Kim Song-ae

Korean spelling
Chosŏn'gŭl	김성애
Hancha	金 聖 愛
Revised Romanization	Gim Seong-ae
McCune- Reischauer	Kim Sŏng-ae
See also : Korean name

Kim Song-ae (* 1924 or 1928 in Kangso County , P'yŏngan-namdo Province; † 2014 ) was the second wife of the North Korean dictator Kim Il-sung , who ruled the country from 1948 to 1994. She was the stepmother and rival of Kim Jong-il , who ruled North Korea from 1994 to 2011.

Kim Song-ae studied English at Pyongyang Women's University and Kim-Il-sung University . She began working as a secretary for Kim Il-sung in the late 1940s. She was also an employee of Kim's first wife Kim Jong-suk and lived in the Kim household. After Kim Jong-suk's death in 1949, Kim entered into a relationship with Kim Song-ae from around 1952 or 1953, although it is unclear whether they were officially married and there are rumors that the relationship even before Kim Jong -suks death. Kim Song-ae was significantly younger than Kim Il-sung and only 13 years older than Kim's eldest son Kim Jong-il, so that she could not take on the role of mother for the children from Kim Il-sung's first marriage.

In the 1960s, Kim Jong-ae became deputy chairwoman of the Korean Democratic Women's Association , from the mid-1970s she was chairwoman of the women's association and Kim Jong-il's most powerful competitor for political power in the potential successor to Kim Il-sung. She tried in vain to get one of her sons into the position of successor. In 1994 she was a member of the funeral committee for Kim Il-sung, in 1998 she retired from chairing the women's association. Since then, she has gone unnoticed in public, and reports have been reported to have been pushed out of her position by Kim Jong-il. In 2001, there were reports that she was killed in a traffic accident in Beijing .

Im Song-ae had three children with Kim Il-Sung: Kim Kyong-jin (* 1953), Kim Pyong-il (* 1955) and Kim Yong-il (* 1957).

Individual evidence

1. ^ ^{A b c} James E. Hoare: Historical dictionary of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea . Scarecrow Press, Lanham, Md. 2012, ISBN 978-0-8108-7987-4 , pp. 223 .
2. ^ ^{A b c} Lim Jae-Cheon: Kim Jong Il's leadership of North Korea . 1st edition. Routledge, London 2009, ISBN 978-0-203-88472-0 , pp. 23 .

Note: This article places the family name before the person's first name. This is the usual order in Korean. Kim is the family name here, Song-ae is the first name.