A Cultural Bridge Between Turkey and Hungary

The Yunus Emre Institute is a world-wide non-profit organization created by the Turkish government in 2007. Named after the famous 13th-14th-century poet Yunus Emre, it aims to promote the Turkish language and the Turkish culture around the world. Its objectives include carrying out educational practices with certificate programs in fields such as Turkish language, history, culture and art.

As the Director of the Yunus Emre Institute in Budapest, Mustafa Aydoğdu explains to Diplomacy&Trade, the one in the Hungarian capital – established in 2013 – was the first such institution in the European Union. “Except for Portugal, we are present in all countries of the European Union. Here in Budapest, the Institute is managing a cultural bridge between Turkey and Hungary.”

A wide variety of activities
‘Yunus Emre’ is a medieval symbolic name that represents human values, love of people and social peace. As to how that is reflected in the activities of the institute, the Director highlights that one of the means is running Turkish language courses. “Since 2013, we have had nearly 1,250 Hungarian and other students participating in these language studies. Coping with circumstances during the pandemic times, we started online Turkish language courses. It has been a good opportunity for us to reach out to more people not just to those physically present in our classes, that is people in Budapest and in the surrounding area. So, this online education is a good chance for us to involve students from all over the country. We also hold cultural events such as concerts, Turkish cinema weeks and traditional arts workshops. Every summer, we organize a Turkish summer school for students of the Turkish language at various institutions including the one in Budapest. So far, we have managed to send 75 students to Turkey with this program to spend nearly one month in Istanbul, Ankara or another historical places of the country. They learn the language, visit a lot of touristic and cultural places, including museums and historical sites. As one of our present priorities we are preparing for the Turkish-Hungarian cultural year to be celebrated in 2024. However, the first programs related to the joint cultural year are expected to be organized as early as the second half of 2023.”

He emphasizes that the Liszt Institute Hungarian Cultural Center in Istanbul promotes Hungarian culture by organizing cultural events there, “while here, we are organizing cultural events related to Turkey including film screenings, concerts and gastronomy workshops. In addition to these, we organize academic conferences, mainly touching upon issues of Turkology and history. We have recently opened under the auspices of the Budapest Photo Festival a photo exhibition titled ‘Colors of Anatolia’. Furthermore, we seek to hold, on a monthly basis, events within our cultural conference series in order to present literary or scientific works, Turkish music and cinema. For instance, last month, one of the programs featured Hungarian Turkologist Edit Tasnádi who is a renowned translator and researcher not only in Hungary but also in Turkey. She has translated a lot of Turkish novels to Hungarian with special regard to authors like Orhan Pamuk, Sabahattin Ali or İskender Pala. Actually, she has recently published her latest book about Turkish folk stories translated to Hungarian. In the month of May, in the House of Hungarian Music, we are organizing a concert by Kudsi Ergüner who is the most well-known suphi music performer in Turkey. We are planning to organize later this year a week of Turkish films as well as academic-related activities for students of Turkology.”

Mainly in Budapest
As mentioned by the Director, the language courses they hold are attended by only those living in Budapest or in the Budapest area, similarly to other activities of the Institute. Regarding their ‘coverage’ of Hungary, courses with physical presence of the participants take place every weekday. “However, with our online courses, we can now reach people as far as in Debrecen or Szigetvár – a venue of significance in historical relations in the Middle Ages – and other places.”
Given the long Ottoman presence in Hungary, the Yunus Emre Institute in Budapest is in a special position because it can find interested partners for cooperation, like the Gül Baba Tomb memorial place, for example. “I arrived in the Hungarian capital about six months ago and I am continuously learning about the activities of institutions like the Gül Baba Heritage Foundation, the Ferenc Liszt Institute and other cultural establishments. We have special arrangements with the former, assisting some of their events, for example, a cultural festival last September featuring Turkish musicians and traditional handcrafts. Another example is the Hungarian Academy of Sciences with which we are going to cooperate on the occasion of the commemoration of the 500th anniversary of the Battle of Mohács in 2026. The battle was a milestone in the Ottoman occupation of the Carpathian Basin. The commemorative events will include a series of academic conferences and exhibitions,” he points out.

Events coming up
Concerning the cultural year mentioned by the Director, the Yunus Emre Institute is preparing special programs to be held next year: exhibitions at the Museum of Fine Arts in Budapest, for example, or a film week at the Uránia National Film Theater also in the capital. “In promoting Turkology, we are also going to have some important events like remembering Hungarian Turkologist, orientalist and traveler Ármin Vámbéry (1832-1913). It is because topics such as Turkish history and Turkology studies are very important for us. We have arrangements in these fields with, for instance, Loránd Eötvös University (ELTE) in Budapest and other educational establishments. These cooperation projects also include exchange programs of academics. People participating in our courses are interested in Turkey and studying the Turkish language for several reasons like bilateral trade or even Turkish series seen on television. We also make it possible for students to visit Turkey and see the country for themselves. It is a good opportunity for them to experience Turkish culture there,” Mustafa Aydoğdu concludes.