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In a series uncovering the forgotten, secret chapters of diplomatic history, Kim Jiyoung, the South Korean guest researcher at the Institute for the Research of Communism, explained that in the second half of the 1980s, among Eastern Bloc countries, Hungary had the best reputation in South Korea. Although official diplomatic relations between the two countries—each belonging to opposing political blocs—were only established in 1989, the path leading there was long, involving, among other things, a visit to Seoul by a delegation of Hungarian journalists and the 1988 Seoul Olympics. According to István Szerdahelyi, Hungary’s current ambassador to Seoul, the relief in relations between the two states had already begun in 1956, when the Hungarian nation bravely stood up for its own fate and freedom. Kim Bogook, director of the East Asian Research Institute at the Hungarian National Archives, noted that Pyongyang viewed the growing closeness between South Korea and Hungary with disapproval. A key moment in this accession was the mutual exchange of guest students in 1989–90. One former student—now the Korean translator of Imre Kertész—recalled that he would never forget the Hungarian people’s hospitality.

When we shook the off the shackles of dictatorship in our anti-communist revolutions in Hungary in 1989 and 1990, we were finally able to enter the 21st century as victors. Victors, because we are free and independent. Once more. And we enjoy every moment of it. The freedom of speech, the fresh air of democracy, the elections, the travelling and so on. Freedom and independence are precious treasures for us what we are really proud of and take care about. Because we paid a high price for it. But we did not take note of William Faulkner's blessing in the euphoria of the regime change: "There is no such thing as was-only is."

More than three decades have passed since the fall of communism and the regime change, but it can be declared that communism is not dead, the director of the Institute for the Research of Communism told on an international conference on the victims of communism in Madrid on Thursday.

The Institute for the Research of Communism (Hungary) and the Institute for the Study of Communist Crimes (Albania) signed a cooperation agreement in Budapest. The goal of this initiative is to share research findings related to the crimes of communism and to jointly preserve the memory of dictatorship.