site.btaTurkish Scholar Receives Golden Age Badge of Honour

Prof Huseyin Mevsim of Ankara University received a Golden Age Badge of Honour and a citation from the Bulgarian Culture Ministry on Thursday. He heads the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures in the Faculty of Languages and History-Geography.

The award was presented by Ambassador Angel Cholakov at the Bulgarian Embassy.

The diplomat said the ceremony was taking place at the end of a special year. "It has been a turbulent and dramatic year. We were together, we cried together, we fought together," Cholakov said, referring to the 7.8-magnitude earthquake which struck Turkiye on February 6.

"It is symbolic that our last meeting this year is taking place for the happiest occasion. This year we built together new economic, investment and infrastructure bridges, but it seems that most of all we built cultural, intellectual, friendly bridges," the Bulgarian Ambassador said.

The diplomat described Prof Mevsim as "the most enthusiastic architect and builder of the spiritual and intellectual bridges between Bulgaria and Turkiye" and "an ambassador of talent".

Mevsim thanked the Bulgarian Culture Ministry, noting the symbolism of the award in the year when his country is marking its 100-year anniversary as a republic. "The most important thing in the world is to build, all the rest is vanity of vanities," the professor said.

Prof Mevsim is a writer, literary historian, researcher of Turkish-Bulgarian cultural and literary relations and translator. He graduated in Bulgarian language and literature from the Paisii Hilendarski University of Plovdiv (South Central Bulgaria). In nearly 20 years, he has written or translated 68 published books.

The ceremony was attended by Yuksel Ozkale, chair of the Balkan Immigrants Economic Research and Social Assistance Foundation (BISAV), BISAV deputy chair for administrative affairs Belgin Doruk, Ahmet Cebeci, who teaches at Gazi University, lecturers at Ankara University's Faculty of Communication, students of Bulgarian and journalism and Bulgarians resident in Ankara.