Images of South Korea and Russia in the Mutual Representations of the Student Youth of Both Countries

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Abstract

The perspectives of modern South Korean youth on Russia and perspectives of Russian youth on South Korea respectively are reconstructed and interpreted in this article. The research was conducted on the basis of analysis of 100 in-depth interviews with Russian and South Korean student youth (50 students in each group), specializing in Russian-Korean relations, intercultural communications and language of the country studied. Natural and geographic factors, historical and cultural associations, the image of the country’s citizens are found to be the main South Korean students’ perspectives on Russia. Economic system, the image of the country’s citizens, historical and cultural features of the country represent the main Russian students’ perspectives on South Korea. In general, mutual images of each country contain many stereotypes which are mediocre for common perception. Such stereotypical thinking and the lack of knowledge about modern socio-economic realities among future specialists in Russian-Korean relations may be a serious obstacle that places under risk effectiveness of further cooperation between the two sides.

About the authors

Anna A. Sorokina

National Research University Higher School of Economics

Author for correspondence.
Email: aasorokina@hse.ru
ORCID iD: 0000-0002-6412-2045

Candidate of Sciences (PhD) in Political Culture and Ideology, Leading Research Fellow in Institute for Applied Political Studies, Associate Professor (Faculty of Social Sciences/School of Politics and Governance)

Moscow, Russian Federation

Anastasiia M. Katrich

National Research University Higher School of Economics

Email: akatrich@hse.ru
ORCID iD: 0000-0003-2744-3365

Analyst in Institute for Applied Political Studies

Moscow, Russian Federation

Anna N. Shilina

National Research University Higher School of Economics

Email: ashilina@hse.ru
ORCID iD: 0000-0002-6667-0686

Analyst in Institute for Applied Political Studies

Moscow, Russian Federation

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Copyright (c) 2021 Sorokina A.A., Katrich A.M., Shilina A.N.

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