Baek Ki-wan (白基琓, 24 January 1932 – 15 February 2021) was a South Korean poet and novelist, a civic activist and unification movement activist, and a politician and writer.
Born~Died Jan 24, 1932 ~ Feb 15, 2021Last edited Oct 15, 2026, 2:51 PM
Baek Ki-wan (白基琓, 24 January 1932 – 15 February 2021) was a South Korean poet and novelist, a civic activist and unification movement activist, and a politician and writer.
Since joining the opposition movement against the Korea–Japan talks in 1964, he took part in anti-dictatorship democratization movements, unification movements, and labor movements. He was prolific as a writer, producing works such as "The Tale of the Jangsan Falcon" and "The Great Story of Our People." He also ran as an independent candidate in the 13th (1987) and 14th (1992) presidential elections, and at times withdrew from the race or lost.
Life
Political activism
Baek Ki-wan was born in Jangnyeon-ri, Jangnyeon-myeon, Eunyul County, Hwanghae Province. He graduated from Ildo Primary School in Hwanghae Province in 1946, and after liberation he moved south. Baek did not undergo any formal education beyond primary school, but studied on his own. As a native of North Korea who had been displaced, he became aware of the unification question early on, took part in the 1964 movement against the Korea–Japan Normalization Treaty, and in 1967 founded the Baekbeom Thought Research Institute, devoting himself to research on and dissemination of the thought of Baekbeom. Along with this, he also threw himself into the democratization movement. In 1973 he carried out a petition campaign to revise the Yushin Constitution and was imprisoned for violating emergency decrees.
Later, in 1979, he was arrested in the YMCA disguised wedding incident, detained for violating the Martial Law Act, sentenced to prison, and served his term until he was released in 1981 under a special amnesty on the occasion of March 1st. From 1983 to 1988 he served as vice chairman of the National Unification People's Movement Federation.
In the 1987 presidential election, he ran as an independent people's candidate for the prespresidency, nominated by the "," a part of the extra-parliamentary movement. He withdrew from the race, urging the unification of the opposition behind and to end military rule. However, in September 1987, Kim Young-sam and Kim Dae-jung failed to narrow their differences in negotiations on uniting the opposition candidacy, and the talks collapsed; Roh Tae-woo won the election with 36% of the vote. As military rule continued through the election, Baek, who was disappointed, broke with the conservative opposition, although some argued that he should compromise with the institutional political sphere. In the in December 1992, he again ran as an independent people's candidate, nominated by the extra-parliamentary movement. For both presidential campaigns, he ran without a formal political party, and a campaign headquarters called the Baek Ki-wan Presidential Campaign Headquarters (abbreviated Baek-seonbon) was formed. After losing the presidential election, he withdrew from the front lines of politics.
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Afterwards, although he had withdrawn from the front lines of politics, he continued to lead the Institute for Unification Studies that he had founded, and from outside the political sphere he remained engaged in and devoted to the unification movement and progressive labor movement. Meanwhile, drawing on his wide knowledge acquired through self-study, he also worked hard on creative writing, publishing novels and essay collections such as The Tale of the Jangsan Falcon and Busimi's Thoughts of Mother.
He later served as co-chair of the Committee for the Investigation of the Assassination of Jang Jun-ha and as representative of the Committee for the Establishment of a National Culture University, and in 1996 he was elected co-chair of the preparatory committee for the 21st anniversary memorial service for the late Jang Jun-ha. In November 1999 he founded the quarterly magazine Nonamegi and became its publisher.
After 2000
Even after 2000, he continued to take part in civil society movements, and in May 2000 he was appointed adjunct professor at Hanyang University.
