Kim Man-il
Template:Refimprove Kim Man-il (Template:Korean; 1944–1947/8) was the second son and child of North Korean leader Kim Il-sung and his first wife, Kim Jong-suk.
Soviet records show that he was born Alexander Irsenovich Kim (Template:Lang-ru) in 1944 in the Russian village of Vyatskoye. Inside his family, he was nicknamed Shura. Official North Korean biographies state that Shura and his older brother Kim Jong-il got along very well and played together.<ref>Both Jerrold Post in Template:Cite journal and Robert Davison who publishes The Inquisitor cite North Korean defector Yi Ki-bong (이기봉, 李基奉) for statements that shed some doubt on this. Davison quotes from Yi's book, What Kind of Man is Kim Jong II [sic: Kim, Chŏng-il] (most likely Yi's chapter in 민족사 입장 에서 본 김 일성 정권): “Kim was very mischievous when a child. When he saw an insect, he trampled on it. After Korea’s liberation from Japanese occupation, the Kim II-sung family lived in a house in Mansu-tong, Central District, P’yongyang. In the early summer of 1948, his younger brother, Shura (then three years old) drowned. Kim Jong II was there at the time. I learned later how the accident occurred. The two brothers were playing in the pond right by the edge. Kim Jong II raised his face faster than his brother, and pushed his brother’s face back into water. He did that over and over.” Template:Cite web </ref>
North Korean based sources claim that in the summer of 1947 or 1948, Shura and his brother were playing in a pond in the city of Pyongyang, when Shura accidentally drowned.<ref>None of the sources appear to be entirely authoritative, and many show a bias towards or opposed to the Kim regime. Template:Cite web gives a date of July 1947. Sources such as Template:Cite book give a generic 1947. While sources like Template:Cite book give a generic 1948.</ref> Russian sources indicate that he drowned in a well in Vyatskoye, prior to the family moving back to Korea.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Official records state that Kim Jong-il was devastated and could never get over the trauma of losing his younger brother. In 1949, his mother, Kim Jong-suk died while giving birth to a stillborn girl.
