Lecture: ’The unknown stories from the first weeks of North Korea’s history’ by Fyodor Tertitskiy

LECTURE TITLE: The unknown stories from the first weeks of North Korea’s history LECTURER: Fyodor Tertitskiy DATE: Tuesday, October 26, 2021. 7:30PM (Seoul) Summary: The lecture will deal with the largely unstudied topic – the very first weeks of North Korea history, immediately before and after Tokyo announced its surrender in August 1945. It will tell the story of the Soviet blitzkrieg in Manchuria – a week-long war that probably had a bigger impact on East Asia history than any other week. Here, me will speak about the time when North Korea still had some political and social freedom – and will describe wat were the people’s hopes, dreams and fears about the nascent regime. me will also discuss how and why all seeds of pluralism got scoured away from the North and why a Captain of the Soviet Army named Kim Il-sung, of all people, was chosen to lead the newborn state. Bio: Fyodor Tertitskiy, born in Moscow in 1988, received a PhD from Seoul National University in 2017, currentl