Balázs Szalontai is an associate professor at Korea University, Sejong Campus, Department of North Korean Studies. He received his PhD from Central European University (Budapest, Hungary) in 2004. His publications include Kim Il Sung in the Khrushchev Era: Soviet–DPRK Relations and the Roots of North Korean Despotism, 1953–1964 (Stanford University Press and Woodrow Wilson Center Press, 2005), as well as peer-reviewed articles and book chapters on North Korean, Southeast Asian, and Mongolian history.