Turkic world coming together for Mahmud al-Kashgari

An international short story competition will be one of the most meaningful events to mark 2008, the Year of Mahmud al-Kashgari in Turkey, celebrating the 1,000th anniversary of the birth of the first Turkish linguist.

Authors who can write in any Turkic dialect will be able to participate in the competition, launched by the Eurasian Writers Union (AYB), Kazinform reported.

In addition to more scientific events such as an international symposium in May by the Culture and Tourism Ministry in cooperation with Hacettepe University and the International Language Convention to be held in October by the Turkish Language Society (TDK), the competition is likely to be the most outstanding event organized for the year, declared by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).

The AYB project is likely to bring the entire Turkic world together on account of the 1,000th birthday of the 11th-century linguist, philologist and ethnographer who wrote the first encyclopedic dictionary of the Turkish language. The Mahmud al-Kashgari International Short Story Competition is open to any writer who speaks any one dialect of Turkic, regardless of the part of the world they live in.

Jointly organized by the AYB, UNESCO, the Culture and Tourism Ministry and the Permanent Council of the Joint Administration of Turkic Culture and Art (TURKSOY), the competition will be held concurrently in all Turkic countries and countries with Turkic language-speaking communities.

All writers’ associations and literature journals and periodicals from Azerbaijan, western Thrace, Bulgaria, Kosovo, Macedonia, Romania, Bashkortostan, China, Gagauzia, Iraq, Iran, Kazakhstan, Crimea, Kyrgyzstan, the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (KKTC), Uzbekistan, Tatarstan, Turkey, Turkmenistan, Chuvashia and Siberia (Caucasia, Yakutia, Altai, Tyva) will operate in unison.

Seventeen juries will be involved in judging participants at the first stage. Turks who live in Europe and other countries will apply to the jury of Turkey, and those who are speakers of other dialects will apply to the jury of the dialect they write in. Also, it is not obligatory to write in one’s own dialect. Those who rank in the first three places in the country-based assessments will be awarded. There will be a second assessment phase for the winners, and then the winners of the competition will be announced and awarded on 15 December.

The international jury, which will oversee the second assessment, has many internationally acclaimed writers such as Anar from Azerbaijan, Zeynel Beksa? from the Balkans, M. Omer Kazanci from Iraq, Fadil Ali from Kazakhstan, Egenberdi Askarov from Kyrgyzstan, Tahir Kahhar from Uzbekistan, Ali Akbar from Turkey, Oraz Yagmur from Turkmenistan and Yusupcan Yasin from the Uyghur of west China.

AYB President Yakup Deliomeroglu said this would be the first such competition to unite all Turkic-speaking peoples of the world, adding that holding such a contest in the name of Mahmud Al-Kashgari — the author of “Divan-i Lugati’t-Turk” — would further add to the meaning of the event, Kazinform cites Today’s Zaman.

“Literature is an indispensable form of art for the continuity of the development of languages. With this competition we want to contribute to our language, albeit through different dialects of the language, to encourage story writing, to publicize the Year of Mahmud al-Kashgari to greater crowds and help make it well known, and to eventually encourage thinking and production in Turkish.”