Yakov Novichenko

Yakov Tikhonovich Novichenko was born on 28 April 1914 in a Siberian village in Tomsk Governorate, Russian Empire.[1] He was born into a family of Ukrainian immigrants.[1][2] His father died in World War I and his mother died when he was seven years old,[2] leaving him an orphan.[1] He then went to live with his uncle.[2]

He worked various jobs in his youth, including as a shepherd and as a laborer for the Turkestan–Siberia Railway, where he encountered the conflict with the Basmachi movement.[1][2] He later worked on a kolkhoz (collective farm) after the founding of the Soviet Union.[1]

In 1938, he was drafted into the Red Army to serve in the Soviet–Japanese War.[1][2] He graduated from an infantry school in Komsomolk-on-Amur and participated in the Battles of Khalkhin Gol.[2] When the Soviet Union entered World War II, he made a number of requests to transfer to the western front, but was denied.[2] He entered officer training and became a junior lieutenant (mládshiy leytenánt).[2] He assisted in Soviet efforts to liberate parts of Korea from Japanese rule during the last few months of World War II.[1][2] He was subsequently stationed in Pyongyang to assist in the Soviet military government in the North.[1]

A memorial to Novichenko on his former Travnoye home (2014)

After Novichenko sufficiently recovered, he was discharged in December 1946 and returned home to his family in the village of Travnoye, some 300 km (190 mi) southwest of Novosibirsk.[1][11] He then graduated from the Novosibirsk State Agricultural University and worked various jobs afterwards, including farming, manufacturing, and chairing the village council.[2]

In the 1960s, Soviet–North Korean relationships soured, but Kim still wrote to Novichenko often, inviting him and his family to visit Pyongyang.[7]

For a mid-1984 state visit to the Soviet Union, Kim made a special point of seeking out and meeting Novichenko. He forewent a welcoming party he had been invited to and asked the KGB for assistance in locating Novichenko.[2][12]

On 21 May 1984, Novichenko was working in the family garden when the KGB arrived in a black Volga.[2] With little notice, they took him to the Novosibirsk railway station to meet Kim.[11][7][9][2][10] The two exchanged hugs.[7][9] In reference to how Novichenko's book saved his life, Kim reportedly said, "I am a communist, I don't believe in a god. But something [miraculous] happened".[2] Kim reportedly asked Novichenko "Why haven't you written to me once? I have been busy with the affairs of state but you could have found time to write. Please come to visit me in Pyongyang soon".[7][9]

From that year until his death, Novichenko and three other family members were invited to North Korea on an annual basis.[2][10] Novichenko and Kim reportedly became close friends, and reportedly referred to each other as brothers.[2][10]

Novichenko visited Kim in Pyongyang, where on 28 July 1984 he was awarded the Hero of Labor award, the highest decoration in the country.[1][7][2] This made him the only Soviet recipient of the award.[2][1] As of December 2019, the only other non-Korean to receive the award has been Fidel Castro in 2006.[2]

Thus, 38 years after he saved Kim's life, Novichenko became famous within North Korea.[7][9][2] Some North Korean parents allegedly named their children "Yakov" in his honor.[7][6][2] In 1985, a film covering Novichenko's saving of Kim called One Second for a Feat was released that starred Andrei Martynov as Novichenko.[7][9][3][6] In 1987, the sculptor Yi P'yŏn-il created the statue "Yakov the Internationalist",[6][7][9] in which Novichenko is depicted diving for the grenade, military coat flapping like the wings of an angel[6] and supported by the sheets of a large book.[2][10] The statue is located on the Mansu Hill Grand Monument.[2]

Scholars speculate that Kim gave the award decades after the actual incident because of North Korea's turbulent relationship with the Soviet Union in the preceding decades.[7] Andrei Lankov attributed much of the development of the cult of personality on the geopolitics of the time. He said:[7]

[S]ince around 1983–84, North Korea, increasingly uneasy about China’s drift to market capitalism and Beijing’s de-facto alliance with the U.S., decided to move a bit closer to the USSR, so memories about the Soviet role in the Liberation, hitherto discouraged, were again allowed to resurface. The film about Novichenko was one of the few films made at the time about what in the official parlance was described as ‘the Soviet-Korean friendship'

A memorial stele to Novichenko (2014)

Novichenko died on 8 December 1994 in Travnoye, five months after the death of Kim Il Sung.[1][9][12][2][note 7] After Kim's death, he was reportedly distraught and lost much of his vigor.[2]

The North Korean embassy has sent a delegation to visit Travnoye every year on 28 April, Novichenko's birthday, and has continued to do so as of 2019. Novichenko's family visited North Korea in 2017.[2] He is now featured in North Korean textbooks.[2] In Travnoye, a school he helped build is now named after him.[2] Many of Novichenko's artifacts, including his silver cigarette case, were donated to a Novosibirsk military museum.[2] His descendants march with his portrait at the annual Immortal Regiment event on May 9.[2]

In 1932, Novichenko married a woman named Maria,[13] a milkmaid[2] he met while working on a kolkhoz.[1] She passed away in March 2013,[7] at age 93.[2] They had six children together.[2] By the time he learned that his first daughter was born, he was serving in East Asia.[2]

According to Novichenko's youngest daughter Tatiana Yakovlevna,[1][note 10] Novichenko was a modest, patient, and private person, and rarely discussed his feats.[1][2] She only learned that her father had saved Kim Il Sung when she was around the fifth or sixth grade.[2]

Novichenko had a prosthesis after the incident, but he did not always wear it.[2] According to his daughter, Tatiana, most were not surprised to see Novichenko's injuries due to the recent World War, although some doubted the story of his saving Kim Il Sung.[1][2] He performed manual labor with only his left hand, and asked for assistance from his children if he needed help.[2] He built most of the family home, and was fond of raising horses.[2] According to Tatiana, he reportedly did not look the part of a muscular hero, but was tenacious, and had the nickname "flint man".[2][note 11]

When Novichenko's family is asked about controversies related to North Korea, they consistently reply "Our family stays out of politics".[2][note 12]