Writing and Printing

First All-Union Turkological Congress

The First All-Union Turkological Congress ("Congress") was a conference of Turkologists and politicians held in Baku, Azerbaijan, then part of the Soviet Union, from 26 February to 6 March 1926. The Congress focused on the history, literature, language, alphabet, ethnography, and culture of the Turkic peoples residing across the Soviet territory. It resulted in several important decisions, including establishing the scientific and methodological principles to govern the transition of Turkic-language writing to the Latin script, as well as addressing key policy questions for Turkic peoples in the Soviet Union, including alphabet standardization, orthography, terminology, and literary language development . The Congress is regarded as a landmark event in the cultural and linguistic history of Turkic peoples in the 20th century. With a total of 131 participants including scholars, linguists, historians, poets, writers, and other prominent intellectuals, it brought together not only Turkic peoples residing in the Soviet Union but also foreign guests. The congress sessions were chaired by Samad aga Agamalioglu, the head of the Central Executive Committee of the Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic (SSR). Over 100 of the participants were later accused of Pan-Turkism and faced repression, with a majority imprisoned or killed. The significant outcome of the Congress – the transition of Turkic peoples to the Latin script – was abolished in 1939, and a mass switch to the Cyrillic alphabet was implemented for the Turkic peoples residing in the Soviet Union.

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See also

• ▸Gaj's Latin alphabet
• ▸Celtic knot
• ▸Argentine passport

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