Timur Kocaoğlu

Timur Kocaoğlu and Shavkat Mirziyoyev. Photo from the opening ceremony of the exhibition of archeology of Uzbekistan in Berlin. May 3, 2023 Timur Kocaoğlu (Uzbek latin: Temur Xoʻja o‘g‘li; May 31, 1947, Istanbul) is an American and Turkish historian and political scientist of Uzbek descent. He was the first Uzbek scientist to defend his doctoral dissertation at Columbia University. He was born in Istanbul in 1947 in the family of Osman Kocaoğlu, one of the leaders of the Bukharan People's Soviet Republic. In 1971, he graduated from the Faculty of Literature, Department of Turkish Language and Literature of Istanbul University. In 1977, he studied at the Department of Arts, Middle Eastern Languages and Cultures (MELAC) at Columbia University (New York), and in 1979 he defended two master's theses in political science at the Department of International Studies of Columbia University. In 1982, he defended his doctoral dissertation on the topic "National Identity in Soviet Central Asian Prose Fiction of the Post-Stalin Period: 1953-1982" under the scientific supervision of professor Edward Allworth, who was founding director at Columbia of both the Program on Soviet Nationality Problems and the Center for the Study of Central Asia. After Timur Kocaoğlu defended this dissertation, he worked at Radio Liberty for many years.

Life Timur Kocaoğlu was born on May 31, 1947, in Istanbul. At that time, his father Osman Kocaoğlu was often forced to leave Turkey due to political pressure and move for work. When Timur was four years old, he and his family moved to Peshawar, Pakistan. He studied at Convent High School, an English language school, for three years. The Osman Kocaoğlu family returned to Istanbul in 1957, and Timur continued his education at Ahmet Rasim Elementary School. Later, he studied at Kartal High School and then at Pendik Lyceum. During his studies at the lyceum, he took lessons from history teacher Nazmiye Togon and literature teacher Selahattin Savci. Nazmiye Togan was one of the leaders of Turkish National Movement and the wife of the scientist Ahmad Zaki Validi Togan. His father Osmankhoja died when he was studying at the university. Osman Kocaoğlu invited his son Timur to his presence for the last time and made a will as follows: "I'm not leaving you money in the bank, I'm not leaving you tall mansions, fertile lands, I'm not leaving you brothers and sisters to support you, I'm just leaving you the sorrow of the Motherland so that you will always remember".

Scientific career Columbia University professor Edward Allworth being unaware of Osman Kocaoğlu's death sent a letter to him. There were some questions related to Bukhara and its political processes in the letter. Timur Kocaoglu, who received the letter, tried to answer some of the questions in the letter along with the news of his father's death. In this way, Timur Kocaoğlu got to know Professor Edward Allworth through a letter. Edward Allworth helped Timur Kocaoğlu to come to America through a grant when he noticed that he was interested in the literature of the peoples of Central Asia. In 1977, Timur Kocaoğlu began to work at Radio Liberty along with scientific activity. At that time, Radio Liberty broadcast in 22 languages. Among them were 6 Turkic languages (Uzbek, Kazakh, Kyrgyz, Turkmen, Tatar and Bashkir). The scientist wrote hundreds of scientific articles in Uzbek and English during the 17 years of his work at Radio Liberty. He also learned the German language while working in Germany. After taking a break from Radio Liberty, he worked at Marmara University in 1985–1988. After working at Radio Liberty for another four years, he returned to Turkey in 1993 at the invitation of Attila Askar, the dean of Koç University, and taught at Koç University. In 1995 — 2005, he worked at the Knowledge Council of Türk Dil Kurumu. He started working at the Michigan State University in 2011. He retired from Michigan State University in 2021. Now he is teaching online at the National University of Uzbekistan. In addition, he founded the scientific content "Türkbilim Sanaltayları" on YouTube and holds scientific conferences.