Memory and history: Korean women’s experiences of repression during the Stalin era

Abstract

This chapter explores the impact of the repressions on Korean women during the era of the Great Terror under Stalin, and the longer term legacy of the purges on family members. Viviana Pak, the daughter of the General Secretary of the Communist Party of Korea, was reunited with her mother only after the purges and Yevgeniya Petrovna Tsoi-Openko was arrested and taken to the labour camp in Akmolinsk, Kazakhstan. Svetlana Insebovna Li grew up with her father who had endured the forced deportation of Koreans in 1937. Yet these tragedies were kept secret from the general public and memories of these events and experiences were communicated only on a personal basis. However, the sorrowful narratives came to light with Gorbachev’s reform in the late 1980s and now could be reinstituted into history.