Discourses of Collaboration Between the Republic of Korea and Russia in the Post‐Soviet Era: A Cultural Outlook

Abstract

At present, culture is one of the most important factors in the scientific, technological, and, subsequently, economic development of national economies. Culture encompasses more than just extensive opportunities for exchanges and collaboration between countries – it catalyzes the formation of new opportunities for cultural synthesis that can change its creative potential and forms of engagement in regional and transnational collaboration. The attitude towards national culture as a phenomenon of which aspects can be reconceived and reformulated in terms of international collaboration as aspects of politics, economy and culture opens up both new potential for its mobility, and also its transformative creative power. In this context, discourses of collaboration between agents serve not only as factors for the organization of a collaborative sociocultural environment, but also as prerequisites for a cultural and creative hybridity, which is actively formed in environments where cultural boundaries are less pronounced. Through a new public diplomacy, studying the cultural prospects of relations between the Republic of Korea and Russia allows us to discuss the concept that forms of cultural synthesis that arise in the course of development of long‐term humanitarian exchanges (educational, scientific, and others) provide the foundation for us to address the prospects of South Korean–Russian relations from the new angle of cultural hybridity in the 21st century. The buildup of culture at the hands of representatives of Russian and Korean culture produces a uniquely creative experiment in cultural collaboration.