Contribution of Atilim to the History of Anatolia and Ankara
16.06.2016

Culture and Communication in Anatolia: Past, Present and Future Symposium continues...

The first day of symposium started with the speeches of Yalcin Zaim, Chairman of the Board of Trustees and Prof. Yıldırım Uctug, President of Atilim University.

In his speech, Yalcin Zaim, Chairman of the Board of Trustees indicated that Atilim University aims to contribute to the history of Ankara under favor of an international meeting named 'Culture and Communication in Anatolia Symposium'. "As we live and our University is based in Ankara, more than that, our city is the capital of Turkey, I reckon that obscurity of its history is disgraceful" said Prof. Zaim.

The international meeting "Culture and Communication in Anatolia Symposium: Past, Present, Future" hosted by Atilim University brought academic world together in Ankara.

Ismail Kahraman, the Speaker of the Grand National Assembly of Turkey, sent a congratulatory message through telegraph since he could not attend the opening of the symposium. "I hope this meaningful symposium will be fruitful and successful and congratulate and salute all participants" said Mr. Kahraman in his message.

Ismet Yilmaz, the Minister on National Education sent a congratulatory message for the symposium, as well.

The symposium started with the short presentation of Prof. Irfan Erdogan, Chairman of the Department of Public Relations and Advertising, on symposium program.

Prof. Zaim, Chairman of the Board of Trustees, emphasized in his opening speech that he has long been thinking on organizing an international symposium focusing on Anatolia and Ankara and explained the creation process of the symposium as follows:

"I am passionate about history, especially the history of Turkey, the roots of Turks and settlement of Turks in Anatolia. My readings on history have made me realize that the number of studies on the history of Ankara is not satisfying although there are huge number of studies of the history of Istanbul. As we live and our University is based in Ankara, more than that, our city is the capital of Turkey, I reckon that obscurity of its history is disgraceful. I decided to organize a series of symposiums in order to enlighten the dark spots of the history in connection with 20^th foundation anniversary of our University. Today, we are at the beginning of this adventure. I know that it is a challenging duty. I thank you all".

After the speech of Prof. Zaim, Prof. Yildirim Uctug, the President of Atilim University, took the stage and said "Information, access to information, communication... These words, as likely as not, are symbolizing the 21^st century. Each of them has become an integral part of our life and more prominent in the history of humanity than ever before. Information has been expanding cumulatively but with an exponential speed in the history of humanity. It is the phenomenon emerged by curiosity which leads human brain to discover the unknown all the time. I guess, it is fair to assimilate the history of information with that of humanity".

Having summarized the historical development process of communication, Prof. Uctug indicated that we may not be a member of the generation which communicated through smoke and pigeons, yet we experience an interesting communication period in Turkey. Prof Uctug continued his speech as follows; "If we turn our faces towards the reality of Turkey wittily, accessing information by means of printed novels, short stories and encyclopedias, reaching news only through limited number of newspapers or TRT Radio, the letters making us look forward to mailmen, sending telegraphs to celebrate special days or express condolence a few times in a year and the television used as a decorative object with lacework on it were the means of communication in the first half of our life".

Are we happy on the internet? 

Having expressed that his generation has witnessed the indispensible cycle of technology, informatics and communication and paradigm change, Prof. Uctug asked that "If Voltaire lived today, would he let Zadig find eternal happiness while he is chatting with his friends on Facebook through the internet or direct him to the same farmer?"

The event will last three days and contain various a number of subjects related to cultural communication.