One conflict, but it recounts two different narratives, especially with regard to its paths, causes and circumstances of its end, and the external forces that actually affected the course of the battles.

70 years after the start of the Korean War, the Pyongyang and Seoul museums offer completely different readings of the events that have divided the Korean peninsula.

In Pyongyang, a giant statue of a North Korean soldier raising a flag in front of the Triumphal War Museum is near a huge memorial plaque bearing a message from the regime's founder Kim Il Sung, the grandfather of the current leader Kim Jong Un, that confirms that "historical achievements will radiate over ten thousand generations." .

In Seoul, the walls of the Korean War Monument are covered with iron plaques bearing the names of 190,000 South Korean soldiers, and from the United Nations coalition led by Washington, "who fell while defending the Republic of Korea."

The colossal statues of soldiers or civilians who fought this war are the common denominator between the two museums.


Beginning and fall of Seoul

The Korean War began on June 25, 1950, after the North Army crossed the longitude 38, at which Moscow and Washington drew the borders of dividing the Korean peninsula with the end of World War II, and an end to Japanese colonialism.

And the North continues to assert until now that the Americans and their "dolls" in the South have attacked it.
"Two days after the preliminary bombing, the enemies entered between one and two kilometers into our country," says the guide at the Pyongyang Museum, Shu En Joon.

"The Korean People's Army repelled the surprise enemy attack and immediately began the counter-attack."

However, historians have found in the Soviet archives numerous documents showing that Kim Il Sung asked Stalin to allow the invasion of the south, and other documents detailing preparations for the operation.

On the other hand, the curator of the "Seoul" museum, Go Hanbin, confirms that the North Korean novel is wrong.

He explains that "no one but the North defends this hypothesis. The war came as a result of their intention to unify the peninsula under the supervision of the Communist regime."

North Korean forces seized Seoul in 3 days, and quickly advanced against the unprepared South Korean army.


America favors China and interferes

and stops this progress thanks to the battle of Incheon in September 1950, which allowed the south and the United Nations forces led by the United States to tip the cuff and control of Pyongyang, and advance almost to the Chinese borders. The North describes this stage as a "temporary strategic retreat."

Communist China, led by Mao Zedong, sent millions of people, and called them "People's Volunteers", to help the North Koreans.

Seoul fell again, for the Southerners to take it back again, before the conflict stabilized at the level of the current demilitarized zone, near latitude 38.

The Pyongyang Museum devotes two rooms to the Chinese contribution, which was "not conclusive," according to evidence Xu.

In this museum, the 1953 armistice was presented as a defeat for the United States.

About 3 years ago, I talked to Agence France-Presse, medical doctor John Go Kang, who worked in the army during the war, before becoming the first woman general in the north, at that time she was 88, and met Kim Il Sung 5 times. "The United States has been our archenemy for a century, and my blood ceases to flow by simply thinking about them. We cannot live under one roof," she says.

The Korean War is an essential element of the national identity in the north, and the legitimacy of the regime is also based on it.

According to the official version, Kim Il Sung defeated two of the world's largest imperialist powers: Japan, and then the United States, within a few years in defense of Korea's independence.


Building on this myth and lasting legitimacy , experts believe it is vital for Pyongyang to position itself as a victim of aggression.

Andrei Lankov of "Korea Risk Group" says: "If they admit that they were not attacked, and that they tried to liberate the south, they did not succeed. They admit that in the reality of the actual war, that is, it is a bloody and useless disaster."

He adds, "But when they say that they were subjected to aggression, and that they defended their position, they do not return miserable adventurers who wreaked corruption, but rather the heroes who defeated the foreign aggression."

He asserts that the war falls within the "founding myth" of North Korea, and it is still justifying its nuclear program by continuing the American threat.

But the positions are not so conclusive in the south, which has become a very advanced democracy in terms of technology and economy 12 in the world.

"The South Koreans view - most of them - the Korean War as a historical event among other historical events," Go says.

He admits that with the passage of time, his museum's criticism has increased due to his "narrow view" of South Korean victories.