Summer has begun and this means saying goodbye to our exchange PhD candidates: Maka Tetradze (from Tbilisi State University; Erasmus Mundus program) and Natallia Paulovich (from Polish Academy of Sciences; Swedish Institute scholarship program).
Here we are gathered on the rooftop garden of the faculty building Niagara. It has been great having you at the Section for Caucasus Studies!
11:00-11:10, Prof. Tamar Dolbaia, Dean of the Faculty of Social and Political Sciences, Georgia.
12:40-13:00, Prof. Korneli Kakachia. “South Caucasus: Between Russia and the West.” Tbilisi State University, Georgia.
13:10-13:30, Prof. Karina Vamling (right). “On RUCARR initiative.” Malmo University, Sweden.
Prof. Bo Petersson, Malmö University, visited the Circassian Cultural Center in Tbilisi together with Prof. Karina Vamling.
At the meeting with Director of the Circassian Center, prof Merab Chukhua they discussed recent pubications and prospects for future workshops and other activities.
Read more:
Сегодня в ЧКЦ состоялась встреча с Бо Петерсоном
http://circassiancenter.org/index.php?news=31258
The research platform “Russia and the Caucasus Regional Research” (RUCARR) has been established at the Faculty of Culture and Society, Malmö University (Sweden).
Activities will start in the fall.
Read more: http://mah.se/…/New-Research-Platform-about-Russia-and-Cau…/
We invite you to the Caucasus Student Film Festival organised by Caucasus Studies.
FREE ENTRANCE
PROGRAM
May 26
14.00–16.00, Gäddan8, 104
Roots (Georgia)
Discussion
18.00–20.30, Niagara
Introduction
The Other Bank (Georgia)
Discussion
May 27
13.30–16.30, Gäddan8, 104
Yikbi (Azerbaijan)
Four Seasons (Armenia)
Discussion
The conference Gelenek ve Gelecek. Türkiye Çerekeslerinin Günsel Sorunlari (Tradition and Future) was organized by Kafkas Dernekleri Federasyonu in Ankara on May 13. 
The second session focused on Circassian linguistic issues and how to teach Circassian and other minority languages in Turkey. This includes the development of study materials for the teaching of Circassian as an elective school subject (photo to the right).
On the photo above, Prof. Karina Vamling, Section for Caucasus Studies, Malmö University, together with co-panelists Assist. Prof. Dr. Yasemin Oral (above, to the left), Istanbul University Hasan Ali Yucel, and Ass. Prof. Sinem Vatanartiran (above, to the right), Bahçeşehir University. Photo below: preparing for the panel. 
The time in Ankara included a visit together with Muhittin Unal and Erol Taymaz to the head-quarters of the organisation Kafkas Dernekleri Federasyonu, that had recently moved to a new address in the picturesque old town.
The centre holds an impressive library with Circassian and other North Caucasian books on different topics and in many languages. 
Maka Tetradze, PhD Candidate at Chikobava Institute of Linguistics and visiting researcher at Malmö University, and Prof. Karina Vamling (Malmö University) have visited archives in Oslo, an active center for research on the languages of the Caucasus in the mid 1920s up to the beginning of the 1980s. For several decades the Institute for Comparative Research in Human Culture in Oslo hosted a programme on Caucasology. The most prominent researchers were prof. Hans Vogt (1903-1986), Alf Sommerfelt (1892-1965) and later Fridrik Thordarson (1928-2005), who were also working at Oslo University. Prof. Hans Vogt is most known as the author of “Dictionnaire de la langue oubykh” (1963) and “Grammaire de la langue géorgienne” (1971), whereas Prof. Alf Sommerfelt focused on North-East Caucasian Languages and Fridrik Thordarson devoted most of his research to Ossetic.
Prof. Merab Chukhua met with Karina Vamling and Revaz Tchantouria (Malmö University) at Circassian Cultural Center in Tbilisi.
Several issues were discussed – a forthcoming joint event at the Center in June and a project application to a Swedish research foundation.
Furthermore, Karina Vamling met with two Georgian PhD candidates, who will spend the academic year 2016/2017 on Erasmus Mundus scholarships at the Section for Caucasus Studies at Malmö University.
Prof. Karina Vamling (Malmö University) attended the conference Georgia’s Euro-Atlantic Way, organised by Georgia’s Euro-Atlantic Forum 
at Nato Liason Office Georgia on April 19, 2016.
One of the speakes at the one-day conference was Laura Thornton, senior director at National Democratic Institute (NDI), who presented results from the recent public opinion poll in Georgia that notes high support for Nato and EU (https://www.ndi.org/March-2016-Public-Opinion-Issues-Press-Release-Georgia).
The conference was attended by politicians, diplomats and researches. Among the participants – to the left: Professors Valentina Teosa (Moldova State University, Interntional Relations Department), Karina Vamling and Alexandre Kukhianidze (Tbilisi State University, Department of Political Science).
Congratulations to Emil Edenborg, who defended his doctoral thesis “Nothing more to see: contestations of belonging and visibility in Russian media” today (Lund University & Malmö Univeristy, April 8, 2016).
One of the case studies in the dissertation is Caucasus-related – Sochi: The nation on display
More info: https://dspace.mah.se/handle/2043/20224
