Turkish Cultural Center “Yunus Emre” in Sarajevo organizes activities such as teaching Turkish language, culture, art and history, and is building a cultural bridge between Bosnia and Herzegovina and Turkey.

History

Yunus Emre Foundation is a public foundation, which was founded under the law dated 05.05.2007 and numbered 5653 to promote Turkey, Turkish language, its history and culture and art, make such related information and documents available for use in the world, provide services abroad to people who want to have education in the fields of Turkish language, culture and art, to improve the friendship between Turkey and other countries and increase the cultural exchange.

As an institution affiliated to the Foundation, Yunus Emre Enstitüsü is carrying out studies for Turkish teaching in the cultural centers established abroad to accomplish the purposes of this law as well as conducting culture and art activities to promote our country, and giving support to scientific researches.

Starting to operate in 2009, Yunus Emre Enstitüsü has more than 58 cultural centers abroad.  Apart from the Turkish education given in the cultural centers, Turkology departments and Turkish teaching are supported with the co-operations made with different educational institutions in different countries. Several activities are organized to promote our culture and art through cultural centers, and our country is represented through national or international events.

Why Yunus Emre

Yunus Emre Enstitüsü was named after Yunus Emre, who was an Anatolian Sufi living in the 13^th and 14^th centuries. His most important feature is that he is a symbol of human values, human love and social peace. Thus, our Institute aims to promote Turkey’s culture and art to the world, and work for a more peaceful world, where one understands the other with the most competent, polite and unique language of the civilization. In order to achieve this goal and show that we have a say to the whole world, we should first tell about ourselves and our cultural values in the most proper way. It is not a coincidence to choose the name of Yunus Emre for our Institute, which acts with a people-oriented approach. This great person not only contributed to the development of Turkish with his poems, but also gave messages that aimed people’s living in peace and within common values without making any discrimination for religion, language and race with his philosophy built on universal human values. It is an objective set by Yunus Emre Enstitüsü to maintain this basic philosophy in all its activities.