Source: Acta Orientalia Academiae Scientiarium Hung. Tomus XLI (2), 323-324 (1987)
The 29th Permanent International Altaistic Conference
(PIAC)
It was the first time in its history, that from 15–21 September 1986 the PIAC was held in the Soviet Union, in Tashkent, in the capital of one of the Turkic language Republics, Uzbek SSR.
A plenary session opened and closed the meeting that was then divided into three sections: Linguistic Section chaired by E. R. Tenishov; the Section of History chaired by G. S. Pugachenkova; the Section of Folklore, Literature and Art chaired by B. N. Nazarov.
The conference was attended by some 300 participants from 20 countries. The central theme of this year’s meeting was The historical and cultural contacts between the peoples of the Altaic language unity.
Soviet colleagues published their papers in two volumes — I. History, Literature and Art, II. Linguistics — before the conference and presented them to the participants.
The wide range and great number of valuable lectures make it impossible to list all of them, here we mention only the papers read by the Hungarian altaicists:
K. Czeglédy dealt with the origin of the Khazar people, the problems of their first centuries’ history. He proved that they were identical with the Khasar-s mentioned among the sub-tribes of the Uighur tribe, who belonged to the tribal group of the Ting-ling-s (later Tielö-s) back till the 3rd century.
Zs. Kakuk’s paper: Misher-Tatar material of Ignác Kúnos met a great interest. After the first World War Ignác Kúnos collected a considerable amount of folklore material from the Kazán Tatár, Misher Tatár, Crimean Tatár war-prisoners kept near Esztergom is Hungary. The lecturer spoke about the soon edition of the up till now unknown material and analyzed in detail the characteristic features of the folk songs from a linguistic and thematical point of view.
The lecture of A. Róna-Tas — Origin and Development of the Eastern Turkic Runic Script — gave rise to a vivid debate.
L. Lőrincz read a paper Brides in the Buriat Heroic Epic presenting a part of his motif-index of the Buriat epic under preparation.
I. Vásáry dwelt upon the problems of The Christian Kuns and Tatars in the Crimea in the 13th–14th century.
I. Mándoky Kongur considered the Bashkir tribal name Yänäy and the Hungarian Jenő pointing out that opinions regarding these two names to be related to each other can not be scientifically supported any more.
I. Zimonyi in his paper Volga-Bulgarians between two fires — (1220–1233) — analyzed the Volga Bulgarian policy during the fights against the East Russian Princedom and the Mongols.
A. Sárközi presented the up till now little known prophetic literature in Mongolia revealing the political aims of this kind of texts.
The Indiana University Prize for Altaic Studies was awarded to Prof. Karoly Czeglédy that is an honour not only to the great scholar but to all the Hungarian Altaistics.
In between scholarly sessions participants were invited to the R. R. Schroeder Research Institute of Gardening, Grape-growing and Wine-making; to a concert given by the State Uzbeg folk dance group, and to an excursion around Tashkent and to the beautiful city, Samarkand.
This PIAC with its agreeable atmosphere also helped scholars to exchange ideas and informeMens, to meet old colleagues of similar interest and to make new friends.