Turanism

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Map of Eurasia showing the "Altaic" and Uralic language-speaking regions, which are united under the "Turanian" theory. Linguistic map of the Altaic, Turkic and Uralic languages (en).png
Map of Eurasia showing the "Altaic" and Uralic language-speaking regions, which are united under the "Turanian" theory.

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, [1] and built upon the ideas of pan-Slavism (e.g. the idea of a "Turanian brotherhood and collaboration" was borrowed from the pan-Slavic concept of "Slavic brotherhood and collaboration").

Contents

Origins and definitions

Max Muller's northern division of Turanian languages. Max Muller's Northern Division of Turanian Languages.png
Max Müller's northern division of Turanian languages.

The concept of a Ural-Altaic ethnic and language family goes back to the linguistic theories of Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz; in his opinion there was no better method for specifying the relationship and origin of the various peoples of the Earth, than the comparison of their languages. In his Brevis designatio meditationum de originibus gentium ductis potissimum ex indicio linguarum, [2] written in 1710, he originates every human language from one common ancestor language. Over time, this ancestor language split into two families: the Japhetic and the Aramaic. The Japhetic family split even further, into Scythian and Celtic branches. The members of the Scythian family were: the Greek language, the family of Sarmato-Slavic languages (Russian, Polish, Czech, Dalmatian, Bulgar, Slovene, Avar), the family of Turkic languages (Turkish, Cuman, Kalmyk and Mongolian), the family of Finnic languages (Finnish, Saami, Hungarian, Estonian, Liv and Samoyed). Although his theory and grouping were far from perfect, it had a tremendous effect on the development of linguistic research, especially in German speaking countries.

The term "Turan" is of Iranian origin [3] [4] and is believed to have referred to a prehistorical human society in Central Asia. The term was widely used in scientific literature from the 18th century onwards to denote Central Asia. European scholars borrowed the term from the historical works of Abu al-Ghazi Bahadur; the annotated English translation of his Shajare-i Türk was published in 1729 and quickly became an oft-used source for European scholars.

The languages of Asia and Europe arranged according to their grammatical principles in Max Muller's Letter to Chevalier Bunsen on the classification of the Turanian languages, published in 1854. Azsia es Europa nyelvei nyelvtani alapeveik szerint elrendezve Friedrich Max Muller 1854-ben kiadott Letter to Chevalier Bunsen on the classification of the Turanian languages cimu munkajaban.png
The languages of Asia and Europe arranged according to their grammatical principles in Max Müller's Letter to Chevalier Bunsen on the classification of the Turanian languages, published in 1854.

Friedrich Max Müller, the German Orientalist and philologist, published and proposed a new grouping of the non-Aryan and non-Semitic Asian languages in 1855. In his work The Languages of the Seat of War in the East, he called these languages "Turanian". Müller divided this group into two subgroups, the Southern Division and the Northern Division. [5] In the long run, his evolutionist theory about languages' structural development, tying growing grammatical refinement to socio-economic development, and grouping languages into 'antediluvian', 'familial', 'nomadic', and 'political' developmental stages, [6] proved unsound. Nonetheless, his terminology stuck, and the terms 'Turanian peoples' and 'Turanian languages' became parts of common parlance. Another proposed group, the Ural-Altaic languages, was later derived from Müller's Northern Division subgroup.

Like the term Aryan is used for Indo-European, Turanian is used chiefly as a linguistic term, synonymous with Ural-Altaic. [7] However, the Ural-Altaic theory has been scientifically disproven. Concepts of areal linguistics and typology even if in a genetic sense of these terms might be considered as obsolete. [8]

Turanism originated in the work of the Finnish nationalist and linguist Matthias Alexander Castrén, who championed the ideology. He concluded that the Finns originated in Central Asia (more specifically in the Altai Mountains) and far from being a small isolated people, they were part of a larger polity that included such peoples as the Magyars, Turks, and Mongols. [9] It implies not only the unity of all Turkic peoples (as in pan-Turkism), but also the alliance of a wider Ural-Altaic family believed to include all speakers of the "Turanian languages".

