This episode is part six of a special summer miniseries on the 13th World Festival of Youth and Students. You can listen to part one here, part two here, part three here, part four here, and part five here.
The 13th World Festival of Youth and Students was held in the North Korean capital almost thirty years ago next month. A global gathering of international Communist Party-affiliated youth organizations, it represented something of a last hurrah for a world that was soon to disappear in a storm of revolution and unrest.
Hosted by North Korea — in large part as a response to the South’s successful hosting of the 1988 Summer Olympic Games — the festival cost the country billions and saw thousands of international students descend on Pyongyang for an event devoted to “Anti-Imperialist Solidarity, Peace and Friendship.”
Norwegian historian August Myrseth wrote his master’s thesis on the festival, and applies theory, history, and politics to the event in a unique way that gives a broad perspective of the festival’s significance in and outside of North Korea, particularly in the communist world of old.
(And, as a little extra for our podcast listeners who are particularly interested in the festival, host Jacco Zwetsloot has created a playlist of all the videos on YouTube of the festival, which you can watch here.)
About the podcast: The “North Korea News Podcast” is a weekly podcast hosted exclusively by NK News, covering all things DPRK: from news to extended interviews with leading experts and analysts in the field and insight from our very own journalists.
Featured image: Retro DPRK