New publications

The series Koreans and Central Europeans is completed

Over more than 900 pages, this series, edited by Andreas Schirmer, documents “informal contacts up to 1950”. The concluding third volume is now finally out: Central Europeans in Korea: Alice Schalek, Alma Karlin, Fritz Hansgirg, and Many Others is a multi-perspective compendium of evidence about the astonishingly large number of visitors to Korea from Austria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Romania, Poland, and Slovenia (or the respective predecessor states) up to the mid-twentieth century.

Carefully researched, spotlighting numerous previously undiscovered sources, and richly illustrated, this volume examines and presents testimonies and traces of these contacts, be they documents, writings, photographs, or works of art. Included are various cases of contact between Koreans and Central Europeans in Korean settlements on Russian or Chinese (or Manchurian) territory. The contact of Austrian prisoners of war and Czechoslovak legionnaires with the Korean diaspora in the Far East forms a rich side story. Overall, this volume bears witness to the history of contact between Koreans and Western travelers and the historical experience of Western expatriates in Korea as still being full of surprises.

Andreas Schirmer (ed.): Central Europeans in Korea: Alice Schalek, Alma Karlin, Fritz Hansgirg, and Many Others. Vienna: Praesens 2020 [= Koreans and Central Europeans: Informal Contacts up to 1950, ed. by Andreas Schirmer; 3]. ISBN 978-3-7069-1105-4 (print), ISBN 978-3-7069-3013-0 (e-book).

Filip Kraus co-authors a new book dealing with Vietnamese organized crime in the Czech Republic

The book Vietnamese Organized cCime in the Czech Republic provides a complex, socio-anthropological analysis of organized crime operating in the Vietnamese diaspora in the Czech Republic and its international implications. Currently, there are about 4 million people of Vietnamese descent living in this diaspora and many other countries, looking for an opportunity to improve their lives. This book draws upon original and primary research including interviews, participant observation, and documentary analysis to trace the migration and history of the Vietnamese diaspora in the Czech Republic. It highlights the influence of crime, criminality and Vietnamese organized crime on the social organization and everyday life of the diaspora. It examines the whole range of organized crime activities that they engage in and argues that they develop contemporary diasporic Asian crime networks which are shaped by the social environment of the host countries. This book contributes to the discourse on the changing identities of the migrants and analyses this crime in a comparative perspective, particularly focussing on Central Europe, to provides insights on migration and crime for a wider international audience.

Nožina, Miroslav and Kraus, Filip. 2020. Vietnamese Organized Crime in the Czech Republic. Palgrave Maxmillan. ISBN 978-3-030-43612-4 

A new publication detailing the history of the People’s Republic of China

The history of the People’s Republic of China from 1949 to 2018 presents to the Czech reader the first comprehensive historical assessment of this vast and most populous country and major, albeit new, geopolitical entity. It begins with the founding of the People‘s Republic and ends at the end of 2018 with the symbolic Chinese probe successful landing on the far side of the Moon on 4 January 2019. It attempts to systematically map out not only the political events and international context but also to pinpoint the most critical social and cultural trends of the seventy years of China’s upheavals, revolutions and reforms. 

 

A new issue of our departmental journal Far East is out

This issue is a collection of works in foreign (i.e. non-Czech) languages, mostly articles written by Oldřich Švarný. The total number of texts in this issue is fifteen, nine of them in English, three in Chinese and three in German. You can read and download the issue here

Prof. Zdenka Švarcová explores the legend of Ono no Komachi

The book, entitled Komachi, the legend: Ono no Komachi – poetry and poetess in the noh plays, features a comparative study with translations of five medieval Japanese theatrical texts (Noh plays), introducing five different appearances of the 9th century legendary poetess Ono no Komachi. Two types of librettos have been compared: two fictive stories about Komachi's life and death and three plays glorifying – in the Komachi's character – Japanese waka poetry.

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