Abstract:

(Should Accounting and Finance Academicians Busy with the History of Their Branches?): The papers presented at the 12th World Congress of Accounting Historians that was held on 20-24 July 2008 in Istanbul showed that the accounting practice and idea developed in Turkey in a different way to the Western countries. In parallel to this difference, the book keeping documents of Anatolia are not only different from the Western ones, but also highly rich. The development of accounting history as a relatively new area of science follows two stages. At the first stage, the accounting history materials are revealed, classified and prepared for evaluation. The accounting history studies in Turkey are at this stage similar to the other developing countries. The second stage of accounting history includes the studies on interaction among accounting and different sectors that are supported by accounting. These studies are bidirectional. The first dimension includes the success of accounting to meet the changing needs of this sector as a consequence of these developments. InTurkey, the developments of the first stage have made a certain progress. However, about the second stage, there is no certain development yet.The traditional structure of Turkey necessitates that these studies should be made by the accounting and business administration academicians. Turkish academicians will follow the direction of the development of their branches as much as they are interested in the development of their branches in the past.

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