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| Lee Tae-jun, left, a renowned Korean novelist who settled in North Korea after the 1910-45 Japanese colonial rule, poses with North Korean Female Association Chairwoman Park Chung-ae, center, and Hungarian Institute of Cultural Exchanges head Erno Mihalyfi, during his visit to Budapest in December 1950. / Courtesy of Embassy of Hungary |
By Yi Whan-woo
A rare photo of Lee Tae-jun, who was one of the most iconic Korean writers during Japanese colonial rule, was recently found by Hungarian Ambassador to Korea Mozes Csoma.
The Embassy of Hungary in Korea said last week Ambassador Csoma discovered a photo of Lee taken in Budapest in December 1950 in the archive of the Hungarian state-run news agency MTI.
Also a founding scholar and former head of the Department of Korean Studies at the University of Budapest, Csoma has been continuing academic research even after he was appointed as the envoy to Seoul in 2018.
His research uncovered a collection of photos that show personal exchanges and contact between Hungarians and Koreans. The ambassador specifically has focused on the photos taken from the 1910-45 Japanese colonial period to the present.
The photo of Lee shows him posing with North Korean Female Association Chairwoman Park Chung-ae and Hungarian Institute of Cultural Exchanges head Erno Mihalyfi.
Lee and Park were visiting the Hungarian capital as part of their trip to Central and Eastern European countries to help build solidarity with North Korea, according to the ambassador.
A year after the 1945 liberation of the Korean Peninsula from Japan and division of the peninsula, Lee went to North Korea where he later was presumably purged and went missing.
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| Hungarian Ambassador to Korea Mozes Csoma, third from right, and late Korean novelist Lee Tae-jun's great-granddaughter Cho Sang-myung, center, pose with other participants of a ceremony at Sooyunsanbang in Seoul, Nov. 25, to deliver the photo of Lee that was recently discovered by the ambassador. / Courtesy of Embassy of Hungary |
The photo was delivered to Lee's great-granddaughter Cho Sang-myung during a ceremony at Sooyunsanbang, the former house of the late writer in Seongbuk-dong, northern Seoul, Nov. 25.
The ceremony was co-organized by the embassy, the Korea-Hungary Friendship Association and Seongbuk Cultural Center.
"In my capacity not only as an ambassador but also as a Koreanist scholar, I researched the field of relations between Hungary and Korea," Csoma told The Korea Times in an email interview last week.
The photos of the historical Korean figures Csoma searched for include dancer Kim Baek-dong and composer Kim Soon-nam.
Regarding Lee's photo, the ambassador noted he first learned about his 1950 Budapest visit several years ago when he was a professor at Budapest University's Department of Korean Studies.
"I am looking for more meaningful rare photos in the field of the Korean-Hungarian personal contacts," he said.
Lee was born in Cheorwon, Gangwon Province in November 1904.
He wrote his most famous stories, including many for children and young adults, during the 1930s.
Some of his works such as "Dalbam" and "Doldari" are included in Korean high school textbooks.
The writer supposedly became interested in groups of left-leaning writers after the 1945 liberation of the Korean Peninsula from Japan. He left for North Korea in 1946 and settled there, working as a North Korean war correspondent during the 1950-53 Korean War.
Little is known of his activities thereafter, except that he disappeared in 1956. It is widely presumed that he was purged by the ruling Workers' Party of Korea after refusing to write stories glorifying North Korean founding leader Kim Il-sung. He was witnessed working at a mine in the 1950s, before he went missing.
