Fundamental principles to adhere to in conserving, inheriting and further developing the national cultural heritage defined by the respected Comrade Kim Jong Un

 2021.9.23.

After the respected Comrade Kim Jong Un scientifically saw through the role of the national cultural heritage in the revolution and construction, he defined the fundamental principles to conserve, inherit and further develop the national cultural heritage permeated with the long history and creative talent of our nation in his immortal classical work.

The respected Comrade Kim Jong Un taught as follows:

《Establishing a Juche orientation and remaining faithful to the principle of historical truth and scientific accuracy are fundamental principles we should consistently adhere to in conserving and inheriting the cultural heritage of the nation.》

One of the fundamental principles that the respected Comrade Kim Jong Un defined to conserve, inherit and further develop the national cultural heritage is to solve all the problems in this work in accordance with aspiration, desire, national custom and emotional feeling of our people.

The national cultural heritage where the national cultural characteristics were reflected was created through the long history of each nation.

Among the cultural heritage of our nation there is tangible property such as the historical sites on Mt. Daesong, on Mt. Myohyang, in Kaesong, Koryo ceramics and old books as well as intangible property including good manners and customs, music and dancing of our people.

Such national cultural heritage reflects the political life, economic life and cultural life of our people at every stage of the historical development.

This also reflects the national feeling, talent, wisdom and courage of our nation in detail.

Therefore the national cultural heritage is a very precious treasure for studying the long history of brilliant culture, wisdom and talent of our nation and inheriting and developing the national tradition.

It is important to carry forward only the progressive and popular national cultural heritage, not all of them in the construction of the socialist culture.

Some of them have limitation of class and period and don't keep with the aspiration and desire of our people although they are progressive and popular.

That's why we should inherit and develop the national cultural heritage critically in accordance with the aspiration, desire, national custom and emotional feeling of our people.

For example, we should overcome the shortage of old books, precious national cultural heritage in terms of contents and styles, and make them suitable to the aspiration, desire, national custom and feeling of our people who struggle to build the socialist thriving nation.

A lot of national old books written by our ancestors in the past have been handed down in our country.

The old books reflected a lot of data in different fields including the national history and culture, national feeling and creative talent widely and deeply.

Therefore they contained the progressive and popular contents and at the same time they also included the reactionary and vulgar contents reflecting the interest of the feudal ruling class.

Some of those old books were written in the native language which had been used since the creation of "Hunminjongum"(the Korean alphabet), but some were written either in classic Chinese, which is considered to be difficult to understand, or in the mixed style of native language and classic Chinese.

In particular, most of the books of olden times in our country were written in classic Chinese as the feudal ruling class attached importance to the classic Chinese.

And some books which were written either in native language or in the mixed style of native language and classic Chinese are difficult for people to read.

Therefore, all the old books as well as books written in classic Chinese should be translated in cultured language and the shortage of the contents in those books should be explained clearly so that people could read them critically.

Only then, we could understand deeply the past life of our people and give our people the high national pride through old books.

In addition, we could inherit and develop the national custom and tradition in accordance with the demand of the era, the aspiration, national feeling, and aesthetic taste of our people.

Another principle defined by the respected Comrade Kim Jong Un to conserve, inherit and develop the national cultural heritage is to be loyal to historical truth.

Keeping the principle of being loyal to historical truth means analyzing and evaluating the cultural heritage which were formed and handed down historically in terms of the contemporary historic condition and environment.

The national cultural heritage was created in the class society governed by the exploiting class.

Some of the heritage is progressive, but some is reactionary.

Even though the heritage is progressive, it has the limitation of the era. It is important to analyze, evaluate and conserve the national cultural heritage taking account of the socio-historical condition and environment of the contemporary era.

For example, the ideas of the Silhak school, which were generated in our country after the 17th century, criticized the tendency of feudal ruling class that wasted time on empty talk and insisted on studying the substantial policy, useful learning which could help people in their life.

The realist scholars criticized the crimes of the reactionary feudal ruling class to some extent and suggested the progressive idea of reformation in those days, thus playing a positive role to some extent.

