[Lecture] ’Jaroslav Bařinka: Czechoslovak-Korean Cold-War Encounters’ by Vladimir Hlasny

LECTURE TITLE: ’Jaroslav Bařinka: Reflections on Czechoslovak-Korean Cold-War Encounters’ LECTURER: Vladimir Hlasny DATE: Tuesday, October 12, 2021. 7:30PM (Seoul) Summary: Jaroslav Bařinka, the leading Czech scholar of Korean Studies, founding figure of Korean Studies in Czechoslovakia, and among the longest-serving Czech diplomats operating in both Koreas, died at the age of 89 years on 3 October 2020. Bařinka had made invaluable contributions introducing Korean traditional culture, archeology and literature to non-Korean audiences based on his extensive travels in the Koreas, Japan and China spanning half a century. He served as an interpreter and Second Secretary at the Czechoslovak embassy in Pyongyang starting in 1955 and as late as 1976. He was the first civilian Czech to visit ROK back in 1970, returning there during the 1988 Olympics and in 1991 as Czechoslovakia’s – and in 1993 Czechia’s – first chargé d’affaires to Seoul. He was notorious for his meticulo