Recent years have seen a tightening of ideological control in North Korea, from propaganda campaigns warning of harsh penalties for possession of foreign media to a crackdown on “abuse of power.”

The COVID-19 pandemic and related economic hardships appear to have driven North Korean leader Kim Jong Un to demand ever-greater shows of loyalty and purity. Interestingly, however, another period of intense suffering in the DPRK led to a different message, at least as delivered through cultural works. 

During the 1990s, as North Korea went through its Arduous March famine and leader Kim Jong Il introduced the “songun”