The deportation of Koreans in the Soviet Union was the forced transfer of nearly 172,000 Soviet Koreans (Koryo-saram) from the Russian Far East to unpopulated areas of the Kazakh SSR and the Uzbek SSR in 1937 by the NKVD on the orders of Soviet leader Joseph Stalin and Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars of the Soviet Union Vyacheslav Molotov. 124 trains were used to resettle them 6,400 km to Central Asia. The reason was to stem "the infiltration of Japanese espionage into the Far Eastern Krai", as Koreans were at the time subjects of the Empire of Japan, which was the Soviet Union's rival. However, some historians regard it as part of Stalin's policy of "frontier cleansing". Estimates based on population statistics suggest that between 16,500 and 50,000 deported Koreans died from starvation, exposure, and difficulties adapting to their new environment in exile.
Train wagons used for the Soviet deportations
Deported Koreans from the Soviet Far East at a collective farm in Uzbek SSR (1937)
Learning Korean at the Korean Center in Kazakhstan in 2010
Anti-Korean sentiment
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Anti-Korean sentiment or Koryophobia describes negative feelings towards Korean people, Korean culture, or the countries of North Korea or South Korea.
Just after the 1976 Korean axe murder incident, anti-North Korean sentiment spiked in South Korea. In this image, South Koreans burn a paper effigy of North Korean leader Kim Il Sung in Seoul (1976)
The Arch of Reunification in Pyongyang was officially demolished in January 2024.
In this 1905 issue of the satirical magazine Puck, a diminutive Korean seonbi (bottom of image, slightly to left of center) is portrayed as being of knee-height compared to other races.