Anecdotes
Baek was known for his distinctive style of speech; during the recording of a presidential campaign speech, he filled the allotted time without a single pause, astonishing broadcast staff. During the 2002 Korea–Japan World Cup, he formed a connection by giving lectures to the national team players at the National Football Center (NFC) in Paju at the request of the Korea Football Association. Hiddink showed a special affection, posing with his arm around Baek's shoulders. Heo Jin, the national team's media officer, said that although the meeting was brief and he could not understand the content of the lecture, he was deeply impressed by Baek's passionate lecturing style, his unique charisma in hanbok, and his career devoted to the unification movement, and he wished to meet him again before departing. Eventually, because Coach Hiddink's busy schedule left no time to meet Baek, Hiddink tried to express his feelings in a handwritten letter; but after hearing that Hiddink wanted to meet him, Baek came out to the airport that day, and the meeting took place. At this meeting, Hiddink said through an interpreter, "Thank you for giving the players a good message. Looking at you, it is like meeting a 'Korean person.'" Baek replied, "People meet and part, but ideas do not part from one another; they move forward together with history." 123 According to theologianJeong Seung-woo, in public speeches Baek said, "I simply don't like the effeminate, pretty Jesus that Christians imagine, like a pampered dandy. In my view, that is a mistaken picture. Jesus was a worker, because his occupation was not carpenter. He must have had a body trained by labor. And Jesus was a figure with the spirit to resist an unjust social order." Through this, he criticized Christianity, which, by colluding with the ruling order, had drifted away from the historical Jesus.4 In addition, in the winter of 2009, he was invited as a speaker at the funeral procession for the victims of the Yongsan tragedy held at Seoul Station Plaza, where he shouted, "This is not the Yongsan tragedy, it is the Yongsan massacre."
Works
Books
Without Leaving Behind Love, Honor, or Name5, 2009
Busimi's Thoughts of Mother, 2005
Baek Ki-wan's Unification Story, 2003
Pine Roots Clutching a Cliff, 1999
The Tale of the Jangsan Falcon, 1993
Biting a Purple Ribbon, Fluttering a Jade-Colored Skirt
Pine Roots Clutching a Cliff
The Tale of Yisimi
The Great Story of Our People
Who Will Be the Common People If They Become President?
I Too Was Once a Man Who Loved
The Tale of Bareun-bal (Little Feet), 2019
Essays and edited works
Anti-Japanese National Theory
Unification or Anti-Unification
Quotations of Baekbeom (by Kim Gu, edited by Baek)
Poetry collections
Now the Time Has Come
Youthful Days
Lake Cheonji on Mount Baekdu
Ah! For Me Too
Other
Continent, film screenplay
Only Ten Thousand Won, film screenplay
Kwaejina Ching-chung Nane, film screenplay
Other
The art song Imeul wihan haengjingok, whose lyrics are taken from his poem "Myobinari," which includes the line "the fervent vow to march through life without leaving behind love, honor, or name," became widely known after it was performed at the spirit wedding of Yun Sang-won, who died during the May 18 Gwangju Democratic Uprising, and Park Ki-sun, who died in 1978 during labor activism. It later became the representative favorite song of student and labor movements in the 1980s and 1990s.
Baek Ki-wan (白基琓, 24 January 1932 – 15 February 2021) was a South Korean poet and novelist, a civic activist and unification movement activist, and a politician and writer.
Since joining the opposition movement against the Korea–Japan talks in 1964, he took part in anti-dictatorship democratization movements, unification movements, and labor movements. He was prolific as a writer, producing works such as "The Tale of the Jangsan Falcon" and "The Great Story of Our People." He also ran as an independent candidate in the 13th (1987) and 14th (1992) presidential elections, and at times withdrew from the race or lost.
Life
Political activism
Baek Ki-wan was born in Jangnyeon-ri, Jangnyeon-myeon, Eunyul County, Hwanghae Province. He graduated from Ildo Primary School in Hwanghae Province in 1946, and after liberation he moved south. Baek did not undergo any formal education beyond primary school, but studied on his own. As a native of North Korea who had been displaced, he became aware of the unification question early on, took part in the 1964 movement against the Korea–Japan Normalization Treaty, and in 1967 founded the Baekbeom Thought Research Institute, devoting himself to research on and dissemination of the thought of Baekbeom. Along with this, he also threw himself into the democratization movement. In 1973 he carried out a petition campaign to revise the Yushin Constitution and was imprisoned for violating emergency decrees.
Later, in 1979, he was arrested in the YMCA disguised wedding incident, detained for violating the Martial Law Act, sentenced to prison, and served his term until he was released in 1981 under a special amnesty on the occasion of March 1st. From 1983 to 1988 he served as vice chairman of the National Unification People's Movement Federation.
In the 1987 presidential election, he ran as an independent people's candidate for the prespresidency, nominated by the "Constituent Assembly faction," a part of the extra-parliamentary movement. He withdrew from the race, urging the unification of the opposition behind Kim Young-sam and Kim Dae-jung to end military rule. However, in September 1987, Kim Young-sam and Kim Dae-jung failed to narrow their differences in negotiations on uniting the opposition candidacy, and the talks collapsed; Roh Tae-woo won the election with 36% of the vote. As military rule continued through the election, Baek, who was disappointed, broke with the conservative opposition, although some argued that he should compromise with the institutional political sphere. In the presidential election in December 1992, he again ran as an independent people's candidate, nominated by the extra-parliamentary movement. For both presidential campaigns, he ran without a formal political party, and a campaign headquarters called the Baek Ki-wan Presidential Campaign Headquarters (abbreviated Baek-seonbon) was formed. After losing the presidential election, he withdrew from the front lines of politics.
