Lee Beom-seok (prime minister)
South Korean Prime Minister (1900-1972)
Lee Beom-seok (Korean: 이범석; October 20, 1900 – May 11, 1972), also known by his art name Cheolgi, was a Korean independence activist who served as the prime minister of South Korea from 1948 to 1950. During the Japanese rule of Korea, he participated in the armed independence movement in Northeast China and served as the Chief of Staff of the Korean Liberation Army. He headed the Korean National Youth Association after the nation's independence. Upon the establishment of the government of the Republic of Korea in 1948, he served as the first Prime Minister and the Minister of National Defense.
Early life
Lee Beom-seok on October 20, 1900, was born in Seoul, Korean Empire. His father, Lee Mun-ha, was a government official. He was a descendant of Sejong the Great's son Gwangpyeong Daegun (광평대군; 廣平大君).
Career in exile
Lee and thousands of other Korean independence activists went into exile in the Republic of China after the violent suppression by the Japanese of the March First Movement.
In 1919, he started studying at the Shinheung military academy (Korean: 신흥무관학교; Hanja: 新興武官學校), which was created to build an army to fight for independence. Soon after, Lee fought in the Battle of Cheongsanni, a six-day engagement in eastern Manchuria.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Lee Beom-seok (prime minister)” as south Korean Prime Minister (1900-1972). Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
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The subject matters to the general reference register because the source frames it as south Korean Prime Minister (1900-1972). Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 3, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q484459. VIAF identifies the subject as 77799484. The Library of Congress control number is n86099646. 1 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1900, 1972, 1948 and 1950.
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This entry incorporates text from “Lee Beom-seok (prime minister)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.