Expulsion for a Mistranslated Poem: The Diplomatic Aspects of North Korean Cultural Policies

Abstract

In the so-called cultural Cold War, North Korea, officially known as the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), constituted a rather special, though not entirely unique, case. Korea, a nation divided into two competing states, was one of the most intensely contested battlegrounds of he Cold War. Since a real inter-Korean détente remained more or less out of the question until the 1990s, there was little, if any, legalized cultural exchange between Pyongyang and Seoul. As a consequence, the northern leadership could not pursue an effective cultural diplomacy with the South in the same way as the Soviet, Chinese, and East European regimes sought to extend their cultural influence to those capitalist and developing countries whose governments showed at least a modicum of readiness for cultural exchange with the Communist countries.¹ While North Korean cultural policies were considerably influenced by the government’s desire to make a favorable impression on South Korean public opinion, the DPRK authorities faced formidable obstacles when they tried to reach the southern audience. This did not mean, however, that the North Koreans were unfamiliar with the fine art of cultural diplomacy. On the contrary, they used these techniques with remarkable persistence and subtlety, but in a peculiar way. Namely, the most accessible targets of their operations were Pyongyang’s own Communist allies, rather than its South Korean and American enemies.