한,러 수교 10년의 평가와 전망 - 사회,문화관계를 중심으로

Abstract

The purpose of the article is to review the Korean-Russian relations focusing on the social and cultural aspects. More than ten years have passed since the Soviet Union/Russia and the Republic of Korea established diplomatic relationship in 1990. The reestablished diplomatic relationship between the two countries allowed the non-official sector to increase the social and cultural relations in many aspects. So the articIe attempt to show how these aspects of socio-cultural relations between the two countries have developed and what kind of problems impede the future development of the cooperation between them.

Overall review of the Korean - Russian relations show us that they had experienced two phases of development: the period of excessive excitement" during the first several years and the period of rapidly cooling down". Now they are entering the period of "mutual management". This kind of overall trend can be applied to understanding the Korean-Russian socio-cultural relations. However, in the field of cultural exchanges, two countries have developed most meaningful achievements. Although Russia took the role of supplier" and Korea took the role of consumer" of cultural contents at the first stage, recentIy they equally exchange programs in the cultural field. It means that the people of the two countries begin to estimate properly and understand each other.

However, the level of human exchanges is very low, comparing with other major countries. In the year of 2000, the number of visiting Korea Russians reached over 150 thousands (only 3% of the total visiting Korea foreigners) and the number of visiting Russia Koreans reached over 44 thousands (only 0.6% of the total visiting foreign countries Koreans). And the exchange of human resources and constructive cooperation at the regional level have increased, and this can be understood as a sign of consolidation of the relations between them. Besides, there are several signs of future development of the relations between them such as increase of cyber-communities concerning about Russia in Korea, information exchanges through internet, increasing number of Russian specialists in many fields acting in Korea and vise versa, etc.

Although the relationship between Korea and Russia has experienced ten years, we don t know the opposite sides quite well. 1n the period of mutual relations management, it is needed that we should endeavor after understanding each other, and prepare a mechanism and institutions for accumulating experiences about the opposite sides. For constructing more consolidated bases for the relations between Korea and Russia we should take not the viewpoint of simple calculation of benefits, but of complex understanding each other as a member of regional community. 1n this sense, we should underline that socio-cultural relations formally can be affected by the political and economic relations, but at the same time the socio-cultural relations between Korea and Russia can play a significant

role in improving the whole relationship between them.