By Marian Werner

I recently started jotting down parallels and contrasts between Korean and Czech history and culture. A light-hearted essay was taking shape.

Then I read a National Geographic report titled "Roaming Korea South of the Iron Curtain," and suddenly my essay acquired a darker tone. Enzo de Chatelat ended his account with "All in all, there never was a dull moment in this Land of Morning Calm." His article was published in early June 1950. On June 25, communist North Korea invaded the south. Just two days later, thousands of miles away in a Prague prison, another shocking act took place: the hanging by the communists of the outstandingly courageous deputy, Milada Horáková. She had been charged with treason for speaking out against the communist putsch of February 1948.

Was the timing of these two crimes coincidence? Stalin and his Czech minions benefited from the world's attention being focused on the Korean peninsula the day Milada Horáková was executed. Her arrest in 1949 and trial had caused storms of protest throughout the free world. Her murder would normally have warranted headlines proclaiming communist barbarity.

So there were two small nations, once again at the mercy of powerful neighbors, fighting the same tyrant.

In his book, The Korean War, Max Hastings quotes Oliver Franks, the British ambassador in Washington, D.C., during the invasion: The thinking of the Truman administration "moved from the Czech coup in February 1948, to the Berlin airlift, to Korea."

These were seen as stages in Soviet risk-taking that would lead to armies crossing boundaries, the Russian seizure of Czechoslovakia invoking ghastly memories of 1938, Franks said.

"There was the feeling 'We couldn't do anything in '38, and we find we can't do anything now.' ... I myself saw Korea as the last in a series of events. I favored countering the North Korean invasion, because I thought that if any army could cross any frontier when it chose, then chaos had come."

Just as Koreans were handed over to Japan at the beginning of the 20th century, so the Czechs could not prevent the British and French from handing over their heavily fortified borders to Hitler.

The Czechs regained their freedom in 1945, the year Korea was divided, but because of Stalin's perfidy at Yalta, the Czechs and Slovaks were corralled into his sphere of influence. Dubcek's attempt to introduce "communism with a human face" was crushed by Warsaw Pact tanks in 1968.

There are other unhappy parallels. A chief obstacle to Japanese domination of Korea was the monarch's energetic wife, Queen Min, who was assassinated in her palace Oct. 8, 1895. The Czechs had lost their royal family to the Habsburg Empire in 1620, but 300 years later they produced a great leader in the founding president of Czechoslovakia, T. G. Masaryk. His son Jan, Czech foreign affairs minister after World War II, also formed an obstacle for the communist putsch and was murdered in a palace.

The 1918 Paris Peace Conference decreed self-determination for nations, the basis for forming Czechoslovakia, but Korea had no such help. In 1919 the March 1 movement showed Koreans wanted to get rid of Japanese occupiers, much as Czechs demonstrated in 1968 against Soviet domination.

Heroic acts took place in both countries. In Korea, 17-year-old student Yu Kwan-sun was tortured by the Japanese and died in prison. The Czechs commemorate three students: Jan Opletal, killed by the Nazis in 1939, and Jan Palach and Jan Zajíc, who sacrificed their lives in 1969 in protest.

My interest in Czechs is personal, as I am married to a Moravian, but we have both been captivated on six visits by the Republic of Korea and its people, countryside and culture.

Having often listened to Antonín Dvorák's "Song to the Moon" aria, I was happy to discover that the ancient Paekche kingdom also has a song addressed to the moon: In "Song of Chongup," an itinerant merchant's wife asks the moon to protect her husband.

Two events last year celebrated close ties between Koreans and Czechs. The Seoul Peace Prize went to Václav Havel, and in October 2004 the Beseto Opera Group Association of Korea appeared at the Prague State Opera in Bizet's Carmen, leading to an agreement for continued cooperation.

Whenever I visit a Buddhist temple in Korea, I pay my respects to the Spirit of the Mountains, San-sin. The Czechs, too, have mountain spirits, called Krakonos in Bohemia and Radegast in Moravia.

Athletic triumphs include Korean gold medals in the Olympic marathons of 1936 and again in 1992, for the first time under the nation's own flag. Czechs produced one of the finest athletes ever in Emil Zátopek, who won three Olympic long-distance events, including the marathon, in 1952.

Both nations have sensibly kept formality of address and use only the surname of strangers and elders, reserving given names to address children, close relatives and friends. The given names of Koreans are often delightful but their family names cannot rival Czech names such as those meaning 'hedgehog' or 'strawberry' and hundreds of others.

Koreans and Czechs have made many contributions to world culture and knowledge. In 1234 the first movable type was invented in Korea, two centuries before Gutenberg in Germany. The scholarly King Sejong, who reigned from 1418 to 1450, presided over the invention of the Korean alphabet, hangul. Charles IV, King of Bohemia and Holy Roman Emperor, founded Prague University, the oldest in Central Europe, in 1348, and the bridge that bears his name is said to be the loveliest in the world.

Numerous Buddhist monks in Korea founded monasteries that became seats of learning, and in the Augustinian Monastery of Old Brno, in Moravia, a monk called Gregor Mendel experimented on more than 200,000 plants of the pea family and discovered the principles of genetics.

Eight centuries ago the production of celadon ware in Korea reached such a peak of perfection that examples are highly prized today. Equally famous is Czech glass, which began exporting in the 14th century.

As for food, make Koreans smile with kimchi, Czechs with zelí.

On our sixth visit to Korea, in March, newspapers were featuring stories about the Tokto islets, which a prefecture in Japan claims are Japanese territory. This old antagonism is reminiscent of claims made by some of the Germans ejected from the so-called Sudeten lands after World War II, who still seek compensation from the Czechs.

The Korea Times of March 18 published a color photograph of Tokto, with a Korean flag perched on top. That flag is a wonder of the world! The Czech flag is nothing extraordinary, but Korea has a flag full of meaning and symbolism, from the Taeguk circle in the center, divided equally and in perfect balance, to the trigrams at each corner, also carrying the ideas of opposition and balance. The flag as a whole symbolizes the ideal of the Korean people of living in harmony with the universe.

May Koreans and Czechs now and in the future enjoy peace and harmony and continue to give the world the benefit of their genius.