On January 16, last month, the Azerbaijan Vektor International Academy announced that it would confer an honorary doctorate degree to Professor Eunkyung Oh of Dongduk Women's University.  It is noteworthy that, Professor Eunkyung Oh is the first Korean who received an honorary doctorate degree from the Academy. In addition, Kazakhstan's first President, Nursultan NAZARBAYEV, the great Soviet era and Kyrgyz writer Genghis Aitmatov, and Azerbaijan's representative ethnic poet, Bahtiyar Vahapzade had been awarded an honorary doctorate at the VECTOR Academy.

VECTOR International Academy was founded in 1994 by Dr. ELÇİN İSGƏNDƏRZADƏ. It aims for academic promotion, including academic projects and publications covering academic and artistic fields, and has formed networks with academic institutes, universities, research institutes, and academic foundations in 30 countries around the world. It has various affiliated organizations including Shahmar Akbarzadeh International Cultural Foundation, Vector Publishing Center, BAYATI International Arts Center, and Vector International Scientific Journal.

Professor Eunkyung Oh is a world-renowned scholar among the scholars who are well known in Turkic countries.  After obtaining a Ph.D. in Turkey (1999), she was the first foreigner to acquire the Doctor of Philology in Uzbekistan, which is famous for being difficult to obtain even by local scholars (2014).

Over the past two decades, she has made important achievements in literature and folklore through which she has found cultural ties and links between Korea and Turkic countries. Among her books, "Korean War in Turkish Literature" (Turkish), "Women in XX Century Turkish and Korean Literature" (Turkish, Azerbaijani), "Comparative Analysis of Turkish and Korean Heroic Epics" (Uzbek and Russian), "Women in the Veil and Islam (Korean)", "Islam, War, Terrorism and Women through Psychological Analysis: Living as a Woman in Islam (Korean)" have a special place in Academic world and attract the attention of academia.

As a pioneer in the academic field, she tried to translate various literary works to introduce the culture of the Turkic state to Korea and the Korean culture to the Turkic state. She translated the works of many Turkish national writer like Yaşar Kemal and Azerbaijani ethnic poet Bahtiyar Vahapzade  into Korean, and translated representative Korean poets such as Ko-un and Kim Jiha into Turkish. It is focusing on promoting culture through works.

In an effort to promote and popularize Turkic studies in Korea, a wasteland of Turkic studies, she established the only Turkic studies research institute in Korea which is 'Institute for Eurasian Turkic Studies', as an affiliate of Dongduk Women's University. She is also working on the "Turkish Humanities Encyclopedia DB Construction" project that has not yet been attempted in the Turkic country. Professor EunKyung Oh is the founder and editor-in-chief of "Journal of Turkic Studies", the only journal in Turkic studies in Korea.

The Eurasian Press Foundation (IEPF) awarded her the "Cultural Ambassador Award" in 2020 to commemorate Professor Eunkyung Oh's efforts to create a cultural, academic and psychological path between Turkic countries and Korea.

In addition, the Azerbaijan National Academy of Sciences Literature Institute name after Nizami Gencevi, which highly appreciated her academic achievements, awarded her Professor Eunkyung Oh the "Best Scholar award" of 2020.

Unfortunately, despite the existence of internationally recognized researcher in the field of Turkic Studies in Korea, academic recognition of 'Turkology' has not been secured in Korea. Therefore, Professor Eunkyung Oh is unable to teach her major.
Although more than 20 years have passed since she received her doctorate, she still confessed that she has rarely taught her major at a domestic university. It is a cruel reality that there is no place for scholars who study "alienated studies" in exclusive and conservative domestic universities. Nevertheless, Professor Eunkyung Oh's move to pioneer her path without giving up for her future students is noteworthy.

Turkey, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, etc. are representative Turkic countries. They have been interacting with Korea through the Silk Road since ancient times, and are countries that have a close relationship with Korea in terms of language, history, and culture. It is also a land of opportunity that is paying attention as the last market in Korea.