Kim Hyun-jik (1894-1926) was the father of the "eternal president" Kim Il-sung, grandfather of Chen Il, and great-grandfather of the current leader of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, Kim Jong-un. Brought up in a poor family of Korean patriots, he became the leader and inspirer of the national liberation movement.
Biography
Kim Hyun-jik is an outstanding leader of the Korean anti-Japanese national liberation movement. He was the eldest son of Kim Po Hyun and Ri Po Ik, ardent patriots. Born in Mangende, Namri, Kofiong, Tedong County, South Pyeongang Province (modern Mangendon-dong, Mangende County, Pyongyang).
He grew up, having received patriotic education from his parents, was under their revolutionary influence.
School activist
While studying at Pyongyang High School, Songsil Kim Khenjik organized a student strike.
After graduating from Songsil School, he took an active part in the national liberation movement against the Japanese invaders. In the same year he was arrested and imprisoned for three years. After his release, he secretly went to Manchuria to continue to participate in the anti-Japanese movement.
Vigorous activity
In the summer of 1912, Kim Khenjik left home for North Phengang to guide youth and students. He attended Osan School in Jeonju, Shinsong School, and Posin School in Soncheon.
He also traveled to the northern and southern provinces of Pyongan and Hwanhe Province, not to mention Pyongyang, gathering like-minded people and conducting an active anti-Japanese information campaign among the general population.
After leaving high school in the middle of the course, he began his career as a revolutionary. As a teacher at the Songhwa School in Mangdend, he conducted patriotic educational activities based on the idea of the Highest Goal. He devoted himself to rallying like-minded people and educating the masses in several parts of Korea, reaching Jiangdao and Shanghai in China to make contact with the independence fighters and get acquainted with the situation of the independence movement there.
School work
In mid-March 1916, Kim Khenjik moved the center of his revolutionary activities to Naedong, Tongsam, Kangdong County, South Phengan Province (now Ponghwari). In the process of realizing his ambitious plans for the deployment of the anti-Japanese national liberation movement, he taught there at the Mensin School, educating the younger generation and preparing to create an underground revolutionary organization.
On March 23, 1916, the opening ceremony of the Myongsin School was held. At it, Kim Hyun-jik delivered a speech in which he spoke about the need to unite efforts for the return of the country. It is for this purpose that children should be sent to school so that they receive an education, thanks to which they learn their native language, become members of society and have love for their country.
He became a teacher because he believed that the education of the younger generation is one of the most important ways to implement the Jiwon idea.
As an outstanding teacher, he firmly believed that the struggle for the restoration of the country, as well as its ups and downs, depended on the education of young generations.
National liberation movement
March 23, 1917 in Pyongyang, Kim Hendjik created the Korean National Association. Expanding his activities, he founded such legitimate mass organizations as the School and Rural Associations, thereby laying a solid foundation for the anti-Japanese struggle.
Arrested by Japanese police in the fall of 1917, he was imprisoned along with 100 other members of the Korean National Association in Pyongyang Prison, where he was looking for ways to further develop the anti-Japanese national liberation struggle.
Freed from prison in the fall of 1918, he moved to Chungang in the northern border zone of Korea, and then to Linjiang, Badogou in Changbai County, Fusong, China, where he worked energetically to trigger a new upsurge in the anti-Japanese national liberation movement.
As a result of his efforts, this movement turned from a nationalist to a proletarian one, the armed struggle intensified even more, and the unity of the organizations of the independence movement was achieved, which fought separately in different places.
He died on June 5, 1926 from the consequences of torture by the Japanese imperialists and illness.
