Kim Incheon, Head of the Department of Czech and Slovak

photo: Jaroslav Olša, jr.

 

On October 9-11, 2008 an international conference on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of foundation of bohemistics in the Republic of Korea was held. The conference was organised by the Department of Czech and Slovak at Hankuk University of Foreign Studies (HUFS). The department is chaired by Professor Kim Incheon, who is linguist and main author of Czech-Korean dictionary, and who graduated from historically first run of Czech at HUFS at the end of the 1980s. The conference was supported by prominent bohemist and current vice-president of HUFS professor Kim Kyuchin, who translated eight Czech books (by Čapek, Kundera, Hrabal a Škvorecký) and wrote several books about Prague, and finally by Kwon Jeil, founder of Korean bohemistics. Teachers from bohemistic and Slavic institutions in Far East (China, Mongolia, and Japan) as well as other guests were invited to attend the conference.

The conference was officially launched by rector of HUFS and hispanicist Pak Chul, and by Ambassadors of the Czech and Slovak Republics Jaroslav Olša, jr. and Pavel Hrmo. During this all-day event, participants could hear comments on the history and present of bohemistics and slavistics in different countries, as well as specific remarks on the theory and practice of teaching Czech, and further aspects of contemporary Czech literature (Hrabal, Čapek). For obvious reasons, bohemists from Pyongyang - last Far Eastern centre of bohemistics - could not participate in the conference. Moreover, a collection of papers from the conference was published, which thus became valuable source of information on bohemistics in different countries.

Within the conference, a meeting of former graduates and current students of Czech and Slovak (comprising around 500 of them so far) took place. The meeting was attended by about half of them. During the subsequent dinner, traditional Czech dance and music was performed by Czech dance ensemble at HUFS. Additionally, organizers assessed the conference as extraordinarily successful, and therefore they are now considering similar event that could be held within two years. Chinese bohemists also indicated that they might organise similar conference format in late 2009.