All the Korean people like to sing “We Are the Happiest in the World.”
Not a few people will express their surprise at the fact that this famous song was created at the then Haeju School for Bereaved Children.
In the history of the Fatherland Liberation War is recorded as an unusual page the historical facts that when the war was at its height in January Juche 40 (1951), the Cabinet of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea made public a decree on establishing schools for the bereaved children of patriotic martyrs and larger numbers of orphanages, and the Political Committee of the Central Committee of the Workers’ Party of Korea discussed and decided a measure for bringing up the bereaved children of patriotic martyrs and war orphans at the state’s expense, with the result that orphanages and primary schools for orphans were built in different parts of the country.
The Korean people were told of the shocking decision and measure unheard of in the world history of war and of the news that Premier
Kim Il Sung personally brought war orphans to the Supreme Headquarters to raise them.
Saying that he can hardly sleep when he thinks of children who lost their parents by the enemies,
Kim Il Sung stressed: We should take good care of them in place of their parents and bring them up to be excellent persons. We should be the first to raise war orphans.
Upon receiving the news about his parental affection for orphans, many people vied to adopt them and take warm care of them.
Marshal
Kim Il Sung was, indeed, the father for all orphans and the Party’s embrace was their dear home and all of them were brothers of a family.
The orphans cherished deep in their mind
Kim Il Sung’s remarks that he is their father and the Party’s embrace is their home as the warm voice of their benevolent father.
In the run-up to the Fourth Congress of the Workers’ Party of Korea in Juche 50 (1961), Haeju school for bereaved children bustled with the preparations for a national art festival of schools for bereaved children and primary schools for orphans.
In the course of making efforts to create a song dedicated to the benevolent Party, members of the production unit were moved at the sight of the orphans who said that their father is Marshal
Kim Il Sung and their home is the Party’s embrace.
Hence the famous song was born.
The orphans of Haeju school sang the song in chorus on the stage of the performance given by art groups from schools for bereaved children and primary schools for orphans across the country. It was held in the presence of
Kim Il Sung.
The song of ardent love, the purest and most beautiful song of happiness, which no one had ever heard, reverberated throughout the stage.
The audience gave a standing ovation, looking up at
Kim Il Sung in the auditorium.
They felt as if they sang in a loud voice the song together with orphans on the stage.
It represented the boundless gratitude of the Korean people to
Kim Il Sung who saved the destiny of the Korean nation by waging a bloody war against the Japanese imperialists and provided them with the greatest honour and happiness unprecedented in the nation’s history spanning 5 000 years, as being the father of the country in the days when it was faced with the most difficult trials to follow an untrodden path of building a new Korea and fight the three-year-long war.
Since then, the Korean people, be they young and old, men and women, began to call him “Fatherly Marshal” with a feeling of intimacy.
Staff Reporter Om Yong Chol
