Korea and the Eastern Bloc: Past, Present and Future Development is an Academy of Korean Studies funded project (AKS-2024-SRI-2200001) run by professor Miriam Löwensteinová, head of Charles University’s Korean studies department. The project culminated as the result of the research project Czechoslovakia and the Korean Peninsula during the Cold War. This project reached its height by convening an international workshop that delved into the Cold War Dynamics of Europe-Korea Relations using European Archives as primary sources. This workshop highlighted the need for more academic attention on the Korean peninsula’s role during the Cold War. It revealed a notable absence of this subject in European academia. This is despite the consensus among scholars that the Cold War originated in the division of Korea, an event that ultimately led to the Korean War. In 2024, this commitment was reaffirmed through the extension of the grant and the launch of the course “Perspectives on the Korean Peninsula during the Cold War” by the AKS Education and Culture grant to the Slovak Academy of Sciences. The significant interest from academia and students in participating in this course underscored the pressing need to explore this topic further. Considering the contemporary geopolitical landscape, often likened to a second Cold War, there exists an urgent need to examine the dynamics of the Cold War from a transnational viewpoint.
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