We visit the Koryo-Saram, and the filmmakers who tell their stories in an underrepresented cultural experience.
When we think of the worldwide Korean diaspora, countries like the USA, Canada, China, and Japan tend to come to mind, but did you know that there is a large Korean population in Central Asia, too?
In late November I attended a film screening I unassumingly booked on Eventbrite earlier that month, entitled “Films: Heart of Snow: Afterlife + Three Borders + Q&A. An exploration of the intersectional diasporic experience of Koryo-Saram, the (post-) Soviet Koreans,” it states in the description.
My interest was immediately piqued. As a Central Asian with roots in Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, I am constantly on the lookout for any events around London that celebrate the culture of the region in which I am from.
At that time, I was only vaguely familiar with the presence of a Korean diaspora in Uzbekistan. With my family recently moving there just last summer, I was informed of all the Korean shops, restaurants, and other cultural landmarks that my sisters were exploring in Tashkent, the capital city.
Little did I know of the deep historical roots of this diaspora group. I was excited to learn more.
The History:
Koryo-saram is the term used to describe the ethnic Korean people of the former Soviet Union. Derived from the old Korean language, literally meaning ‘Korean people.’
The arrival of Koreans into the Soviet Union was one of displacement and struggle.
Many migrated to the Russian Far East from Korea during the late 19th century. Later, in 1937, under Stalin’s regime, Koreans were forcibly deported from the Russian Far East to Central Asia to countries like Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan.
Due to geopolitical tensions with Japan at the time, the government accused many of ‘anti-Soviet activities’ and espionage.
It is thought that as many as 36,442 Korean families were deported. The displacement was conducted in harsh conditions which led to significant suffering, including loss of life during transportation and resettlement. An estimated 40,000 died during the process in 1937 and 1938.
Eventually adapting to life in Central Asia, despite many initial hardships. The Koryo-saram adopted the Russian language as their first and assimilated into Soviet culture while creating their own culture through a blend of this and traditional Korean elements.
This unique cultural synergy is shown through their works in cinema, literature, music, fashion, and cuisine which are often underrepresented in the mainstream media.
The Screenings:
The film screenings and a panel discussion were held Upstairs at the Ritzy, a charming theatre a mere five-minute walk from Brixton underground station.
Hosted by Migration Collective a London-based, female-founded group that focuses on challenging mainstream narratives on migration by intersecting art, academia, and action.
This particular programme was for the London Migration Film Festival. Curated by Mikhail Zakharov, this event was aimed to uncover and showcase the beautifully personal and obscure stories of Koryo-saram history through the medium of film.
The two film screenings were Kim Soyoung’s Heart of Snow: Afterlife (2018) and Alisa Berger-Mun’s Three Borders (2017). Both were documentaries.
Heart of Snow: Afterlife was the third instalment of Soyoung’s longer project, the ‘Exile Trilogy’ which consists of three feature-length documentaries that follow the traumatic Koryo-saram experience in the wake of displacement in Russia and Central Asia.
This 17-minute film captured cinematic shots of snowy roads and photos of elderly Koryo-saram. Examining the trauma of forced migration and resilience, the landscape shots highlighted the distances and harrowing conditions that Koryo-saram had endured during the displacement.
With a poetic narration that created a chilling and contemplative aura paired with striking visuals, Soyoung’s project was powered by emotion and raw storytelling.
Shortly afterwards, was Three Borders by Alisa Berger-Mun. A 55-minute found footage documentary that featured archival photographs and narration that recounted her Koryo-saram and Jewish heritage.
The experimental narrative style followed the anecdotes spanning three generations of her family and numerous countries. Facing themes such as identity, migration, and the blending of cultures through the whimsical lens of magic realism.
“Events like this are so few and rare”
Yulia
The film explored overcoming the metaphysical ‘borders’ that make up our cultural and personal identity through a personal portrayal of family. Showcased in multiple exhibitions, Three Borders was reminiscent of flipping through an old family photo album, an inviting and intimate viewing experience.
The two screenings were immediately followed by a panel discussion that featured Koryo-saram creatives and advocates. Including both the directors of the films, with Alisa Berger-Mun making an in-person appearance.
