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Kosovo’s southern city of Prizren has launched its first International Turkish Theatre Festival, marking a new cultural milestone for the region. The festival opened with a ceremony at the city’s Cultural House, drawing a large audience of guests, diplomats, and theatre enthusiasts. Organized by Art Theatre in cooperation with the Yunus Emre Institute (YEE), the event aims to strengthen the presence of Turkish theatre in the Balkans and beyond.
Türkiye’s Ambassador to Pristina Sabri Tunc Angili expressed his confidence that the festival would soon become a tradition, helping Turkish theatre flourish not only in Prizren but also across all regions where Turkish is spoken.
He underlined the significance of theatre in preserving cultural identity, noting that Turkish theatre had developed in the Balkans—especially in Skopje and Prizren—since the Yugoslav era. According to him, it has played a decisive role in keeping the Turkish language and culture alive in Rumelia, the historical name for Ottoman-era Balkan lands.
Art Theatre Director Sonay Bus highlighted that the memory of nations lives through language and art. She described Prizren as a city that has for centuries embodied a multicultural and multilingual character.
“Prizren has always been a city of many languages and cultures, but Turkish has survived here as an identity and a bond of the heart. Today, this festival makes that bond visible again. Every applause here is in fact saying we are here, Turkish is here, and art is here,” she remarked.
YEE Kosovo Coordinator Ramazan Yilmaz emphasized his belief that the festival would grow in size and reach in the coming years, becoming a permanent fixture in the cultural life of the region.
After the speeches, artists who had contributed to Turkish theatre in Kosovo for decades were honored with lifetime achievement awards.
The opening evening concluded with a performance of Nevbahar by the Turkish Theatre of Skopje, North Macedonia’s national institution for Turkish drama.
The play brought the audience together in celebration of shared cultural heritage.
Records show that Turkish theatre activities in Kosovo began in the 1930s with traditional shadow plays such as Karagoz and Hacivat, as well as “orta oyun,” a form of improvisational folk theatre.
The art reached its golden era in the 1980s, before facing a number of challenges. Today, theatre groups across Kosovo continue to keep Turkish theatre alive, staging plays that highlight both tradition and modernity.
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