About the Author
Fyodor Tertitskiy
Fyodor Tertitskiy is a leading researcher at Seoul's Kookmin University. He holds a Ph.D. in Sociology from Seoul National University, and is author of "North Korea before Kim Il Sung," which you can buy here.
Available information about North Korea is very scarce, a fact that anyone who has studied the country knows well. As a compensation mechanism, the research community has developed an interest in small details, as by examining them one can hope to reconstruct parts of the bigger picture. In this regard, the symbols of the North Korean army present a good opportunity.
Militaries often amass an enormous number of symbols: flags, insignia, uniforms etc., and the Korean People’s Army (KPA) is no exception - although the number of military decorations in the DPRK is, notably, smaller than in most nations.