Korea: Power, Ideology, Culture

North and South: two Korean worlds frozen in mirrored reflection. Renowned specialist in Oriental studies Konstantin Asmolov dismantles the black-and-white stereotypes about the two Koreas, offering a deep and vivid analysis of their history, politics, and culture.

K. V. Asmolov is a Russian scholar of Oriental studies, Candidate of Historical Sciences, leading researcher at the Institute of China and Contemporary Asia of the Russian Academy of Sciences, one of the most well-known Korea specialists of the Russian internet, popularizer of Korean culture, and author of a thematic blog on “LiveJournal” and a Telegram channel “KoreaMeow.” Asmolov’s works are valuable because they combine academic analysis with direct observations of a person who has been on both sides of the 38th parallel. The contrast in how North and South Korea are perceived is closely tied to stereotypes formed in the global consciousness over decades of separation of the Korean Peninsula. A media imbalance in how the images of the two states are presented traps the average person in black-and-white thinking, where North Korea is a “tyrannical regime” and South Korea is a “paradise of globalization.” But behind the common labels lies a living and contradictory history of the two countries.

This book is a kind of primer meant to dispel myths about the two Koreas in mass consciousness. You can expect an essay on the history of the Korean Peninsula, a discussion of the ideological foundations and their transformations, and also paradoxical similarities between North and South. You’ll learn how a shared past breaks through the cracks of ideological confrontation—and where the trail of dialogue between Seoul and Pyongyang leads when the whole world is waiting for a “breakthrough.”

The book will be of interest both to the academic community (historians, political scientists, scholars of East Asia) and to a wide range of readers who want to go beyond the usual clichés and begin their own path to understanding Korea’s rich history and complex political landscape.