New Delhi, June 18: Rabindranath Tagore will next year gaze down on a country he had never visited in his lifetime but one he had described as the “lamp of the East”, striking a chord with its freedom fighters.

South Korean President Lee Myung Bak has promised to have a bust of the poet installed in Seoul.

The suggestion had come from foreign minister S.M. Krishna, who is on a South Korea trip, during a meeting with Lee.

“Warming to the theme, President Lee said he would make a strong recommendation to the city authorities to identify a suitable location for installing the bust of Gurudev in 2011,” a foreign ministry spokesperson said.

Many of Tagore’s works were translated into Korean soon after he won the Nobel prize in 1913. The ties were strengthened when, on a visit to Japan in 1924, Tagore had opposed the Japanese occupation of Korea in front of a large crowd.

Japan had declared Korea a protectorate in 1905 and annexed it in 1910.

Tagore’s poem Lamp of the East inspired many Koreans during the Japanese occupation, which ended in 1945.

Even today, a copy of the Gitanjali can be found in many Korean homes.

After gaining independence, Korea included a chapter on Lamp of the East in a textbook for high school students. A Tagore Society of Korea was founded in 1981.

Last year, Samsung Electronics and the South Korean embassy helped the Sahitya Akademi institute the Tagore Literature Awards in Indian languages, acknowledging a historical link.

“Through his writings and poems, he touched the hearts of Koreans at a time they were passing through great difficulties. As a poet, playwright, philosopher and artist, he is as revered in Korea as he is in India,” Samsung vice-chairman Y.W. Lee had said at the first awards function this year.

The Indian government is celebrating 2010-11 as the 150th year of Tagore’s birth.

Last month, during a state visit to China, President Pratibha Patil had unveiled a bust of Tagore in the Shanghai locality where the poet had lived during his two visits to the city.