On November 7, Kim Kwang-woon, a visiting professor at the Institute of Far Eastern Studies at Kyungnam University and the architect of the seminal North Korean research compilation, North Korean Annals: Chronology and Historical Materials, passed away at the age of 66.
Academic sources reported on Monday that Professor Kim unexpectedly died while visiting Yanbian University in China for a scheduled lecture.
Born in 1959, Kim graduated from Hanyang University with a degree in history and subsequently earned his master’s and doctoral degrees from the same institution.
He joined the National Institute of Korean History in 1992, serving as a research officer and research director. In the 2000s, he began focusing intensively on North Korean historical materials. Most recently, he held positions as a visiting professor at the Institute of Far Eastern Studies and as the director of the Digital Resource Center at the Graduate School of North Korean Studies.
Kim gained significant recognition in academic circles for his work on the North Korean Annals, which he began publishing in 2018 and expanded to 200 volumes in just six years.
The North Korean Annals is a comprehensive collection of historical materials chronicling North Korea’s history from August 15, 1945 – the date of liberation – to 1957. Each volume averages 980,000 characters across 800 pages, with the entire 200-volume set totaling approximately 196 million characters.
During the book launch event, Professor Kim explained that the North Korean Annals were compiled to present history as fact and history as record. He also revealed ambitious plans to expand the series to 1,000 volumes.
The funeral service will be held at Seoul St. Mary’s Hospital in Seocho-gu, Seoul. The wake begins on Tuesday, with the funeral scheduled for upcoming Friday.