Although Turanism is a political movement for the union of all Ural-Altaic peoples, there are different opinions about the movement's inclusivity. [10] The early Turanist Ziya Gökalp opined that Turanism is for Turkic peoples only, as other Turanian peoples (Finns, Hungarians, Mongolians and so on) are too different culturally. [11] In contrast, his contemporary Lothrop Stoddard gave the following description during World War I:

Right across northern Europe and Asia, from the Baltic to the Pacific and from the Mediterranean to the Arctic Ocean, there stretches a vast band of peoples to whom ethnologists have assigned the name of "Uralo-Altaic race", but who are more generally termed "Turanians". This group embraces the most widely scattered folk—the Ottoman Turks of Constantinople and Anatolia, the Turcomans of Central Asia and Persia, the Tatars of South Russia and Transcaucasia, the Magyars of Hungary, the Finns of Finland and the Baltic provinces, the aboriginal tribes of Siberia and even the distant Mongols and Manchus. Diverse though they are in culture, tradition, and even physical appearance, these peoples nevertheless possess certain well-marked traits in common. Their languages are all similar, and, what is of even more import, their physical and mental make-up displays undoubted affinities. [12]

By region

Europe

Finland

Turanism has its roots in the Finnish nationalist Fennophile and Fennoman movement, and in the works of Finnish nationalist and linguist Matthias Alexander Castrén. Castrén conducted more than seven years of fieldwork in western and southern Siberia between 1841 and 1849. His extensive field materials focus on Ob-Ugric, Samoyedic, Ketic, and Turkic languages. He collected valuable ethnographic information, especially on shamanism. Based on his research, he claimed that the Finnic, Ugric, Samoyed, Turkic, Mongolian and Tungusic languages were all of the same 'Altaic family'. He concluded that the Finns originated in Central Asia (in the Altai Mountains), and far from being a small, isolated people, they were part of a larger polity that included such peoples as the Magyars, Turks, Mongols, and so on. Based on his research, he championed the ideology of Turanism, the belief in the ethnic unity and the future greatness of the Ural-Altaic peoples. As Castrén put it:

I am determined to show the Finnish nation that we are not a solitary people from the bog, living in isolation from the world and from universal history, but are in fact related to at least one-sixth of mankind. Writing grammars is not my main goal, but without the grammars that goal cannot be attained. [13]

Castrén was of the opinion that Russia was seeking systematically to prevent all development towards freer conditions in Finland, and concluded from this that the Finns must begin to prepare a revolt against Russia. According to him, it was to be linked with a favourable international crisis and would be realised as a general revolt against Russian rule, in which the non-Russian peoples from the Turks and Tatars to the Finns would take part. This political vision of his was shared by some other intellectuals. [14] Fennomans like Elias Lönnrot and Zachris Topelius shared this or an even bolder vision of coming greatness. As Topelius put it:

Two hundred years ago few would have believed that the Slavic tribe would attain the prominent (and constantly growing) position it enjoys nowadays in the history of culture. What if one day the Finnish tribe, which occupies a territory almost as vast, were to play a greater role on the world scene than one could expect nowadays? [...] Today people speak of Pan-Slavism; one day they may talk of Pan-Fennicism, or Pan-Suomism. Within such a Pan-Finnic community, the Finnish nation should hold the leading position because of its cultural seniority [...]. [13]

Hungary

Hungarian Turanism (Hungarian : Turanizmus) was a Romantic nationalist cultural and political movement which was most active from the second half of the 19th century through the first half of the 20th century. [1] It was based on the age old and still living national tradition about the Asian origins of the Magyars. This tradition was preserved in medieval chronicles (such as Gesta Hungarorum [15] and Gesta Hunnorum et Hungarorum, [16] and the Chronicon Pictum) as early as the 13th century. This tradition served as the starting point for the scientific research about the ethnogenesis of the Hungarian people, which began in the 18th century, both in Hungary and abroad. Sándor Kőrösi Csoma (the writer of the first Tibetan-English dictionary) traveled to Asia in the strong belief that he could find the kindred of the Magyars in Turkestan, amongst the Uyghurs. [17] As a scientific movement, Turanism was concerned with the research about Asia and its culture in the context of Hungarian history and culture. Political Turanism was born in the 19th century, in response to the growing influence of Pan-Germanism and Pan-Slavism, which were seen by Hungarians as very dangerous to the state and nation of Hungary because the country had large ethnic German and Slavic populations. [1] Political Turanism was a romantic nationalist movement, which accentuated the importance of the common ancestry and the cultural affinity of the Hungarians with the peoples of the Caucasus, Inner and Central Asia, like the Turks, Mongols, Parsi and the like, and called for closer collaboration and political alliance with them, as a means to secure and further shared interests, and counter the imminent threats posed by the policies of Western powers like Germany, the British Empire, France and Russia.

The idea of a Hungarian Oriental Institute originated with Jenő Zichy. [18] This idea did not come true. Instead, a kind of lyceum was formed in 1910, called Turáni Társaság (Hungarian Turan Society, also called Hungarian Asiatic Society). The Turan society concentrated on Turan as geographic location where the ancestors of Hungarians might have lived.

