Prof. Dr. Celal Öney, a faculty member of the Department of History, Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Muş Alparslan University, delivered a seminar titled “A History Extending from Norway to Muş” for the students of the Department of History.
The seminar, organized by the History Community under the advisorship of Assoc. Prof. Dr. Yegane Çağlayan, was held on 19 April 2026 at 13:30 in classroom AS106.
In the seminar, Prof. Dr. Celal Öney discussed the roles of women missionaries in the fields of education, health, and orphan care within the scope of missionary activities carried out in the Ottoman geography in the nineteenth century. Öney especially evaluated, in its historical context, the arrival process of the Norwegian woman missionary Bodil Biørn in the Ottoman lands and her activities at the Muş mission station.
Stating that women missionaries assumed important roles in the processes of establishing contact with the local people, penetrating the family structure, and increasing the influence of the Protestant mission in the field, Prof. Dr. Öney drew attention, through the example of Bodil Biørn, to the importance of Muş in terms of missionary activities at the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth century.
The seminar came to an end with the presentation of a certificate of appreciation to Prof. Dr. Celal Öney by Assoc. Prof. Dr. Yegane Çağlayan, the advisor of the History Community.
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