A recent investigation into a decades-old children’s poem authored by a young Kim Jong Il provides evidence that the former North Korean leader was called by his Russian-derived childhood name Kim Yu Ra, which Pyongyang has spent decades trying to erase from history.

Long before the world knew him as Kim Jong Il, the former leader had a markedly Soviet name: He was registered at birth as Yuri Irsenovich Kim (Юрий Ирсенович Ким). 

Under Russian naming conventions, Yuri was his given name, Irsenovich was a patronymic derived from his father’s name in Russian and Kim was his family name.

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