Czech-Korean ties share tumultuous past

By Kim Young-jin

With this year marking two decades of diplomatic ties between Korea and the Czech Republic, the two countries have been celebrating the robust bilateral relations forged during that time.

Cooperation between the peoples, however, stretches back to the turbulent aftermath of WWI.

Historical writings show the two sides had significant contact in Russia during the Russian Civil War (1918-20), a time when both Korea and Czechoslovakia were fighting for independence.

Freedom fighters from Korea, then under the thumb of Japanese rule, sought out the Czechoslovakian forces in Russia.

The heavily-armed 60,000 Czechoslovak Legion forces were struggling against the spread of Bolshevik ideology, and, ultimately, against the yoke of the Austro-Hungarian empire.

The contacts came mostly in the Far East, especially the port city of Vladivostok.

But they also occurred in the European portion of Russia, as well as in Shanghai and Manchuria, according to research published in “Archiv Orientali,” the quarterly of Oriental Institute in Prague.

Large numbers of Koreans had moved to such areas for economic reasons and, later, in a bid to escape Japanese persecution.

Some 5,000 Koreans were concentrated in Vladivostok alone, where there even existed a “New Korean Quarter.” Such communities provided a supportive environment for the independence movement.

Koreans, who had been under Japanese rule since 1910, took U.S. President Woodrow Wilson’s declaration at the end of WWI that all people reserve the right to self determination as an opportunity to bring their struggle to the attention of the world.

Zdenka Kloslova, in a contribution to the Czech journal, said the chaos in Russia made for favorable conditions for Korean freedom fighters to seek international support.

“The stormy period in Russia, with all its troubles and confusions, enabled an encounter of nations unimaginable in a normal period,” Kloslova said in an article published in 2002.

“Most interesting for the Czech side is that (representatives from the Korean independence movement) tried to find support from the Czechoslovak soldiers who were waiting in Vladivostok, first for a transfer to Western European battlefields and later for return to the newly-founded independent Czechoslovak Republic.”

In 1918, Korean nationalists in the European part of Russia contacted the regional branch of the Czechoslovak National Council, requesting that it “intercede with the Allied forces for the independence of Korea,” according to the memoirs of a council member.

The effort illustrated both the independence movement’s opportunism in seeking assistance and the sway of the Czechoslovak Legion, which held considerable influence in Russia at the time.

Much of the contact between the movement and the Czechoslovak corps came through Gen. Radola Gajda, one of the primary actors in the Czechoslovak rebellion against the Bolsheviks.

A popular figure, he attracted the attention of Korean activists, especially those involved with the New Korea Youth Movement, which has been credited with a key role in the independence fight.

In 1919, Gajda met in Vladivostok with Yeo Un-hyeong, an important activist and leader of the group, who urged the general to support their cause.

Yeo, who was later assassinated by a right-wing activist, had travelled from Shanghai for the meeting.

Gajda’s motives for meeting Yeo are unknown, but it is suspected that he was driven by the similarity of the countries’ independence struggles.

After the meeting, the general sent one of his aides to protect Yeo on his way back to Shanghai.

According to Russian records, a number of Koreans even joined Gajda’s forces, out of what Kloslova called “the hope to gain help for Korea.”

Gajda, paying a visit to Korean activists in Shanghai, later told a Korean paper, “The day when you Koreans achieve independence is not far.”

It would be decades before formal diplomatic relations would form, after the Velvet Revolution overthrew communism in Czechoslovakia.

Today, those contacts between independence fighters have grown into strong relations between the countries that include trade as well as cultural and high-level diplomatic exchanges.