The first-ever Russian translation of "Toji (Land)" written by the late South Korean writer Park Kyung-ni was published in October, a cultural foundation revering Park said.

   The Toji Cultural Foundation said on Friday the Russian version of the first volume of part one of "Toji" was released by a Russian publishing house in late October, increasing the number of the epic saga's foreign-language versions to six.

   The five other languages are English, German, French, Chinese and Japanese.

   The latest translation was made into Russian by Park Michail, an ethnic Korean novelist in Russia with support from the state-run Literature Translation Institute of Korea.

  He is also in the final stages of translating the second volume of the first part, according to other sources.

   The foundation said Russia's St. Petersburg State University, one of the top universities in the country, has recently announced its plan to use the book for a new course on Park's masterpieces.

   The university's president Nikolai Kropachev has notified the foundation's head Kim Young-joo in a letter that he will open the course in the 2017 school year for the school's undergraduates and graduates majoring in Oriental and African studies to spread knowledge of the late writer's literary heritage.

   Park, regarded as one of the greatest contemporary writers, finished the 20-volume masterpiece over 25 years of painstaking work after she began it as a serial publication in the September 1969 issue of the literary magazine "Contemporary Literature."   

   The novel follows the turbulent history and hardships of the Korean people from the late 19th century to 1945, when the 36-year Japanese colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula ended, through the rise and fall of a wealthy family in a rural area over several generations. (Yonhap)