The 19th World Festival of Youth and Students (WFYS) attracted considerable attention at the time, and has subsequently been the subject of commentary and academic study in view of its wide resonance with a range of international affairs during that eventful year.

From 1947 to now, the festival has been held on nineteen occasions, having been established following the end of the Second World War to bring together youth from all countries to promote international friendship and peace. Among the countries in which it was held have been the Soviet Union, Austria, Finland and the states of Eastern Europe, and, in more recent years, Ecuador, South Africa, Venezuela, Algeria and Cuba.

When Seoul was selected as host for the 1988 Summer Olympics, the DPRK launched an initiative to co-host games in both north and south, and embarked on a major project equip the north with sports facilities of international standard and scale – indeed it built what was for time the largest sports stadium in Asia.

An international campaign was launched in support of this initiative, supported in Britain by the Korea Friendship Committee, whose archives include its correspondence with International Olympics Committee President Juan Antonio Samaranch, and papers recording other press and public activities.

Though this bid to co-host the Olympic games was not successful, it left North Korea well-equipped to host the sports, cultural and social activities of the WFYS, which took place the year following the Seoul Olympics.

The papers of the British Preparatory Committee for the festival show how it assembled the 100-strong delegation, which has just been described as the largest contingent of people from Britain to visit North Korea since the Korean War!

Among those sponsoring and financing delegates were a number of trade unions, as well as Derbyshire County Council and other public and private institutions sympathetic to the cause of Korean reconciliation and reunification.

Following the event, a campaign was set up to defend Rim Su Gyong (Lim Su-Kyung), the South Korean delegate, who was arrested on her return to the south. These papers are also included in the Preparatory Committee’s archive. The archive also includes material concerning further subsequent activities, including a reunion activity of the Democratic Youth Federation of India held in Southall to commemorate the festival by the Indian Youth Association (GB).

The papers here provide a basis for further research Into this the activities of the British delegation, which has already been the subject of one Masters thesis (Myrseth 2016, see below).