The Analysis of North Korean Patriotic Songs for Youth: Traditions and Modernity

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

The research is conducted on the basis of 160 North Korean patriotic songs for children and youth which were collected from the books "Songun youth sings" (선군동이들 노래해요. 금성청년출칸사. 2004 [Songundongi noraehaeyo]) and "Our soul to the Motherland" (우리 마음 조국에로. 문학예술종합출판사. 1997 [Uri maeum jogugero]). The first part of research is devoted to the lexical content-analysis, in particular, to the study vocabulary frequency in patriotic songs of DPRK, to the analysis of some metaphors, detection of lexical differences of South and North Korean variants of the Korean language, and some lexical and grammatical means that are unique to the North and became a result of language nationalism (purification) policy. In the second part of the research observes the means and mechanisms of creating patriotic foundation in children’s patriotic songs and of building foundation for positive thinking in the minds of the youth. In the last part of the research brings up the question of an inter-textuality of the songs’ lyrics. The author tries to find parallels with patriotic songs not only the countries of socialist camp, but also the Republic of Korea. In this context the author depicts what parts of the songs’ lyrics are the allusions and so called “translations” of Soviet time’s patriotic songs and which parts refer to traditional Korean poetic tradition. For the analysis of the traditionalism in North Korean songs the presenter uses the research of M. I. Nikitina dedicated to semantic categories of 15-19th century sijo poetry and comes to the conclusion that most of the North Korean patriotic songs base on the traditional concepts, which were widely used in sijo.