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The Turanian Society (Turkish : Turan Cemiyeti, Tatar : Turan Cämğiäte, Hungarian : Turáni Társaság) was a society founded in 1839 by Tatars with the goal of uniting the various Turkic peoples living in the Russian Empire. The organisation is one of the earliest forerunners of modern Turanism and, in a more narrow sense, Pan-Turkism.
The name is derived from Turan, an ancient Persian name for the land to the East of Iran where many Turkic peoples live, as well as the goal of Turan, a united state for all Turkic peoples.
During the latter part of the 19th century and the early 20th century, similar societies were founded in many other countries with claimed Turanian roots:
"The goal of Turanian Society is the cultural and economic progress, confederation, flourishment of all Turanians, i.e. the Hungarian nation and all kindred European and Asian nations, furthermore the geographical, ethnographical, economical etc. research of the Asian continent, past and present. Political and religious issues are excluded. It wishes to accomplish its objectives in agreement with non-Turanian nations."
"Turáni Társaság célja az egész turánság, vagyis a magyar nemzet és a velünk rokon többi európai és ázsiai népek kulturális és gazdasági előrehaladása, tömörülése, erősödése, úgymint az ázsiai kontinens földrajzi, néprajzi, gazdasági stb. kutatása múltban és jelenben. Politikai és felekezeti kérdések kizártak. Céljait a nem turáni népekkel egyetértve óhajtja elérni." [2]
The scholars of the Turan society interpreted the ethnic and linguistic kinship and relations between Hungarians and the so-called Turanian peoples on the basis of the then prevailing Ural-Altaic linguistic theory. The Society arranged Turkish, Finnish and Japanese language courses. The Turan Society arranged and funded five expeditions into Asia till 1914.(The Mészáros-Milleker expedition, the Timkó expedition, the Milleker expedition, the Kovács-Holzwarth expedition, and the Sebők-Schutz expedition.) The Society held public lectures regularly. Lecturers included `Abdu'l-Bahá [3] and Shuho Chiba. [4]
In 1914, in the context of World War I, a New Turan Society (Yeni Turan Cemiyet) was formed in Istanbul, Ottoman Empire and was supported by both Bolsheviks and the German Empire. This project, however, had a strong Islamist and Pan-Islamist agenda and was aimed also at non-Turanian Muslims of Central Asia. [6]
Turan is a historical region in Central Asia. The term is of Iranian origin and may refer to a particular prehistoric human settlement, a historic geographical region, or a culture. The original Turanians were an Iranian tribe of the Avestan age.
Inner Asia refers to the northern and landlocked regions spanning North, Central and East Asia. It includes parts of western and northeast China, as well as southern Siberia. The area overlaps with some definitions of "Central Asia", mostly the historical ones, but certain regions that are often included in Inner Asia, such as Manchuria, are not a part of Central Asia by any of its definitions. Inner Asia may be regarded as the western and northern "frontier" of China proper and as being bounded by East Asia proper, which consists of China proper, Japan and Korea.
Pan-Turkism or Turkism is a political movement that emerged during the 1880s among Turkic intellectuals who lived in the Russian region of Kazan (Tatarstan), South Caucasus and the Ottoman Empire, with its aim being the cultural and political unification of all Turkic peoples. Turanism is a closely related movement but it is a more general term, because Turkism only applies to Turkic peoples. However, researchers and politicians who are steeped in the pan-Turkic ideology have used these terms interchangeably in many sources and works of literature.
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Turanism, also known as pan-Turanism or pan-Turanianism, is a pan-nationalist political movement built around pseudoscientific claims of biological and linguistic connections between various ethnic groups of Eurasia. It revolves around the abandoned proposal of a Ural-Altaic language family, which hypothesizes that the Turkic, Mongolic, Tungusic, and Uralic peoples share Inner and Central Asian origins and therefore close cultural, ethnic, and linguistic bonds. Supporters of Turanism propose political unity among these groups, chiefly to oppose the cultural and political influences of the Indo-Europeans of Europe and South Asia, as well as the Sino-Tibetans of East Asia. The movement emerged in the 19th century to counter pan-nationalist ideologies such as pan-Germanism, and built upon the ideas of pan-Slavism.
The Curse of Turan is a belief that Hungarians have been under the influence of a malicious spell for many centuries. The "curse" manifests itself as inner strife, pessimism, misfortune and several historic catastrophes.
