Cho Ki-Chon

Cho Ki-Chon 

Born Nov. 16, 1913, in the village of Yuaedu-gou, near Nikol’sk-Ussuriiskii (present-day Ussuriisk); died July 31,1951, in Pyongyang. Korean poet.

Cho Ki-chon graduated from the philology department of the Omsk Pedagogical Institute in 1937. He worked as a correspondent and translator in the Korean press from 1945. In his early poems and the narrative poems Song of the Land (1946) and Hymn of Life (1950), he celebrated the new life in free Korea and the valor of the Soviet soldiers. The poem cycle Uprising in Yosu (1949) is devoted to the people of South Korea. The narrative poem Paektu-san (1947; National Prize First Class, 1948) deals with the struggle between the Korean partisans and the Japanese colonizers in the 1930’s. For his poem cycle Korea in Battle (1951) he was posthumously awarded the National Prize First Class in 1952.

Cho Ki-chon was killed while serving as a military journalist.

WORKS

Cho Ki-Chon sunjir, vols. 1–2. Pyongyang, 1955.
In Russian translation:
Te Gi Chen. Izbrannoe. Moscow, 1956.

REFERENCES

Kim, L. “Poeziia Cho Gi Chkhona.” In Koreiskaia literatura. Moscow, 1959.
Eremenko, L., and V. Ivanova. Koreiskaia literatura. Moscow, 1964.
Li Jon-Ku. Shin Cho Ki-Ch’on non. Pyongyang, 1959.