Students of finno-ugric studies gathered at IFUSCO conference in Vienna, Austria

A yearly multilingual conference of students of finno-ugric studies from around the world (IFUSCO) took place from 24th-28th of April in Vienna, Austria. Alltogether 130 young scientists participated at this event from across the globe. There were also a considerable amount of students at the conference who study or do research on finno-ugristics at universities, but who do not speak a finno-ugric language as their home-language.

IFUSCO conference is special because contributions can be made in any Uralic language as well as English, German, and Russian. The organisers encourage participants to use multiple languages in their presentations – for example, if ones presentation is in Estonian, the slides can also be written in English and the abstract for example in Hungarian. The aim of this request is to promote cross-cultural learning and understanding of finno-ugric languages and their linguistic ties.

Not only Finno-Ugric peoples, but also representatives of other nations were interested in the culture and languages of finno-ugric people at the scientific forum, including the Japanese and the Austrians. For example, at the Ugri Mugri party, Japanese Naoki Watanabe sang in Erzya, the organizers from the Austrian side sang in Voss.

IFUSCO conference is being held annually in spring every year. Last year, young scientists gathered in Estonia in Tartu. The next conference IFUSCO 36 will be held in the capital of Latvia – Riga.

The 35th conference of IFUSCO was organized by students and staff members of the Department of Finno-Ugrian Studies at the University of Vienna.