Journalist Hugh Pope to speak

Former Wall Street Journal correspondent Hugh Pope, a leading expert on Turkey, will visit the University of Wisconsin–Madison later this month.

Pope will speak on “Journeys through the Turkic World: New Connections along the Old Silk Road,” at 7 p.m. on Monday, April 24, in the Fluno Center auditorium, 601 University Ave. The talk is free and open to the public.

Pope is the author of the much-acclaimed “Sons of the Conquerors” (Overlook Press, 2005), called “the most comprehensive work on the Turks today.” In his book, Pope offers a vivid description of the history of Turkic peoples — now some 140 million worldwide — arguing that despite their extraordinary past, Turkic peoples remain relatively little studied or understood. The most powerful and best-established Turkic nation, Turkey, has become the most democratic major Muslim country and is now negotiating for full membership in the European Union, but there are also five independent Turkic states of the Caucasus and Central Asia — Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and the Kyrgyz Republic — and Turkic peoples live across the globe, including China, Europe and the United States.

During Pope’s 25 years of travels in the Turkic world, he has written from 30 countries, reporting for various news organizations, including the Los Angeles Times, the BBC and Reuters. For the past eight years, he has run the Wall Street Journal’s news bureau in Istanbul. Pope read Persian and Arabic at Oxford University and speaks Turkish.

Pope’s visit is sponsored by UW–Madison’s Center for Russia, East Europe and Central Asia (CREECA), the Madison Association of Turkish Students, the Middle East Studies Program and the Center for Turkish Studies, and is funded in part by the Associated Students of Madison.