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On October 18, Kyiv hosted the 6th “round table” on Ukrainian-Korean cooperation in the field of textbook publishing, organized by the Embassy of the Republic of Korea together with the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine. The deputy director of “Tkuma” Institute, Dr. Yehor Vradii, and the director of “Tkuma” Institute, Dr. Igor Shchupak, were invited to participate in the event.

The general director of the Directorate of School Education of the Ministry of Education and Culture of Ukraine, Ihor Hvorostyany, addressed the participants of the event with congratulatory words, who spoke about the educational reform of the National Academy of Sciences in Ukraine. The Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Republic of Korea Kim Hyeong Tae delivered a special lecture, which, in particular, outlined the principles of the humanitarian policy of the Republic of Korea.

Dr. Igor Shchupak made a speech “Between the Dnipro and Khan rivers: parallels of history and the present.” Below are some theses from it:

“We live in the conditions of the Third World War, which has already begun; its main component is a full-scale war between Russia and Ukraine. However, I believe that it is inevitable that new outbreaks of war will be ignited against democratic countries, including Ukraine, by the combined forces of the anti-democratic, totalitarian regimes of Russia, Iran, and the DPRK, with the support of China. I consider inevitable not only the war between Iran against Israel, China against Taiwan, but also the military aggression of the DPRK against the Republic of Korea. The question is not whether there will be a full-scale war in Asia, but when.

Under these conditions, democratic countries should unite, in particular Ukraine and South Korea. Ukraine and the Republic of Korea are separated by a huge distance, as well as significant differences in state structure, social life, etc. Instead, interesting parallels can be found between the history of the two countries, which influence the current development of the states.

It seems to me that the following issues of Korean history are the most important for Ukraine:

1) ensuring rapid economic growth, the “miracle on the Han River” under the conditions of a difficult international situation and a military threat from the DPRK;

2) South Korea's democratization experience;

3) South Korea's opposition to the propaganda of the totalitarian ideas of the North Korean regime and study of the possibilities of humanization and democratization of North Korean society in the possible future, when the conditions for the unification of Korea arise;

4) problems of “overcoming the past” (in the words of Prof. Yaroslav Hrytsak) in the formation of the foreign policy of modern South Korea, especially in relations with Japan, China, as well as with the USA and other countries (there should be a separate conversation about this).

For many years, only certain facts from the history of Korea, in particular, were mentioned in the Ukrainian history education system:

- the struggle of Korea against the colonial rule of Japan in the first half of the 20th century;

- the surrender of Japan in World War II and the division of Korea;

- Korean War 1950-1953

And 2 years ago, in 2022, the Working Group of the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine under the leadership of Raisa Yevtushenko and Dr. Lyudmila Hrynevych developed a new history curriculum for general secondary education institutions. In the content of this Program, we have included questions on the history of Korea that are new for Ukrainian historical education: “South Korea: the experience of democratization and the “economic miracle””.

According to the current Program, the authors of the “World History” course textbooks for the first time in Ukrainian textbook creation include the mentioned topics in the content of the educational material. Yes, I included a separate subsection “South Korea: the experience of democratization and the economic miracle” in the textbook: I. Pike “World History” (standard level) for students of the 11th grade of general secondary education institutions, which became the winner of the All-Ukrainian competition for the selection of textbooks and was published in the fall of 2024. Kyiv publishing house “Orion”.

We are currently preparing a textbook for the profile level, where the history of Korea in the 20th-21st centuries. a separate paragraph (subsection) is devoted to it. It is obvious that there are great prospects in the further study of the history of Korea in Ukraine and the history of Ukraine in Korea. So it will continue.”

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