North Korea stopped using the Juche calendar, which was based on the year of birth of Kim Il-sung.
This is reported by the South Korean agency Yonhap.
In the Juche calendar, 1912 was considered the first year — the year of the official birth of Kim Il-sung, the founder of the DPRK and the grandfather of the current leader of North Korea, Kim Jong-un. The months and numbers in the Juche calendar did not differ from those of the world.
When writing dates in North Korea, it was customary to indicate the Juche year, followed by the Gregorian year in parentheses. That is, October 17, 2024 in the DPRK would be written as "October 17, 113 Juche (2024)".
Yonhap pointed out that the dates in the official announcement of Kim Jong-unʼs October 10 speech and in a statement by the DPRKʼs Ministry of Foreign Affairs indicated that it was the 113th year of Juche. But already in the appeal of Kim E-jong, Kim Jong-unʼs sister, dated October 12, the year was simply stated as 2024 — without mentioning the Juche calendar.
North Koreaʼs main newspaper, the Rodong Sinmun, has stopped using Juche dates in its print version since October 13. Although only a day before that, both online and in printed versions, I wrote dates according to the Juche calendar.
An anonymous official at South Koreaʼs Unification Ministry said that ending the use of the Juche calendar is Kim Jong-unʼs way of creating his own cult of personality, independent of the legacy of his grandfather and father.
For more news and in-depth stories from Ukraine please follow us on X.