As part of our university’s project implemented at the Eurasian Research Base, titled “Manuscript Heritage of Kazakhstan: Registry, Restoration, Scientific Cataloguing, Digitization, and Comprehensive Codicological Study,” the university delegation conducted a scientific visit to Harvard University in Boston, USA.
The visit was carried out under a consortium agreement between Akhmet Yassawi University, JSC “Gylym Ordasy”, Astana IT University, and Harvard University. The delegation included K. Massadikov, Director of the Department of Science, PhD, and Ulan Bigozhin, Professor of the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Nazarbayev University, PhD.
The main objective of the visit was to study global best practices in the registration, scientific cataloguing, and digitization of Kazakhstan’s historical manuscripts, establish close contacts with scholars at Harvard University and the Davis Center, exchange ideas with leading experts, discuss scientific issues, and organize joint academic events.
Kazakh researchers held meetings with leading Harvard specialists. In particular, substantive discussions took place with Nargis Kassenova, Director of the Central Asia Program at the Davis Center; Chris Martin, Executive Director of the Center; Gulnar Eziz Yulgun, lecturer in the Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations, Faculty of Arts and Sciences; Rysbek Alimov, expert on the Middle East project at Harvard and Widener Libraries; and Houton Kristin Jacobson, Deputy Curator of Manuscripts. These meetings opened broad opportunities for scientific collaboration.
The scholars worked in Harvard’s leading libraries — Houghton, Widener, and others — studying collections of rare manuscripts, cataloguing processes, and digitization methods. They explored databases of Central Asian Islamic sources through the HOLLIS system.
To strengthen academic ties, discussions were held on conducting joint seminars, workshops, and scientific events, developing new areas of partnership in teaching the Chagatai language and manuscript research, as well as organizing visits of Harvard scholars to Kazakhstan.
Additionally, Gulnar Eziz Yulgun proposed initiating the creation of an online Chagatai language dictionary as part of the project, which would become a unique international-level scientific product.
The visit provided the university’s researchers with the opportunity to master modern methods of working with rare manuscripts, expand their international academic network, and implement the project’s results at a new level.
Moving forward, the university plans to continue strengthening international scientific collaboration and expanding research on Kazakhstan’s historical and cultural heritage.
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