Yulia Khvan, one of the participants of the panel is a Koryo-saram filmmaker from Uzbekistan who now lives in California. Throughout the discussion, she shared some thoughts about the notion of identity within the Koryo-saram diaspora and how she channels her creativity through her heritage.
“I identify as Koryo-Saram but at what point does a nation become something else, you know? How many years and how many generations, in order to stop calling yourself just Korean, and then Koryo-Saram,” she describes her experience with identity. “Events like this are so few and rare.”
Back to Tashkent:
During my trip back to Tashkent to visit my family, I was interested in exploring the Korean diaspora further.
Today there are an estimated 500,000 Koryo-Saram in the former Soviet Republics.
During the last couple days of my four-week-long Christmas break in Tashkent, I encouraged my family to take me to visit Seoul National Park located in the centre of the city.
The park is conveniently situated near Seoul Mun, a developed shopping complex with a plethora of neatly lined-up East Asian restaurants, cafes, and shops.
Meant to represent the harmony and camaraderie between South Korea and Uzbekistan. A popular destination in Tashkent, something to put on your bucket list when visiting.
With strong diplomacy between the two countries, this aspect of Koryo-saram history was particularly represented through the historical monuments in Seoul National Park.
According to The Korea Post: “It is estimated that 177,270 ethnic Koreans still live in the territory of Uzbekistan, making it the largest in Central Asia and the fifth largest in the world, after U.S, China, Japan and Canada.”
To mark 80 years since the displacement of ethnic Koreans from the Soviet Far East to Uzbekistan, a memorial was placed on June 3rd 2017 next to the main gate of Seoul Park in Tashkent.
Printed under the sculpture in Uzbek, Korean, and Russian it says: “Marking the 80th anniversary of the deportation, we deeply thank all Uzbekistanis for warmly welcoming the Koreans.”
This tribute was established by the Korea Culture Association and the Overseas Koreans Foundation in Uzbekistan. Rakhmonbek Usmanov, the mayor of Tashkent, and Park Won-soon, the mayor of Seoul, attended the event.
The park consisted of traditional pavilions, gardens, Korean architectural iconography, and of course the monument. Which I made an objective to go see. The bronze statue glowed in the late morning sun. Outlines of a Uzbek family reaching out in help and brotherhood to a Korean one.
Behind the camera:
Storytelling, particularly filmmaking and curation is a driving factor in representing Koryo-saram’s hidden narratives. My curiosity led me to two young Korean Uzbek creatives, Alexander Lee and Valerie Kim, who both specialise in this field. Whom I am very grateful to have gotten a chance to talk to and interview.
Alexander is a film director and photographer: “Living in South Korea, I realised that I can’t relate to the people. We are diametrically opposed to each other, although we have a common origin. In accordance with this, I understood that I would not be able to film in South Korea,” Alexander said as he recounted his experience living in South Korea compared to Uzbekistan.
This highlights the distinct contrast between the cultural evolution of Koreans in Korea and those in former Soviet Central Asia. The diaspora has developed an experience and identity over generations that is evident from both their Korean roots and their Uzbek environment.
The Korean population in Uzbekistan has been decreasing since the 1980s. Many looking to move abroad for job prospects and opportunities. Alexander noted this shift: “Yes, there is a large Korean diaspora in Uzbekistan. From my observations, it has become much smaller than it was initially. Having returned here after a five-year absence, I felt it. Most of my relatives left to work in South Korea, as did some friends.”
For Alexander, filmmaking represents both a personal passion and a method to explore the paradoxes of creativity: “Cinema, like any kind of art, is an irrational process. But it seems to me that there is more rationality in it. This is the paradox for me. And photography is completely based on intuition. This is what attracts me,” he said.
“I am trying myself in directing. I have long been attracted to this profession. I really just love cinema. But I also think that this is a great way to live an interesting life. Now I am working on a short film. This will be my debut in feature films.”
Valerie is the programme director and founder of Cinema Love Film Festival: “I’m a fourth-generation Koryo-Saram. I was born and raised in Tashkent, so it was my great-grandparents who were the first to move here to Central Asia,” she told us.
