Turkish academic, professor Selin Şenocak, said European archives have begun the scientific identification of manuscripts and historical artifacts from the Timurid era that were long considered “lost.”
Şenocak, who heads the UNESCO Cultural Diplomacy Chair at the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), told the Anadolu Agency (AA) that her “Following the Ancestors” project has located traces of key 14th- and 15th-century Timurid-era works in archives in Oxford, Edinburgh, Paris, Berlin and Vienna.
She said the materials are not only historical documents but also “important parts of Turkestan’s cultural and spiritual memory.”
Şenocak said she was appointed by the Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Uzbekistan to identify Turkestan-origin manuscripts and historical artifacts across Europe and was authorized to represent Uzbek institutions in archives across seven European countries.
She emphasized that the goal is not merely to physically relocate the documents but to reintegrate them into cultural circulation. She added that Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev’s initiative to reexamine the Timurid period has provided significant support for the effort.
“These documents show that Uzbekistan’s national memory is not confined to its own territory but is dispersed across many libraries in Europe,” she said.
Şenocak said Timurid-era materials include far more than a few texts. Among them are “Tüzükat-ı Timuri,” the Timurid legal and administrative code attributed to Emir Timur, and early Chagatai Turkish divans by Ali-Shir Nava’i, preserved in major institutions such as University of Oxford and Berlin-based collections.
She also noted the presence of an epic account describing the conversion of Karakhanid ruler Satuk Bughra Khan to Islam.
“What we are talking about is not hundreds but tens of thousands of books and manuscripts,” she said.
Şenocak said many of these works were removed from Turkestan during the Russian Empire and Soviet periods and dispersed across Europe. She added that many sources remain undiscovered, including diplomatic correspondence, travelogues, maps and manuscripts.
“These documents have been sitting silently on European shelves for centuries, waiting to be read, understood and reunited with their place of origin,” she said.
Şenocak said several European universities have recently opened programs in Uzbek and Chagatai, the classical literary language of Turkestan and that archival holdings of Turkestan-origin works are becoming more visible.
She said the shift is not accidental.
“Europe is now acknowledging the Turkestan treasury it has held in its own archives,” she said.
She added that Uzbekistan is conducting new inventory efforts, with roughly 1,000 works cataloged since 2025, though tens of thousands more remain scattered across Europe.
Şenocak said the next phase of the project will focus on direct collaboration between Uzbek researchers and European institutions, with the ultimate goal of building a digital Turkestan library.
“This digital library will preserve national memory in digital form so future generations can access and learn from these sources,” she said.
She described challenges including fragmented holdings across countries, where different parts of a single work may be located in different cities.
“One copy may be in Paris, another in Vienna, and a reference in a London catalog footnote,” she said. “You cannot rely only on catalogs; you must move between archives and activate international academic networks.”
She added that prioritization is essential due to limited resources, requiring the selection of works with the highest research and public value.
Born in France and a native French speaker, Şenocak said she studied in Türkiye to maintain her connection to the Turkish language and culture. She later built her academic career in Europe, serving as department chair and deputy dean at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology.
She said her family roots trace back to Bukhara, Uzbekistan, through her great-grandfather, Sheikh Şakir Efendi, who migrated to Ottoman territory in 1862 at the invitation of Sultan Abdülaziz and settled in Ordu, Türkiye.
“I have never considered Turkestan distant,” she said. “It is the ancestral homeland where my family is rooted and where my identity extends.”
She added that her work is a tribute to her ancestors’ unrealized wish to return to Bukhara.