Of course, their activities had the intention to defend the social system governed by the feudal ruling class and to consolidate the feudal ruling system.

But the ideological desire of reforming the corrupted and incompetent feudal ruling system and building the powerful nation should by assessed positively.

So assessment of the ideas of the Silhak School and the realist scholars can be worth the national heritage only when evaluating the progressive feature taking account of the contemporary socio-historical condition.

Conserving and keeping the historical remains and relics is also considered in the same way.

The historic remains are the precious heritage achieved by the creative activity of our ancestors and treasures which should be handed down from generation to generation.

In order to conserve, inherit and develop the national cultural heritage we should analyze and evaluate the superiority and progressive nature of all the heritages in terms of the contemporary social and historical viewpoint and conserve the heritage so that the characteristics of the contemporary era can be kept.

For it, we should reject the tendency of national nihilism to deny the national superiority and consider it valueless.

National nihilism is a reactionary attitude and viewpoint to blindly reject one's own things and admire only others'.

If we evaluate the national cultural heritage from the viewpoint and attitude of national nihilism, all the cultural heritages which was created in the past by our people may be considered valueless and useless and we may go deeply into the idea of submission which tends to swallow only others' things without reason.

In the meantime, we should reject thoroughly the restorationist attitude and viewpoint to restore and glorify the things of the past uncritically.

The restorationist attitude and viewpoint restores things of the past without consideration of the current reality, the aspiration and emotional feeling of people so that it may have a bad influence on the education in patriotism through the national cultural heritage.

The third fundamental principle defined by the respected Comrade Kim Jong Un in conserving, inheriting and developing the national cultural heritage is to thoroughly ensure scientific accuracy.

Keeping this principle means excavating and reconstructing the national cultural heritage scientifically and technically on the basis of historical truth.

Excavating and conserving the national cultural heritage is an important work to glorify the history and tradition of our nation.

In the past historical period, a lot of national cultural heritage was burnt, plundered and destructed in our country due to the predatory of foreign aggressors, in particular, the colonial predatory of Japanese imperialists for over 40 years and the war for 3 years caused by the US imperialists.

Under such circumstances it is very important to excavate more national cultural heritage and enrich the treasure house of the national culture in order to glorify the national history and tradition.

First of all, it is important to excavate the national cultural heritage on the basis of the historical truth.

Here, the necessary scientific data such as how the involved cultural heritage existed in the past historical period and what role it played in the social environment those days should be studied and its assessment should be carried out.

Just in the case of excavation and reconstruction of certain historical remains we should neither make nor reconstruct a new historical remains arbitrarily where there are no historical remains.

We should excavate and restore the historical remains in the original state in the original place so that the features of age concerned could be restored on the basis of the enough study of scientific data on the involved remains and its assessment should be conducted correctly.

It is also important to excavate, reconstruct and conserve the cultural heritage scientifically and technically.

As this is the age of science and technology and knowledge based economy, we should introduce the latest achievements of science and technology so as to excavate, reconstruct and conserve the cultural heritage on the basis of modern science and technology.

We should introduce the latest achievements of science and technology and produce the necessary materials including material for red and blue painting and reagents for conserving in our country.

And we should build the database of tangible heritage and intangible heritage including the historical remains and relics so that everyone can use it and information exchange should be conducted actively.

In the past, our country made a lot of achievements to conserve, inherit and further develop the national cultural heritage under the wise leadership of the great leaders and our people could keep in their mind the national pride and self-confidence through it.

Today under the wise leadership of the respected Comrade Kim Jong Un who pursues the lofty desire of the great leaders who devoted to the country, nation and people, the national cultural heritage is being conserved, inherited and further developed as the national treasure, fragrance and emotion.

Our people are struggling vigorously to build the socialist thriving nation keeping in mind the high national pride and self-confidence.

We should hold on fast to the fundamental principles defined by the respected Comrade Kim Jong Un to conserve, inherit and further develop the national cultural heritage and to improve this work.