Civil society activism
Afterwards, although he had withdrawn from the front lines of politics, he continued to lead the Institute for Unification Studies that he had founded, and from outside the political sphere he remained engaged in and devoted to the unification movement and progressive labor movement. Meanwhile, drawing on his wide knowledge acquired through self-study, he also worked hard on creative writing, publishing novels and essay collections such as The Tale of the Jangsan Falcon and Busimi's Thoughts of Mother.
He later served as co-chair of the Committee for the Investigation of the Assassination of Jang Jun-ha and as representative of the Committee for the Establishment of a National Culture University, and in 1996 he was elected co-chair of the preparatory committee for the 21st anniversary memorial service for the late Jang Jun-ha. In November 1999 he founded the quarterly magazine Nonamegi and became its publisher.
After 2000
Even after 2000, he continued to take part in civil society movements, and in May 2000 he was appointed adjunct professor at Hanyang University.
Anecdotes
Baek was known for his distinctive style of speech; during the recording of a presidential campaign speech, he filled the allotted time without a single pause, astonishing broadcast staff. During the 2002 Korea–Japan World Cup, he formed a connection by giving lectures to the national team players at the National Football Center (NFC) in Paju at the request of the Korea Football Association. Hiddink showed a special affection, posing with his arm around Baek's shoulders. Heo Jin, the national team's media officer, said that although the meeting was brief and he could not understand the content of the lecture, he was deeply impressed by Baek's passionate lecturing style, his unique charisma in hanbok, and his career devoted to the unification movement, and he wished to meet him again before departing. Eventually, because Coach Hiddink's busy schedule left no time to meet Baek, Hiddink tried to express his feelings in a handwritten letter; but after hearing that Hiddink wanted to meet him, Baek came out to the airport that day, and the meeting took place. At this meeting, Hiddink said through an interpreter, "Thank you for giving the players a good message. Looking at you, it is like meeting a 'Korean person.'" Baek replied, "People meet and part, but ideas do not part from one another; they move forward together with history." 123 According to theologianJeong Seung-woo, in public speeches Baek said, "I simply don't like the effeminate, pretty Jesus that Christians imagine, like a pampered dandy. In my view, that is a mistaken picture. Jesus was a worker, because his occupation was not carpenter. He must have had a body trained by labor. And Jesus was a figure with the spirit to resist an unjust social order." Through this, he criticized Christianity, which, by colluding with the ruling order, had drifted away from the historical Jesus.4 In addition, in the winter of 2009, he was invited as a speaker at the funeral procession for the victims of the Yongsan tragedy held at Seoul Station Plaza, where he shouted, "This is not the Yongsan tragedy, it is the Yongsan massacre."
Works
Books
Without Leaving Behind Love, Honor, or Name5, 2009
Busimi's Thoughts of Mother, 2005
Baek Ki-wan's Unification Story, 2003
Pine Roots Clutching a Cliff, 1999
The Tale of the Jangsan Falcon, 1993
Biting a Purple Ribbon, Fluttering a Jade-Colored Skirt
Pine Roots Clutching a Cliff
The Tale of Yisimi
The Great Story of Our People
Who Will Be the Common People If They Become President?
I Too Was Once a Man Who Loved
The Tale of Bareun-bal (Little Feet), 2019
Essays and edited works
Anti-Japanese National Theory
Unification or Anti-Unification
Quotations of Baekbeom (by Kim Gu, edited by Baek)
Poetry collections
Now the Time Has Come
Youthful Days
Lake Cheonji on Mount Baekdu
Ah! For Me Too
Other
Continent, film screenplay
Only Ten Thousand Won, film screenplay
Kwaejina Ching-chung Nane, film screenplay
Other
The art song Imeul wihan haengjingok, whose lyrics are taken from his poem "Myobinari," which includes the line "the fervent vow to march through life without leaving behind love, honor, or name," became widely known after it was performed at the spirit wedding of Yun Sang-won, who died during the May 18 Gwangju Democratic Uprising, and Park Ki-sun, who died in 1978 during labor activism. It later became the representative favorite song of student and labor movements in the 1980s and 1990s.