PRESIDENT KIM IL SUNG AND A FORMER SOVIET OFFICER

On March 1, 1946, a year after Korea’s liberation (August 15, 1945) from Japanese military occupation (1905-1945), a rally was held in the concourse in front of Pyongyang Railway Station to commemorate the 27^th anniversary of the March First Popular Uprising of the Korean people against Japan’s oppressive rule.

Seen on the platform were Kim Il Sung and Korea’s other leading officials and commanding officers of the Soviet troops stationed in the country. When Kim Il Sung was making a speech, a hand-grenade fell near the platform. It was thrown by terrorists on the payroll of US imperialism.

At the critical moment when the hand-grenade was to go off, a second lieutenant of the Soviet army smothered it with his body. It was Ya. T. Novichenko who was standing guard near the platform. In the explosion he lost his right hand, the chest and legs lacerated by splinters and the head covered with bruises. He was rushed to a hospital, where he underwent surgical operations.

Worrying that he must have shed much blood from the chopped wrist, Kim Il Sung occasionally acquainted himself with his medical treatment and sent efficacious medicines and tonics to him. Also he often sent officials to the hospital to inquire after his health.

Later Novichenko said to a journalist of his country in recollection of those days; “I thought on my sickbed if my action was really a distinguished merit. Could I, a Soviet officer and a communist, act otherwise at such a moment?” However, Kim Il Sung highly praised him as an excellent internationalist fighter and said that his was a rare act of heroism.

Because newly-liberated Korea had not yet instituted orders, it was impossible to confer him a decoration. Unhappy about this, Kim Il Sung sent his silver cigarette case to him as a gift when he returned home. Inscribed on the case was his autograph reading: “To March 1, 1946 Hero Novichenko, Kim Il Sung, Chairman of the Provisional People’s Committee of North Korea”

It was in May 1984 when the Korean leader and the Soviet officer met again. President Kim Il Sung dropped in at Novosibirsk Station in Siberia on his way to Moscow in an official visit to the Soviet Union leading a DPRK Party and state delegation.

At the station he had an emotion-filled reunion with Ya. T. Novichenko. Although scores of years had elapsed, he remembered the surname of the Soviet officer and told officials about his exploits from several years previously. Suggesting that he might be still alive, he took measures to discover his whereabouts. So historical records and the memoirs of Soviet army generals who had been in Korea shortly after its liberation were screened and many people were sent to various places to trace him. Finally he was found living in a remote rural village in Siberia, some 300 kilometres away from the seat of Novosibirsk.

That day President Kim Il Sung explained to those present there the internationalist deed Novichenko had performed back in Korea. Novichenko said to the President that he still remembered the close concern and solicitude he had bestowed on him when he was in hospital. Saying he was very pleased to see him again, the President asked after his health and family.

On hearing him answer that he was healthy and had six children and eleven grandchildren, the President invited him to visit the DPRK together with his wife and all his children and grandchildren.

Subsequently, Novichenko and his family visited the country almost every year. Whenever they came to his country, the President would take off time from his crammed schedule to meet them. Once he presented them with gold wrist watches inscribed with his autographed name.

He treated Novichenko’s family as his own, sometimes patting his grandchildren on the cheek or giving them confections. He was so friendly to them that the grandchildren would call him their grandfather and Novichenko address him as elder brother.

Ya.T. Novichenko, a Soviet citizen, was awarded the title of Labour Hero of the DPRK as well as the Order of National Flag 1^st Class and a gold medal (hammer and sickle). “If you visit my country, I will greet and treat you as my old comrade-in-arms, friend and saviour. I will love you forever.”

These words of the President will be etched in the minds of people for ever together with his ennobling sense of obligation to the former Soviet officer.