Ambassador of Uzbekistan to Hungary Abat Fayzullayev met Istvan Monok, the general director of the Academy's library, and Benedek Peri, the head of the Turkic studies department of the Etvos Lorand University of Hungary (ELTE), director of the Institute of Oriental Studies, at the Department of Oriental Manuscripts of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, "Dunyo" news agency reports.
István Monok informed that the library of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences was established in 1825, and that the library possesses more than 10,000 historical manuscripts, where Oriental manuscripts stand out from other collections for their uniqueness. Founded in 1951 by the Hungarian scientist and orientalist Layosh Ligeti, this collection contains about 80 manuscripts written in the Persian and Turkic-Chigatai (ancient Uzbek) languages of Central Asian scientists, poets and writers.
In particular, the manuscript of Alisher Navoi's "Muhokamat ul-lughatayn" kept in the Oriental Manuscripts Department, the "Chigatoy Ottoman Dictionary" of the 16th century prepared to facilitate the study of Navoi's works, and the original version of the 19th-century translation of the famous Hungarian poet Arani Yanosh's "The Story of the Wonderful Reindeer" by the Uzbek scholar Mulla Ishaq Ibrahim are worth mentioning.
It is believed that many works of Central Asian scholars were brought to Budapest via Istanbul by Armin Vambery, a famous Turkic scholar and traveller from Hungary during the Ottoman Empire.
"One of Armin Vambery's favourite works is Navoi's Muhokamat ul-lughatayn (Discussion of two languages). There are only four original copies of this important manuscript in the world which compares the poetic power of old Uzbek and Persian languages. In this work, Navoi shows the advantages of the Uzbek language and encourages his contemporaries not to write poems in Persian, but to create in their native language - old Uzbek," Ishtvan Monok said.
Monok especially noted that the library of the Academy is always open to all Uzbek specialists who intend to study and research these works.
Benedek Peri said that he has been researching Turkish literature throughout his career. In recent years, he has been studying the works of Alisher Navoi and has been publishing articles in this direction in English. He also informed participants that he is currently working on translating Babur's "Baburnoma" into Hungarian, and Navoi's "Mahbub ul-Qulub" into English. The preliminary materials for these translations will be ready next year.
"The main reason for translating Navoi's work into English is to promote the work of the great scholar not only in Hungary but throughout Europe," he said.
The sides also discussed the possibility of introducing Uzbek language training courses at Etvos Lorand University of Hungary and attracting specialists from Uzbekistan.
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