An Evaluation of the turksoy Regional Seminars in the Context of Intangible Cultural Heritage Studies

The International Turkish Culture Organization TÜRKSOY of which former name was The Joint Organization of Turkish Culture and Arts, since its foundation in 1993, has carried on its actions through the aims which can be summarized in a form which tries to develop, restore and safeguard the culture and art of governments and publics speaking Turkish and to provide the Turkish states and people, which speak Turkish and are Turkish in origin, to communicate each other in a better way. Aiming to search, bring out, develop, safeguard and transmit the common Turkish culture, language, history, art, tradition ve custom to the next generations, TÜRKSOY bear resemblance to UNESCO with regard to its purposes, duties and fields of study. The new understanding that UNESCO brought into "safeguarding of cultural memory" and "cultural transmission" with the Convention for the Safe-guarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage formed a basis for TÜRKSOY, also known as "UNESCO" of Turkish World, to handle the common cultural history of people of Turkish origin with a new understanding of awareness which is different than the sensitivity of 1993 and work in this way. In this article, information is given on main principles of the Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage, founding of TÜRKSOY and its aims. Furthermore, TÜRKSOY's work is considered in terms of intangible cultural heritage (ICH). The approaches of Intangible Cultural Heritage Seminars organized by TÜRKSOY member countries aiming to safeguard and support the common values of Turkish world to the international arena are focused. Decisions made and carried out by TÜRKSOY in these seminars, first held in Ankara and lastly in Ufa, are evaluated considering successful and inefficient parts of these decisions.