“A part of my family is originally from Kazakhstan and the other part is from Uzbekistan. The majority of my relatives are ethnic Koreans, although there are some mixed marriages as well.”
Valerie explained the intricacy of being Koryo-saram in contemporary times, especially in such a diverse and equally convergent world: “In general, I would say that my family is not particularly very traditional in the context of Uzbek Koreans. Of course, we always felt like we were a part of this cultural identity but it was not the culture that dominated throughout my childhood and my life.
“So I’d say I grew up in a rather Cosmopolitan household. We speak Russian between each other, and even when it comes to food we don’t usually eat Korean food this much.”
This can lead to times of cultural dissonance, especially when interacting with people unfamiliar with the history of Koryo-saram. She explained this when asked about any struggles (if any) faced with the Koryo-saram identity: “It has been a path for me to come to terms with and accept and to finally start to appreciate my origins and my identity which can be a little bit difficult to explain all at once. When I was a kid I didn’t think of how confusing this might be, but when I was a teenager and started going abroad I realised how confusing it is for a person to meet me.”
The linguistic diversity that comes with being Koryo-saram was addressed when Valerie said: “When I explained to someone that I am an ethnic Korean who was born in Uzbekistan and I speak Russian as my first language. It can be quite difficult to understand, so for a moment I kind of struggled. But for me, it was a norm and it was my life. I kind of felt sometimes as too much of an outsider to be understood, especially by a person who is completely out of this context.”
But ultimately, she has embraced the complexity of her background during her journey of understanding her identity. She acknowledged: “But with time I started appreciating it. It’s quite a unique cultural blend and as a result a unique cultural identity. Now, that I hold quite dearly. I like how it’s been making me a more diverse person from the very beginning.
“I tend to be very open-minded to those cultures because I was exposed to being an ethnic representative of one culture but then a speaker of a completely different culture and living in an entirely different culture as well. That can be overwhelming, and it took me time to analyse and perceive all this. But now I think that this is one of my strengths.”
When asked if she equally resonates with her cultures Valerie weighed them both up, she said: “I do feel equally connected to the Uzbek culture and the Korean culture.”
She concluding that: “It’s more of a blend of these two that makes me who I am and can relate to. So it’s not those two separate cultures that I can individually refer to. It’s more of this very mixed blend of them that’s quite unique. It resonates with who I am as an individual.”
This can be seen to resonate with a large chunk of the diaspora, particularly due to the rich complexities that make up its facets.
Similar to Alexander, I asked Valerie about the Korean community in Uzbekistan and whether or not it was widely connected.
She pointed out her personal experience within the diaspora: “One hand, I think it can be considered quite widely connected in terms that a lot of Korean people live in smaller communities where most of their friends and relatives are Koryo-saram. They tend to hang out with mostly Korean diasporas. I know that this happens quite often, especially in some parts of the city.
“I’m not exposed to much of this experience, to be honest, so I never had a similar story in my case. Of course, whenever I meet other Uzbek Koreans, I feel connected because we have this pretty unusual cultural identity. But I don’t think I feel a very strong diasporic connection.”
She explained her established work as a creative in film: “I am the founder and program director of Cinema Love Film Festival which is an independent based in Tashkent with the main focus on early works of emerging filmmakers from Central Asia.
“I started this project in 2022, we had our first edition and since then we’ve had three of them the last one was last September. I’m in charge of the whole program of the festival, of selecting, programming and scheduling the films and so on. I also do some research in film.”
As our conversation came to a close, I mentioned the film screening event that I attended in London, and my curiosity about the significance of telling stories through the style of documentary film, particularly Koryo-saram narratives.
Valerie voiced her affinity for the genre: “I am quite drawn to documentary format and have been for a couple of years now. I do think that nowadays documentary often makes more sense than fiction.”
“I particularly like how documentaries are being used as a medium Koryo-saram to tell stories including those stories of people. What I love about these films is that are very true, true in a way that the heroes of these stories just live their life as young people in Uzbekistan and then the extra layer of that, if you go deeper you can dig into the cultural background and identities that this person possesses.
“But it’s not exoticising someone and I really like that.”
All images by Zara Karlieva