DPRK Forum

No tour of the DPRK is complete without stopping by the Victorious Fatherland Liberation War Museum in Pyongyang. I did a little research on it, and while there is not a huge amount of information on it, I will post what I can regarding it. For those that have visited this oddity, please feel free to add your own thoughts, experiences and corrections to this posting, please do so.

On the right is the Google Earth image of the museum, and you can see the little details and a bird’s eye view of it. There are other pictures of the inside, but since almost all the pictures are copyrighted by the authors of the pictures, I will simply link the images to the page and not re-upload them here. If you are the author of some of these images and grant permission for DPRK Forum to use them, I would be grateful, and please say so in the comments. Otherwise, you will have to see them over there. However, there is a nice YouTube video of the tour, but this particular video not show the rotating war room:

Typarker gives some account of this museum:

In North Korea, the Korean War is called the Victorious Fatherland Liberation War, and our next stop was the Victorious Fatherland Liberation War Museum. The museum was interesting in that it was a physical representation of all of the anti-American feelings we War Museum had heard since being there. It was definitely worth seeing, but completely filled my quota of Korean-War-from-a-North-Korean-perspective talks I’d need for a while.

That is all fair and good, but what is the history behind this thing? I dug around, and it was very difficult to find. There is a brief description on the KCNA page:

Pyongyang, August 17 (KCNA) — 45 years have passed since the victorious Fatherland Liberation War Museum was established. The museum systematically shows the enduring feats of the President Kim Il Sung in leading the Fatherland Liberation War (June 1950-july 1953) to victory. Its predecessor, the fatherland liberation war memorial,was opened to public on August 17, 1953, and expanded into the present victorious Fatherland Liberation War Museum in April Juche 63 (1974). It is located on the Pothong River. It has 80 odd rooms. On display there are materials showing the feats the President performed in the army building during the anti-Japanese revolutionary struggle and the democratic revolution. Exhibited are data on military achievements made by all arms and services of the Korean People’s Army on several stages of operations during the Fatherland Liberation War and materials showing the struggle of people in the rear. Also exhibited are materials on the brutal atrocities of the U.S. imperialists and their defeat. The museum has over 70 semi-panoramic pictures and model boards, among them halls with a cyclorama on the operation of liberating Taejon and a semi-panoramic picture on the battle of attack on height 351. On the occasion of the 40th anniversary of the War Victory Day, the monument to victory in the Fatherland Liberation War was built on a large scale in the vicinity of the museum. War veterans are now working as lecturers at the museum. The museum has been visited so far by nearly 17 million people since its opening.

That is some information about the history, but since this is the KCNA, of course, propaganda is interwoven. So much for fair and balanced reporting. If other readers have information on the history of this oddity, please let me know.

Some links to pictures and accounts:

Account 1

Pictures of a trip to the DPRK including the war museum

KFA pictures

Account 2

Account 3 This part was pretty funny to read:

[...]
The War Museum in Pyongyang serves to promulgate the North Korean version of the war. We were met by a stout museum guide who, like almost all of her colleagues in NK, spoke no English (our guides translated) and seemed to be delivering a memorized monologue. The tour took about 2 hours, but I think it could’ve easily have been shortened to one hour if they just said ‘Kim Il Sung’ instead of `The Supreme Leader Generalissimo Kim Il Sung’ and `America’ instead of `The Imperialist American Aggressor’.
[...]

There are other accounts, but a more comprehensive history may be a little better. On the other hand, such information may be a little hard to come by.