Welcome to the Institute of Turkish Studies

Founded in 1992, the Turkish Studies Institute seeks to promote cutting-edge research on Turkish culture, its interactions with other cultures, their origins and processes of cultural change in the course of history. The broad aim of the Institute is to foster interdisciplinary scholarship on Turkish language, culture, history and society.

Turkish culture has been prevalent in a vast geography stretching from Turkey, Balkans, Middle East, Black Sea region to Caucasia, Siberia, Central Asia, Mongolia and Turkestan throughout history and today. These regions are still home to authentic cultural data. They have also been intensive intercultural contact and interaction areas. Thus, one of the Institute's objectives is to promote studies on social structures in these regions in terms of language, history, art, faith, folklore, law, trade and politics. Turkey, who aspires to join the integration process in Europe, has long-standing social and cultural relations with the region and there is considerable Turkish migrant population in various European countries. Hence, the Turkish Studies Institute also brings disciplines together to conduct research on Europe.

The Institute has two divisions: the Department of Turkish Studies and the Center for Mongolian Studies. It offers graduate programs leading to M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in the field of Turkology and Teaching Turkish as a Foreign Language. Both programs take an interdisciplinary approach and use new research methods and methodologies.

Since 2006, the Institute has been hosting international symposiums held biennially and publishing Hacettepe University Journal of Turkish Studies as two issues a year and Hacettepe University Journal of Turkish Studies as a Foreign Language as once a year.