On the 13^th-15^th of December in 2023 the Second International Symposium on Turkish Teaching and Turkology in the Balkans was held jointly organized by the Turkish Education Foundation, Tiran New York University, Balkan Research Center, Istanbul University, Turkish language Institution, Istanbul University Institute of Turkish Studies, Ministry of Culture and Tourism of the Republic of Turkey, Ataturk Culture, Language and History High Institution and Turkey Cooperation and Coordination Agency (TIKA). The symposium was attended by scientists and researchers from the total of 20 different countries, including Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Azerbaijan, Romania, Bulgaria, Northern Macedonia, Albania, Kosovo, Greece, Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan.

Along with two panels titled “Cultural Interaction from Anatolia to the Balkans” and “Cultural interaction in language and literature”, sessions on topics such as “Studies on Turkology in the Balkans”, “Traces of Turkic culture in Balkan literature”, “Teaching Turkish as a foreign language”, “Training and education of Turkish in the Balkans” were also held at the symposium.

The leading researcher of the department Mythology of the Institute of Folklore of ANAS, PhD., associate professor Maleyka Mammadova also participated in the Second International Symposium on Turkish Teaching and Turkology in the Balkans. She made the report on the theme “Birth rituals in Turkic folk culture from the Balkans to Azerbaijan” at the session entitled “The traces of Turkic culture in Balkan literature”. M.Mammadova was awarded a certificate of gratitude.