North Korea Hungary Relations, A Look into the Past and Forward at the Future
North Korea Hungary relations reveal a unique chapter in Cold War history. A blend of political alliances, humanitarian efforts, and cultural exchanges.
Established amidst the shifting geopolitics of the late 1940s, the diplomatic ties between the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) and Hungary reflect the broader dynamics of Soviet influence in Eastern Europe and the Korean Peninsula.
Hungary, under significant Soviet control by the late 1940s, was among the first nations to officially recognize North Korea. This paved the way for decades of interaction that would include the exchange of diplomats, humanitarian missions, and educational initiatives.
These relationships were initially forged in the fires of the Korean War, which we explore below.
In the post-war years, the bond deepened through unique cultural exchanges. Hungary welcomed hundreds of North Korean orphans and students during the 1950s, offering them education and opportunities to immerse in Hungarian society.
However, the relationship between the two nations experienced dramatic shifts, particularly following Hungary’s 1956 revolution and its gradual liberalization in the ensuing decades. While Hungary embraced economic reforms and a more open society, North Korea entrenched its isolationist policies under Kim Il Sung’s regime.
Today, the historical North Korea Hungary relations represent a complex period of mutual support and eventual divergence.
Establishment of Diplomatic Relations
The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), or North Korea, was founded on 9 September 1948.
On 12 October, the Soviet Union was the first to recognise North Korea, followed by Mongolia and Eastern European countries in the Soviet sphere of influence.
Although Hungary was not a de jure communist country until 20 August 1949, in 1948 the vast majority of the cabinet ministers were from the Hungarian Working People’s Party, the ruling communist party. Hungary was also under Soviet influence at that time. As a result, by the foundation of North Korea, Hungary was already a de facto communist state.
Hungary was the seventh country to recognise North Korea on 11 November 1948.
At this time, bilateral relations were limited to an exchange of letters between the two Ministers of Foreign Affairs. Steps to elevate diplomatic relations to an ambassadorial level were not taken until August 1949. Communication between the two countries was via the Moscow Embassies of the two states.
The first Hungarian chargé de’affaires presented his credentials in Pyongyang in April 1950. His Korean counterpart did so in Budapest just three days before the outbreak of the Korean War on 22 June.
Diplomatic relations were elevated to an ambassadorial level in 1954.
The building of the first Hungarian legation in Pyongyang, 1950
(From the National Archives of Hungary, published in Csoma 2020)
Hungarian Doctors in North Korea in the 1950s
The Korean War broke out on 25 June 1950 and received an immediate response in Hungary.
To increase production in the factories, “Korean weeks,” “Korean brigades,” and “10-day Korean shifts” were formed. A money-raising campaign also started. Within a few days, the Hungarian people raised 10 million dollars, in today’s value, to prepare aid shipments to Korea.
On 15 July a peace rally was held in Budapest. The next day, the party newspaper announced that Hungary would send a medical team to Korea.
The first medical team departed Budapest on 20 July and arrived in North Korea eight days later. The medical team travelled through the USSR and China using planes to Shenyang and trains to the Sino-Korean border town of Dandong.
The Hungarian medical teams' first post was in Chunghwa just south of Pyongyang. The first casualties arrived at the Hungarian field hospital, named after the First Secretary of the ruling party Mátyás Rákosi, on 10 August.
The hospital was soon bombed by US air raids and the field hospital moved to Yangdok which was followed by Seoul and Manpo as the frontlines were constantly changing.
Between the end of 1950 and July 1951 the field hospital operated in different locations in Manchuria, China.
Returning to Korea
After returning to Korea, the field hospital operated in various places, among them in Mangyongdae the birthplace of Kim Il Sung.
After the war, Rákosi Mátyás Hospital became a civilian hospital that moved to its final place in Sariwon in 1954 where the Hungarian medical worked till July 1957.
Becoming a member of the Hungarian medical team in the Korea War
According to an interview with Professor Kulka, the most well-known physician who served in Korea twice, he became a member of one of the medical teams due to an incident about his position back in Hungary.
The Health Ministry wanted to give him an administrative position to which in response he said “I would prefer the Korean War [over a job behind a desk]”. A few days later his phone rang and an official said: “We were pleased to learn that Comrade Kulka volunteered for the next medical team going to Korea”.
Rákosi Mátyás Hospital Today
The hospital is still in operation as the central hospital of North Hwanghae Province.
Some of the equipment in the hospital is still from the time of the Hungarian medical team and there is also a memorial in the park of the hospital as a memento of the “eternal brotherly friendship of the Korean and Hungarian people” and the medical team.
Memorial stone commemorating the exploits of the Hungarian Medical Team in Korea, 1950-1957
(From Greg's archive)
Visiting the Hospital
When I visited the hospital in November 2018, the vice principal of the hospital proudly showed me the memorial.
He also showed me evidence that the contributions of the Hungarian doctors and nurses are not forgotten. He also grabbed the opportunity to ask me to remind my MP back in Hungary that there was once a Hungarian hospital in Sariwon.
Here, the dear memory of the Hungarian medical team is still kept alive and further Hungarian contributions to the hospital are still welcomed.
It was not only the Hungarian medical team that contributed to the post-war reconstruction in North Korea. Hungarian engineers and professionals also worked on the construction of three factories and residential districts in Pyongyang.
Korean Students in Hungary in the 1950s
Between 1951 and 1956, an estimated number of ca. 1,000 North Korean orphans and students studied in Hungary.
The first group of Korean orphans arrived in Budapest in November 1951, followed by students with scholarships in February 1952.
The 200 orphans who arrived in Hungary in 1951 started to study at the newly established Kim Il Sung School where they initially followed the Korean curriculum.
