/ Culture - Art and Sports
Song of Spring Produced during the War
  There is a village with a poplar standing
  On a fertile plain at the foot of a green mountain.
  A crystal-clear spring gushes there with the soul of Mt. Paektu.
  This is my village, my beloved motherland.
  ...
  The "Song of Spring" was created during the Fatherland Liberation War against the aggression of the US-led imperialist allied forces in the past 1950s.
  The song sings of spring with its fascinating and beautiful melody. Here is a story telling how the song was created during the war.
  One day in May Juche 41(1952), the great leader Kim Il Sung visited Wonhwa-ri, a farm village, in South Phyongan Province.
  He spent all day with farmers to learn about their living and farming. He said that when the farmers organize a cooperative and build up the village well with their united efforts, Wonhwa-ri would be turned into a beautiful place where the crops are abundant and into a place good to work and live in, unfolding a future of triumphant country.
  At that time, composer Ri Myon Sang happened to hear the news.
  He was greatly excited with the conviction that the new spring of victory was coming in the country thanks to Kim Il Sung.
  He put down his feelings on the music paper. This is how the "Song of Spring" was created.
  He created it as the theme song of a one-act opera under creation. While hearing him play the song with the violin, soldiers of the People's Army sang after it. After all, the song was known to people before it was played on the stage.


  Singing the song, the soldiers of the People's Army bravely fought, picturing to themselves their hometowns to be more beautiful and the future of the country to be more prosperous.
  After the war, whenever people asked him how he could write such a beautiful song during the hard-fought war, composer Ri Myon Sang would say:
  "Thinking that the great leader Kim Il Sung is leading the war in the van, I was greatly excited with the confidence in victory and felt as if I was in balmy spring all the time."
  Like this, the victorious wartime generation was always full of confidence in victory.
  This firm faith gave rise to the production of the beautiful song of spring, which became a famous song sung by the Korean people generation after generation.