Akdes Nimet Kurat Memorial Study Room opened at Ankara University

The ceremony was attended by Vice-Rector of KFU for External Affairs Timirkhan Alishev and Dean of the Higher School of International Relations and Oriental Studies Elmira Khabibullina. They spoke with Rector of AU Necdet Ünüvar.

During the meeting, KFU delegates showed a presentation of the University. The sides discussed further work within their memorandum of understanding, signed in 2019. Cooperation is planned in Turkic studies, archeology, and Russian language. During the last three years, KFU students have interned at Ankara University, and Turkish colleagues used KFU’s digital platform Studerus to teach Russian language.

TThe meeting also included the ribbon cutting at the Akdes Nimet Kurat Study Room; this Russian native founded the Department of Russian Language and Literature at Ankara University.

“The opening of this study room named after Akdas Nigmatov [Akdes Nimet Kurat’s Russian name – editor’s note] is an important and pertinent event, especially in given circumstances. It’s an example of due respect to scientists who promote Slavic and Turkic studies and languages of the peoples of Russian Federation,” shares Vice-Rector Alishev.

Akdas Nigmatov was born in 1903 in Berket-Klyuch village, Kazan Governorate, Russian Empire (now Cheremshan District, Republic of Tatarstan, Russia). He came from a long dynasty of Muslim clerics. In 1924, he moved to Istanbul and enrolled in Istanbul University. He then transferred to Ankara where he worked as Dean of the Institute of Language and History of Ankara University. Nigmatov concentrated on general Turkic history, established the Department of Russian Language at Ankara University, and was thus a prominent driver of Slavic studies in the city. A textbook on Russian history penned by him was published in Turkey in 1948.