However, based on the evaluations conducted during the summer, their progress with the Hungarian language was inadequate and therefore it has been decided that they will continue their studies at Hungarian schools.
The students
The majority of the students who studied on a scholarship attended medical and engineering universities.
Some of the students became members of the Hungarian Working People’s Party.
Male students proved popular among Hungarian female students. Some claimed that as they were sent to Japan as forced labourers during the colonial period, they were in Japan during the dropping of the nuclear bombs that resulted in them becoming infertile.
During the summers, the university students worked alongside their Hungarian peers on major construction projects.
Based on Hungarian diplomatic reports, there were at least two Hungarian wives of the students who followed their Korean husbands to Korea. The wives divorced and returned to Hungary in the early 1960s.
As a result of the Hungarian language courses for Korean students, the first Korean-Hungarian dictionary was written in cooperation between the students and their teacher. Aladár Sövény who was a teacher at Petőfi Sándor High School where he was a Hungarian-Russian-French teacher who studied Japanese before World War II.
The Hungarian Revolution of 1956
During the revolution against the Stalinist regime in 1956, some Korean students also participated and helped the Hungarian revolutionaries against the Soviets. At least four Korean students escaped to the West after the failed revolution. Among those who defected to the West was the first-ever former North Korean citizen to become a naturalized US citizen.
After the October 1956 revolution, North Korean students were called back to Korea and the vast majority of the students left Hungary in December 1956.
The Korean students back in Korea
According to the reports of the Hungarian Embassy in Pyongyang, many students tried to stay in touch with Hungary and with Hungarian culture, but by the 1960s all of them disappeared from the sight of the embassy.
One of the Korean War orphans later became the guide of my grandparents who visited North Korea in July 1988 as the guests of the Korean People’s Army. Robi, as he was called in Hungarian and by my grandparents’ group, had fond memories of his time in Budapest and was still fluent in Hungarian. However, some of his phrases were schoolchildren’s slang from the 1950s much to the joy of my grandparents and their travel companions.
Hungarian guests of the KPA visiting Panmunjom, 1988. The Korean guide wearing sunglasses was a North Korean war orphan sent to Hungary during the Korean War.
(From Greg's family archive)
North Korea-Hungary Relations after the Hungarian Revolution in 1956
In the late 1950s-early 60s, it became obvious that the political development of North Korea and Hungary would take different paths.
After a few years of reprisal and the consolidation of the power of the ‘Revolutionary Workers'-Peasants' Government’ in Hungary, a new social contract was made between the people and the ruling party that led to liberalisation and relative well-being.
The approach of the government towards the populace was that “whoever is not against us is with us” and Hungary has become the “happiest barrack in the Eastern Block”.
New Economic Mechanism
In 1968, the ‘New Economic Mechanism’ reintroduced some market-economy elements and central planning had less influence than before or in other communist countries.
On the other hand, in North Korea, the purges of different factions within the Korean Workers’ Party that started after the war intensified. The country started its isolationist politics, and the personal cult of Kim Il Sung reached levels that had no match in other communist countries.
Limited Exchanges
Exchanges between the two countries were limited to a marginal amount of trade, cultural exchanges, and a small number of North Korean students studying in Hungary in the 1970s-1980s. Mostly students of Hungarian and medicine.
There were also a few Hungarian students studying Korean at Kim Il Sung University, starting in 1968.
One of the Korean students who studied Hungarian at my alma mater back in the 1980s worked as a guide at KITC before the pandemic.
North Korean-Hungarian relations quickly deteriorated in 1988 around the Seoul Olympics. Hungary started to develop economic relations with South Korea and became the first Eastern Block country to establish diplomatic relations with the Republic of Korea on 1 February 1989.
Deteriorating Relations
As a result of Hungary’s “traitorous” act, North Korea’s ambassador to Hungary, Kim Jong Il’s half-brother Kim Pyong Il left his post. A media campaign in North Korea was launched against Hungary.
The campaign was so successful that when I first visited North Korea in 2016, an older guide accompanying our group recalled a story to me over a beer. He said he still remembers vividly when he was a high school student that Hungary betrayed the brotherly friendship of the two countries and how angry he was about Hungary’s move.
A new embassy building opened in Pyongyang in 1998. The embassy moved from Central Pyongyang to the Munhun-dong diplomatic compound. Despite this, the embassy of Hungary in North Korea was closed on 30 October 1999.
Today, Hungary is represented in North Korea via the embassy in Seoul.
Photo Credit: The photo used as the cover photo depicting Hungarian physicians with local North Korean is Mangyongdae is from the National Archives of Hungary, published in Csoma 2020.
Article Sources
Csoma, Mózes. 2009. Magyarok Koreában. (Hungarians in Korea.) Budapest: ELTE Eötvös Kiadó.
———. 2016. „Az Urálban találkozunk!” Korea és Magyarország 1956-ban. (“We Will Meet in the Ural!” Korea and Hungary in 1956.) Budapest: L’Harmattan.
———. 2016. From North Korea to Budapest. North Korean Students in the Hungarian Revolution in 1956. Seoul: Jipmoondang.
———. 2021. From Budapest to the Korean War. Hungarian Physicians in North Korea, 1950-1957. Seoul: Jipmoondang.
Faludi, Péter. 1992. “Magyarország és a Koreai Háború, 1950-1953 [Hungary and the Korean War, 1950-1953]” Hadtörténelmi Közlemények [Quarterly of Military History] 105(3): 120-130.
L. Horváth, Katalin. 2020. „Az utolsó mondattal kezd!” Kulka Frigyes - Egy rendkívüli gyógyító emlékére. (“You Shall Start With The Last Sentence!” Frigyes Kulka - In The Memory Of An Extraordinary Clinician.) Budapest: Napkút.
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