Calls for Self-Sacrifice in North Korean Creative Writing in the Late 1900s to 2000s

Struggling to postpone the "natural death" of Stalinism and prop up shaken public morale, the North Korean regime recently initiated a chain of new mobilization slogans focused on one core idea: the demand for self-sacrifice in the name of the leader/party/revolution. This article traces innovative features in the current edition of the self-sacrifice concept and investigates how important instruments of persuasion, such as North Korean creative writing, reinforce and translate this propagandistic pattern. The article includes analyses of the implications that the self-sacrifice message had for ordinary Koreans, and of the effectiveness of contemporary calls for self-sacrifice.