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Lee Eun-jeong, professor of Korean studies at the Free University of Berlin. (photo by Han Ju-yeon)

“South Korean students really think of North Koreans as people with horns growing out of their heads. After seeing in the newspaper that North Korean students had come here, some of the South Korean students came to me quietly and asked if it was okay to talk to them. After the matriculation ceremony was over, a South Korean student went over to one of the North Korean teachers and asked to touch their hand. That’s how deep the marks left by anti-communist education are. I don’t know how the North Korean students feel about it because they don’t talk to me, but it was upsetting and sad to see the response from South Korean students.”

Last January, 12 students from Kim Il-sung University in North Korea took part in a three-week winter program at the Free University of Berlin (FU Berlin). They took classes alongside students from a total of 14 countries, including around 80 South Korean students. The program received major coverage from the German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, which described it as “astonishing.”

On Feb. 7, I met with Lee Eun-jeong, 55, the Korean studies professor at FU Berlin who spearheaded the program. Her voice was subdued -- perhaps the result of the heavy workload -- but her expression was cheerful.

“In 2011, we received a proposal from Kim Il-sung University to sign a memorandum of understanding [MOU] with FU Berlin. So I went to Pyongyang in 2015 to explore cooperation between the two universities,” she recalled.

By 2015, the cooperation had the support of the Bundestag, the German president, and the German Foreign Ministry -- but that all changed after North Korea’s second nuclear test the following year, Lee said. As the sanctions against North Korea were intensified, the exchange agreement was put on the back burner.

Two years later, opportunity knocked. Exchange between the universities resumed with the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics.

Lee accompanied German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier as a special delegation member when he visited South Korea to attend the Olympics’ opening ceremony. “During the Cold War, we also had academic exchange and cooperation between [West and East German] universities,” he told her. “It’s something you have to do under any circumstances, regardless of the political conditions.”

Lee explained, “After that, the president’s board at our school decided after that to go ahead with pursuing exchange and cooperation. In September of that year, I arrived in Pyongyang bearing an exchange agreement.”

At the time, FU Berlin’s Korean studies department was doing research into seowon (Neo-Confucian academies) institutions in North Korea. Sohyon Seowon, the academy of Yi I (“Yulgok”), is located in the North.

“The seowon research project led by the Institute of Korean Studies was included as part of a FU Berlin research project called ‘Episteme in Motion,’” Lee explained. “We also did a seowon survey in North Korea.”

As relics of Joseon’s aristocratic culture, seowons once received little attention in communist North Korea. But these days, more North Korean scholars have shown interest in the academies, Lee said.

During her North Korea visit two years ago, professors from Kim Il-sung University’s department of German literature said they would like for the students to have the opportunity to study German in Germany.

“They didn’t have any Germans as professors in the Kim Il-sung University department of German literature,” Lee recalled. “The Goethe-Institut had also closed down due to German’s strong sanctions on North Korea after the nuclear test in 2016. For four years, exchange between Germany and North Korea had been at a standstill. They [North Korea] didn’t have any German language teaching materials, and they said they weren’t able to read recent works of German literature.”

She went on to explain, “The people studying German literature at Kim Il-sung University are future diplomats and interpreters. They’re valuable human resources. From North Korea’s standpoint, their inability to study German was a loss.”

With the German government also responding favorably to the program, Lee decided to try to make the invitation of Kim Il-sung University students a regular occurrence. Her aim is to turn it into a program that remains sustainable regardless of the political situation and the state of inter-Korean relations.

“The university is the place where you can open up a window for exchange irrespective of political changes,” she said. “The older faculty members at FU Berlin all say the same thing: ‘If FU Berlin doesn’t play that role, who will?’ The professors who taught me in Germany are people who lived through the Cold War. They’re offering their wholehearted support. They tell me, ‘Don’t let anything anyone says sway you. You’re doing what needs to be done.’”

The Korean studies department at FU Berlin has been steadily growing. The building where it took up residence in 2018 was one coveted by all of the university’s departments. The fact that the department was able to occupy that building speaks clearly to the prestige that Korean studies hold. Such were Lee’s contributions to developing the Institute of Korean Studies and department in the 12 years since she was hired as a professor there in 2008.

Lee also shared her plans for the future.

“The role of the Korean studies department will be to develop Korea experts who will play important roles going forward in international organizations in Europe,” she said.

“We’re planning to select some of the undergraduates we’ve produced to date to undergo further training so they can be sent to think tanks and international agencies,” she added.

Lee also said she had “kept thinking about the role of the Institute of Korean Studies, which I’m in charge of at FU Berlin.”

“There are things Berlin can do with regard to the Korean Peninsula. That’s why I pushed so hard to sign the exchange agreement with Kim Il-sung University,” she continued.

“There’s still a lot to be done. It’s a process of assembling brick by brick. The results aren’t clearly visible yet, but I feel like, ‘This is what we have to do.’”

By Han Ju-yeon, correspondent in Berlin

Please direct comments or questions to [english@hani.co.kr]