NK News

• North Korea has demolished the Arch of Reunification, a monument that symbolised hope for reconciliation with the South.
• The decision to demolish the monument came shortly after the regime’s leader, Kim Jong-un, delivered a speech declaring it an “eyesore”.
• But, despite the physical erasure of this monument, its depiction on five official postage stamps serves to immortalise the monument and what it symbolised.

Propaganda postage stamps

• Postage stamps function not only as items that display the paying of postage rates, but also as small carriers of propaganda messages.
• In a similar way, the official North Korean postage stamp catalogue removed five stamps from its listings that depicted the Arch of Reunification.
• Stamp catalogues provide information relating to when stamps were issued, who designed them, their dimensions and colour.

• NK News also reported around this time that North Korea was purging propaganda websites of old content, suggesting a rewriting of the official narrative.
• In 1960, for example, North Korea released a set of five stamps celebrating the reconstruction of Pyongyang after the Korean War (1950–1953).
• However, as the stamps issued in 1960 contained the original names, their visual depictions in subsequently published stamp catalogues were not included.

The reunification dream lives on

• The Arch of Reunification was first depicted on a North Korean postage stamp in May 2002, almost one year after its unveiling.
• But the monument has been depicted more recently, on two stamps issued in 2015, and two more stamps issued in 2016 and 2021 respectively.

• The stamps were released to the world through Korea Stamp Corporation (North Korea’s state-run postal authority) offices in Russia and China at the time of issue.
• For that reason, North Korea can never fully erase these depictions of the unification dream as it doesn’t have full control over how its state narrative is presented and potentially altered.

David Hall does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.