Editing Flag of North Korea (section)

=== Creation ===

==== Official account ====
[[File:Proposed DPRK flag 1.svg|thumb|right|{{FIAV|proposal}} The design initially selected by Kim Il Sung, according to North Korean government sources]]

The North Korean government credits Kim Il Sung with designing the country's national flag. According to a ''[[Tongil News]]'' report of an article by the state-run ''Rodong Sinmun'', Kim Il Sung began expressing the necessity of a new national flag and emblem in January 1948. He argued that they were important for future national affairs and would strengthen national pride.{{sfn|Lee|2022}} A team of artists was tasked with proposing designs for the new flag. Kim Il Sung initially chose a design similar to the flag that was adopted, except its width-to-length ratio was 2:3 and the white disc was in the center and did not feature a charge. In February 1948, Kim Il Sung instructed the artists to change the ratio to 1:2, to add a five-pointed red star to the inside of the disc, and to move the disc towards the hoist.{{sfn|Choi|1999|p=99}} The flag design was then accepted by the Constitutional Reform Committee and written into the provisional constitution on 20 February 1948 and confirmed by a special committee of the People's Assembly on 28 April.{{sfn|Choi|1999|pp=99–100}} A ceremony was held on 10 July 1948 to take down the ''taegukgi'' and install the new flag in the meeting place, but the new flag's adoption was not official until the passing of North Korea's first constitution by the Supreme People's Assembly on 8 September.{{sfn|Tertitskiy|2014}}{{sfn|Tertitskiy|2024|pp=39–41}}{{sfn|Choe|2018|pp=64}}{{sfn|Choi|1999|pp=100}} The flag design was standardised with the passing of the national flag law on 22 October 1992.{{sfn|National Flag Law of the DPRK|2012|loc=Appendix I}}

The decision to change the national flag was relatively unpopular among politically active Koreans at the beginning. [[Lyuh Woon-hyung]], for example, described the flag change as "not right". The [[Chondoist Chongu Party]] also criticised the new design and occasionally refused to participate in demonstrations under the flag.{{sfn|Tertitskiy|2016|p=274}} When the flag design in the provisional constitution was first read and debated, the representative Chong Chae-yong defended the ''taegukgi'' as a symbol of the Korean people's liberation, cherished by Koreans in both the north and south.{{sfn|Tertitskiy|2016|p=272}} Following the flag's approval by the People's Assembly in April 1948, Kim Tu-bong felt it necessary to defend the new flag and published a book in August titled ''On the Establishment of the New National Flag and the Abolition of the Taegukgi''. In it, he praises the new flag as a symbol of the country's future and discredits the design of the ''taegukgi'' as overly complex, unintelligible, and rooted in superstition.{{sfn|Tertitskiy|2016|pp=274–275}}

The North Korean artist Kim Chu-gyong was originally credited by the North Korean government as the flag's designer. On the 30th anniversary of the founding of North Korea in 1978, he was given an award for designing the North Korean flag and emblem, and a book was published titled ''In the Embrace of Grace'', which included some of his collected writings. He also wrote a detailed account of how he was ordered by Kim Il Sung to make the designs in November 1947, titled ''The Story of Our Country's National Emblem and National Flag''.{{sfn|Lee|2019}}

==== Pak Il's account ====
Pak Il, a Soviet-Korean interpreter for the [[25th Army (Soviet Union)|Soviet 25th Army]], gave a different account of the flag's creation in two interviews, one to the Russian magazine ''Sovershenno Sekretno'' in 1992 and another to the South Korean newspaper ''[[The Dong-A Ilbo]]'' in 1993. According to Pak, the Soviets were responsible for proposing and designing the flag. In 1947, Soviet major general [[Nikolai Georgiyevich Lebedev]] summoned Kim Tu-bong to discuss whether the ''taegukgi'' should be retained by a newly-founded North Korea. Kim Tu-bong was in favour of keeping the ''taegukgi'' and attempted to explain to Lebedev the flag's significance within [[East Asian philosophy]]. Lebedev dismissed Kim Tu-bong's lecture as nonsense and superstition. A few months later, the Soviets sent a Russian-language document outlining their design to the 7th Department of the 25th Army. Pak was asked to translate it to Korean, and it eventually became the flag of North Korea.{{sfn|Tertitskiy|2014}}{{sfn|Tertitskiy|2016|pp=269–270}} Pak's account of the flag's creation was corroborated by fellow Soviet-Korean [[Chŏng Sangjin]], who held prominent positions in the North Korean culture and propaganda ministry.{{sfn|Pak|1993}}