Andrei Lankov

The Kim dynasty has ruled North Korea for over 60 years. Most of that period has found the country suffering under mature Stalinism characterized by manipulation, brutality and tight social control. Nevertheless, some citizens of Kim Jong Il's regime manage to transcend his tyranny in their daily existence. This book describes that difficult but f existence and the world that the North Koreans hav

To understand how North Korea has survived as the worlds last Stalinist regime despite international isolationand at enormous human costs to its peopleone must look at how its political system was created. The countrys foundations were laid in the late 1940s and 1950s as a result of interaction between the Soviet Stalinist model, imposed from outside, and local traditions. Andrei Lankov traces the

North Korea remains the most mysterious of all Communist countries. The acute shortage of available sources has made it a difficult subject of scholarship. Through his access to Soviet archival material made available only a decade ago, contemporary North Korean press accounts, and personal interviews, Andrei Lankov presents for the first time a detailed look at one of the turning points in North

A General Upheaval in the Land of the Morning Calm - The most intriguing tidbits about modern Korea When in 1897 the first modern Korean bank issued its first loan, the loan had to be secured against the only property the borrower had in his disposal, his donkey. The loan was repaid at time, but for few days bank managers had to take care of the animal. In the 1930s the Western restaurants were al

Andrei Lankov has gone where few outsiders have ever been. A native of the former Soviet Union, he lived as an exchange student in North Korea in the 1980s. He has studied it for his entire career, using his fluency in Korean and personal contacts to build a rich, nuanced understanding. In The Real North Korea, Lankov substitutes cold, clear analysis for the overheated rhetoric surrounding t

From the surprisingly placid criminal gangs of Pyongyang, to the rules of decorum that apply to women, to the decline in army recruitment as black market entrepreneurs grow increasingly these articles cover all aspects of North Korean society.One of the rare foreigners to have studied in North Korea, Dr. Andrei Lankov is in a unique position to interpret North Korea's culture and society to a fore

Beginning around 2005 or 2006 the northern areas of North Korea (or perhaps the country at large) were hit by a dramatic upsurge in methamphetamine abuse which can be described as a “drug epidemic.” Numerous interviews with defectors paint a worrying picture of the escalating drug abuse. This evidence comes from multiple unconnected sources, and in most cases the defectors’ statements demons

The prospect of Korean reunification tends to be discussed in extremely vague terms. Partly this is because we simply have very little idea how such a possibility would play out, partly it is because any tactless slip of the tongue on the subject is liable to result in an insult-laden tirade from North of the DMZ, if not an actual refusal to cooperate – for a brief period at least – on joint proje

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