How North Korea Became the Evil Twin (2004)
Soviet records show that Kim was born Yuri Irsenovich Kim (Russian: Юрий Ирсенович Ким; Jurij Irsenovič Kim)[5] in the village of Vyatskoye, near Khabarovsk, in 1941,[6] where his father, Kim Il-sung, commanded the 1st Battalion of the Soviet 88th Brigade, made up of Chinese and Korean exiles. Kim Jong-il's mother, Kim Jong-suk, was Kim Il-sung's first wife. Inside his family, he was nicknamed Yura, while his younger brother Kim Man-il (born Alexander Irsenovich Kim) was nicknamed Shura.
However, Kim Jong-il's official biography states he was born in a secret military camp on Paektu Mountain (Chosŏn'gŭl: 백두산밀영고향집; Baekdusan Miryeong Gohyang jip) in Japanese-occupied Korea on 16 February 1942.[7] According to one comrade of Kim's mother, Lee Min, word of Kim's birth first reached an army camp in Vyatskoye via radio and that both Kim and his mother did not return there until the following year.[8][9]
In 1945, Kim was four years old when World War II ended and Korea regained independence from Japan. His father returned to Pyongyang that September, and in late November Kim returned to Korea via a Soviet ship, landing at Sonbong. The family moved into a former Japanese officer's mansion in Pyongyang, with a garden and pool. Kim Jong-il's brother drowned there in 1948.
Reports indicate that his mother died in childbirth in 1949.
According to his official biography, Kim completed the course of general education between September 1950 and August 1960. He attended Primary School No. 4 and Middle School No. 1 (Namsan Higher Middle School) in Pyongyang.[12] This is contested by foreign academics, who believe he is more likely to have received his early education in the People's Republic of China as a precaution to ensure his safety during the Korean War.[13]
Throughout his schooling, Kim was involved in politics. He was active in the Korean Children's Union and the Democratic Youth League of North Korea (DYL), taking part in study groups of Marxist political theory and other literature. In September 1957 he became vice-chairman of his middle school's DYL branch (the chairman had to be a teacher). He pursued a programme of anti-factionalism and attempted to encourage greater ideological education among his classmates.[14]
Kim is also said to have received English language education at the University of Malta in the early 1970s,[15] on his infrequent holidays in Malta as guest of Prime Minister Dom Mintoff.[16]
The elder Kim had meanwhile remarried and had another son, Kim Pyong-il. Since 1988, Kim Pyong-il has served in a series of North Korean embassies in Europe and was the North Korean ambassador to Poland. Foreign commentators suspect that Kim Pyong-il was sent to these distant posts by his father in order to avoid a power struggle between his two sons.
Image By Demilitarized Zone of Korea 05.JPG: Photographed by Nicor. Derivative work: G. Coronades [CC BY-SA 3.0 ( via Wikimedia Commons