Pan-nationalism is a specific term, used mainly in social sciences as a designation for those forms of nationalism that aim to transcend traditional boundaries of basic or historical national identities in order to create a "higher" pan-national (all-inclusive) identity, based on various common denominators. Pan-nationalism can occur as a specific variant of all common forms of nationalism. In relation to classical state nationalism, pan-nationalism manifests itself through various political movements that advocate the formation of "higher" (pan-national) forms of political identity, based on a regional or continental grouping of national states. In terms of ethnic nationalism, pan-nationalism can also manifest itself through specific ethnic movements that advocate setting up "higher" (pan-national) forms of common identity that are based on ethnic grouping. Other forms of nationalism also have their pan-national variants.
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Turkic mythology refers to myths and legends told by the Turkic people. It features Tengrist and Shamanist strata of belief along with many other social and cultural constructs related to the nomadic and warrior way of life of Turkic and Mongol peoples in ancient times. Turkic mythology shares numerous ideas and practices with Mongol mythology. Turkic mythology has also been influenced by other local Asiatic and Eurasian mythologies. For example, in Tatar mythology elements of Finnic and Indo-European mythologies co-exist. Beings from Tatar mythology include Äbädä, Alara, Şüräle, Şekä, Pitsen, Tulpar, and Zilant.
Turanian is a term that has been used in reference to diverse groups of people. It has had currency in Turanism, Pan-Turkism, and historic Turkish nationalism.
Agvan Lobsan Dorzhiev was a Russian-born monk of the Gelug school of Tibetan Buddhism, sometimes referred by his scholarly title as Tsenyi Khempo. He was popularly known as the Sokpo Tsеnshab Ngawang Lobsang to the Tibetans.
Hungarian Turanism is a diverse Turanist phenomenon that revolves around an identification or association of Hungarian history and people with the histories and peoples of Central Asia, Inner Asia or the Ural region. It includes many different conceptions and served as the guiding principle of many political movements. It was most lively in the second half of the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century.
The Turanid race was a supposed sub-race of the Caucasian race in the context of a now-outdated model of dividing humanity into different races which was developed originally by Europeans in support of colonialism. The Turanid type was traditionally held to be most common among the populations native to Central Asia. The name is taken from the phylum of Turanian languages, which are the combination of the Uralic and Altaic families, hence also referred to as the term Ural–Altaic race.
Erik Molnár was a Hungarian communist politician, lawyer, economist and historian who served as Minister of Foreign Affairs twice: from 1947 to 1948 and from 1952 to 1953.
Anwar Yusuf Turani is a self proclaimed ethnic Uyghur nationalist and separatist leader. Born into a family branded counter-revolutionary by the Chinese government, Turani was raised in a labor camp where he faced economic hardship and political oppression. He attended Kashgar Teacher's College and graduated from the Department of Physics in July 1983. Turani came to the United States on August 12, 1988 and became the first Uyghur political asylee. In 1995, he established the East Turkistan National Freedom Center (ETNFC), a non-profit human rights organization based in Washington, D.C. He is the first person to start the East Turkistan independence movement in the United States. Having spearheaded the formation of the East Turkistan Government in Exile (ETGE) on September 14, 2004 in Washington, D.C., Turani went on to become the first Prime Minister of the entity.
The Great Kurultáj or briefly Kurultáj is a traditional event of peoples of Central Asian nomadic origins, which takes place in the first week of August in Bugac, Hungary. The aim of this event is to strengthen the unity of the Eurasian steppe-nomadic horse culture and traditions between Hungarians and their cultural relatives, eastern Turkic peoples and Altaic peoples. The first Kurultáj was held in the Torgay Region of Kazakhstan in 2007. The first Kurultáj in Hungary was held in 2008. These events contributed much to the revival of the Altaic self-awareness.
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Although the Hungarian language is currently widely acknowledged scientifically and by the Hungarian Academy of Sciences as a member of the Uralic language family, there is a history of other theories from before and after the Uralic connection was established, as well as some fringe theories that continue to deny the connection.
Gábor Bálint de Szentkatolnai was a Hungarian linguist, Esperantist, Orientalist, and traveller. He explored Central Asia and the Far East with expeditions led by Hungarian nobles. Balint supported the idea that Hungarian was a Turanian language and did not accept Finno-Ugric origins.