The documentary called "Turkish Memory of the Balkans" – which was screened for the first time in Istanbul's Atatürk Cultural Center (AKM) – unveils the fateful journey of the Turkish language in the Balkans.
Directed, produced and written by Ismet Arasan, the documentary was presented by the prominent Turcologist living in Kosovo's Prizren, Nimetullah Hafız.
The film, produced with the collaboration of Türkiye's Ministry of Culture and Tourism and Kosovo's Prizren Culture and Solidarity Association, provides insight into the Turkish languages that are spoken in the Balkans, ranging from Prizren to Bosnia-Herzegovina, Belgrade to Novi Pazar, Skopje to Sarajevo, to the Osman Paşa's love from Trebinje. Overall, the documentary integrates the life and memories of Hafız.
Hafız is one of the first-generation writers of Kosovo Turkish contemporary literary creativity. He completed his doctorate in Istanbul University's Faculty of Letters in 1976 with his thesis on "Prizren Turkish Folk Literature Texts and Dialectal Characteristics" and became the first Turkish language doctor of Kosovo Turks and the first Turkish graduate.
He was also the first person who organized the first commemoration academy dedicated to Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the founding father of the Turkish republic, after World War II, as the first president of the Turkish Culture and Art Association's Nazım Hikmet Literature Branch.
He evaluated the works of Turkish history and strived to ensure that they were taken under protection.
His greatest contribution to Turkish education in Kosovo was to found the Department of Turkish Language and Literature at the University of Pristina. After the 2000s, with his wife, also a professor, Tacida Zubcevic Hafız, he founded the Balkan Turkology Research Center, the first Turcology center in the Balkans and southeastern Europe.
"Turkish Memory of the Balkans" shows how the lives of the Hafız family were devoted to maintaining and preserving the roots of the Turkish language, which has now become a minority language and culture in the Balkans.
