Hwang Jang-yop

Hwang Jang- yop ( born February 17, 1923 in Kangdong, now part of the city circle Pyongyang, † October 10, 2010 in Seoul, South Korea ) was an official of the North Korean Communist Party, until he fled to South Korea in 1997. He is regarded as the highest-ranking North Korean who has so far escaped to South Korea.

Hwang Jang- yop still visited in the period in which Korea was a province of Japan, a business college in Heijo, which he completed in 1941. After that, he began studying law in Tokyo, but he dropped out after two years, and worked as a mathematics teacher at his former school. In November 1946 he became a member of the Workers' Party of Korea ( WPK ). From October 1949 to November 1953 he studied at Moscow University and then became senior lecturer in philosophy at the Kim Il-sung University in Pyongyang. As of January 1958, he worked at the General Secretariat of the WPK. In April 1965, he became president of Kim il -sung University. From 1972 to 1983 he was chairman of the Supreme People's Assembly. In October 1979 he became secretary of the WPK for Science and Education, and Director of the Institute for the Study of the Juche ideology. From April 1984 until his escape, he was secretary of the WPK for foreign policy. From 1988 he was also director of the Research Institute of Party History. In December 1993, he became chairman of the Foreign Policy Committee of the Supreme People's Assembly. From 1995 until his escape Hwang was Chairman of the International Foundation for the Juche ideology.

Hwang was instrumental in the development and promotion of the Juche ideology. He was regarded as the ideologist of North Korea.

Hwang Jang- yop was married to Pak Sung -ok, a former censor the publisher for Foreign Literature Pyongyang, whom he met while studying in Moscow. They had three daughters and a son. Unconfirmed claims to have committed suicide to Hwang's wife after his escape. One of his daughters was killed in a car accident and his remaining relatives in North Korea had been interned after his escape in prison camps.