Fyodor Tertitskiy

Fyodor Tertitskiy (; also known by his Korean name Lee Hwisung, , Hanja 李輝星; born 23 August 1988) is a Russian and South Korean historian and specialist on North Korea. He lives in Seoul, lectures at Korea University, and has held a research post at Kookmin University's Institute for Korean Studies.

Biography Tertitskiy was born in Moscow in 1988. During high school, he decided to pursue a career as a scholar of North Korea. He majored in Korean studies at university and moved to Seoul in 2011. He completed his master's degree at the University of North Korean Studies in Seoul and earned a PhD from Seoul National University in 2017. Tertitskiy lectures at Korea University. Tertitskiy writes on North Korean political, social, and military history for outlets including NK News and Daily NK.

Reception Tertitskiy's Accidental Tyrant (Hurst and Oxford University Press, 2025), a biography of Kim Il Sung, was reviewed by the Financial Times, The Wall Street Journal, Foreword Reviews (which awarded it a starred review), and the Asian Review of Books. The book was also selected for the Financial Times 'Best summer books: History" list and included in The Weeks roundup of notable history titles for 2025. South Korean media have credited Tertitskiy with several archival discoveries, including: a 1941 Soviet interrogation protocol of Kim Il Sung; Kim Il Sung's confession regarding clandestine financial assistance to Cho Bong-am, an opposition candidate in the 1956 South Korean presidential election; a 1969 KGB report on Kim family relatives; and records of talks between Pak Song-chol and Leonid Brezhnev.

Works

Accidental Tyrant: The Life of Kim Il-sung (London: Hurst, 2025; New York: Oxford University Press, 2025). .