korean.^[33] The paper had benefited from acquiring personnel from Sakhalin and North Korea until the late 1960s, but this did not halt the decline.^[34] Beginning in March 1989, Russian-language pages began occupying a fourth of each edition.^[35] Every Saturday, it published entirely in Russian under the name Kore,^{[36][37][lower-alpha 11]} but this closed after 84 issues due to financial issues.^[37]

It changed its name to Koryo Ilbo (meaning "The Daily Goryeo") on 31 December 1990^[35] and published its first edition under the new name on 2 January 1991,^[38] right around the time of the dissolution of the Soviet Union.^[37] Despite its name implying daily circulation, it decreased publishing frequency first to five times per week, then later to three times.^[37] It greatly slowed the publication of literature.^[39] Due to economic instability, changing currencies, and changing mail systems, it lost subscribers from across the Soviet Union. By the end of 1993, it had around 400 subscribers.^[40]

The sudden liberalization of the market and freedom of movement also caused economic instability.^[1] Leadership turned over frequently,^[25] and many employees left to take opportunities abroad, especially to South Korea. Around this time, the paper began aligning itself closer with South Korea, and even adjusting its style and vocabulary from North Korean to South Korean standards. This switch was of interest to South Korean scholars studying the standardization of Korean writing in the 20th century.^[25] Former regional branches of the Lenin Kichi split off and became their own regional newspapers.^[41] By 1994, circulation briefly recovered to around 4,500 copies,^[40][1] but publication frequency decreased to once per week, which it maintains as of April 2023.^[1][29] Of sixteen pages, four are in Korean and twelve in Russian.^[4][42] In late 1999, the Kazakhstan government privatized all state-supported newspapers, leading to the Association of Koreans in Kazakhstan taking ownership on 1 March 2000,^[36][1][42] and reduced its support of Koryo Ilbo to around 30%.^[40]

The newspaper began using computers in the mid-1990s, and publishing online articles since the late 2000s. This has allegedly supported international readership of its articles.^[4][43][8] Its older editions were also digitized and made freely available around 2003.^[44] In the late 2000s, it stopped publishing literature, especially after the retirement of one of the last major Koryo-saram authors, Chŏng Sang-chin.^[11]

Notes

References

Sources