The coup in Russia kind of fizzled. While Prigozhin, the leader of the Wagner PMC and the coup, is now going to spend some time in Belarus and he might be heard again since his ambitions are big, this phase seems to be over.
Koreans compared Prigozhin to Lee Sunggye, the founder of the Chosun (sometimes spelled Joseon but I prefer the old spelling) dynasty.
Long story of short, the King of Koryo, the ruling dynasty at the time,sent Lee Sunggye, a famous general, to conquer Manchuria. However, Lee Sunggye judged conquering Manchuria was no fun, and instead decided to seize power. He marched the forces under him to the capital, captured and killed the King, and 4 years later he installed himself as the King of Chosun, starting a new dynasty which lasted until 1910.
The central philosophy of the Chosun dynasty was isolation and submission to China, and it remaind isolated until 1876, even killing Catholic missionaries and adherents in the 19th century.
Since this is a KPop BBS I will talk about KPop now.
The most famous coup in Korean Pop history is the coup of IU in 2010.
Lee Jieun is a descendant of the aforementioned Lee Sunggye, and like her ancestor who staged a coup and became the King,
The recent coup in Russia has a great parallel with Lee Jieun's coup in 2010 against KPop.
In late 2010 , all other genres in Korean Pop, even trot, largely disappeared and only idol music remained.
Practically the only singer who did not practice the idol style of music, widely known as KPop, was IU.
IU was somewhat known at that time but was not considered a major singer, but when the song Good day came out, it simply .... froze all of Korea.
From Dec 09, 2010, when Good Day and its well known 3 high notes were released, till Dec 26, 2010, IU beat Sistar, Kara and Big Bang.
From a relatively known teen singer, IU suddenly catapulted to the major force of Korean Pop, and I have documented her continued undermining of KPop for more than 10 years.
Then on Jan 2011, DBSK, the remnant of TVXQ, attacked IU , who decided to bide her time and retreated.
It was a mess - DBSK, Secret, even the actor Hyunbin, all jumped into the arena and Hyunbin was about to win #1 in Music Bank , which is why it created an OST chart and stopped giving awards to OSTs.
That was the aftermath of IU's coup against KPop, and although there are many other stories to tell about her career, it culminated with IU taking control of KPop in late 2021 when BTS was in Sofi stadium.
The effective end of Fifty Fifty as we know it shows how hard it is to pull a coup against KPop, now a world cultural phenomenon and an Established genre.
IU fighting all of KPop all by herself with zero allies, and eventually winning it all in late 2021, is a story which is unlikely to be repeated in the history of KPop since most famous acts come from big companies, well planned, so no coup is possible now.
