Gang Don-wook

Gang Don-wook (Korean: 강돈욱, Hanja: 康敦煜, 3 February 1871 – 14 November 1943) was a Protestant educator during the Japanese colonial period, who worked as a Presbyterian elder in Korea and Manchuria during the Japanese colonial period, and served as an elder of Chilgol Church and Changdeok Church. He was the maternal grandfather of North Korea's Kim Il Sung and Kim Young-ju, and the father of Kang Pan-sok.

In educational activities, he founded Changdeok School and served as its first principal. In the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, he is idolized as an independence activist and a peerless patriot. He is said to have been a Presbyterian educator during the Japanese colonial period. He was from the Sinchon clan, with the pen name Mukgye (墨溪), and was a native of South Pyongan Province.

Life

In Chilgok (also known as 'Chilgol') of Yongsan-myeon, Hari (下里), Daedong County, South Pyongan Province, corresponding to present-day Mangyongdae District, Pyongyang, he established a private school for modern education and taught students. He was one of the founders of Changdeok School (彰德學校), where Kim Sung-ju (Kim Il Sung) attended while staying at his maternal home from 1923 to 1925, and he was also a Presbyterian believer who served as an elder of Chilgol Church. After the founding of Changdeok School, he served as the school's vice principal.¹

Kang Pan-sok, Kim Il Sung's mother, is known to have been the second daughter of Gang Don-wook, and he also had an eldest son, Kang Jin-sok, and another son, Kang Ryong-sok. He was a cousin-in-law elder of , a politician of the . Kang Ryang-uk taught Kim Il Sung while working as a teacher at Changdeok School founded by his relative Gang Don-wook.