The movement received impetus after Hungary's defeat in World War I. Under the terms of the Treaty of Trianon (1920), the new Hungarian state constituted only 32.7% of the territory of historic, pre-treaty Hungary, and it lost 58.4% of its total population. More than 3.2 million ethnic Hungarians (one-third of all Hungarians) resided outside the new boundaries of Hungary in the successor states under oppressive conditions. [19] Old Hungarian cities of great cultural importance like Pozsony (a former capital of the country), Kassa, and Kolozsvár (present-day Bratislava, Košice, and Cluj-Napoca respectively) were lost. Under these circumstances, no Hungarian government could survive without seeking justice for both the Magyars and Hungary. Reuniting the Magyars became a crucial point in public life and on the political agenda. Outrage led many to reject Europe and turn towards the East in search of new friends and allies in a bid to revise the unjust terms of the treaty and restore the integrity of Hungary.

Disappointment towards Europe caused by 'the betrayal of the West in Trianon', and the pessimistic feeling of loneliness, led different strata in society towards Turanism. They tried to look for friends, kindred peoples and allies in the East so that Hungary could break out of its isolation and regain its well deserved position among the nations. A more radical group of conservative, rightist people, sometimes even with an anti-Semitic hint propagated sharply anti-Western views and the superiority of Eastern culture, the necessity of a pro-Eastern policy, and development of the awareness of Turanic racialism among Hungarian people. [20]

On 1 June 1924, the Magyar-Nippon Társaság (Hungarian Nippon Society) was founded by private persons in order to strengthen Hungarian-Japanese cultural relations and exchanges. [21]

Turanism was never embraced officially because it was not in accord with the Christian conservative ideological background of the regime, but it was used by the government as an informal tool to break the country's international isolation, and build alliances. Hungary signed treaties of friendship and collaboration with the Republic of Turkey in 1923, [22] with the Republic of Estonia in 1937, [23] with the Republic of Finland in 1937, [24] with Japan in 1938, [25] and with Bulgaria in 1941. [26]

After World War II, the Soviet Red Army occupied Hungary. The Hungarian government was placed under the direct control of the administration of the occupying forces. All Turanist organisations were disbanded by the government[ citation needed ], and the majority of Turanist publications was banned and confiscated. In 1948, Hungary was converted into a communist one-party state. Turanism was portrayed and vilified as an exclusively fascist ideology although Turanism's role in the interwar development of far-right ideologies was negligible. [27]

Turkey

Traditional history cites its early origins amongst Ottoman officers and intelligentsia studying and residing in 1870s Imperial Germany. The fact that many Ottoman Turkish officials were becoming aware of their sense of "Turkishness" is beyond doubt of course, and the role of subsequent nationalists, such as Ziya Gökalp is fully established historically. As the Turkish historian Hasan Bülent Paksoy put it, an aspiration emerged that the Turkic peoples might "form a political entity stretching from the Altai Mountains in Eastern Asia to the Bosphorus". [28] During the late 19th century, the works of renowned Hungarian Orientalist and linguist Ármin Vámbéry contributed to the spreading of Turkish nationalism and Turanism. Vámbéry was employed by the British Foreign office as an advisor and agent. He was paid well for his accounts about his meetings with members of the Ottoman elite and Sultan Abdul Hamid II, and for his essays concerning Ottoman politics. [29] The Ottoman Empire fell into ever deepening decline during the 19th century. There were reform and modernization attempts as early as the 1830s (Tanzimat), but the country was lowered to an almost semi-colonial state at the turn of the century (the state accumulated an enormous amount of debt and state finances were placed under direct foreign control), and the great powers freely preyed on her, occupying or annexing parts of her territory at will (e.g. Cyprus). At the time, the Russian and British empires were antagonists in the so-called "Great Game" to cultivate influence in Persia and Central Asia (Turkestan). Russia and Britain systematically fanned the rivalling nationalisms of the multi-ethnic empire for their own ends, [30] [31] and this led to the strengthening of Turkish nationalism as a result. The nationalist movement of the Young Turks aimed for a secularized nation-state, and constitutional government in a parliamentary democracy.

The political party of the Young Turks, the Committee of Union and Progress, embraced Turanism, and a glorification of Turkish ethnic identity, and was devoted to protecting the Turkic peoples living under foreign rule (most of them under Russian rule as a result of Russia's enormous territorial expansion during the 16th and 19th centuries), and to restoring the Ottoman Empire's shattered national pride. [32]

The Turkish version of Turanism was summed up by American politicians at the time of First World War as follows: "It has been shown above that the Turkish version of Turanism contains two general ideas: (a) To purify and strengthen the Turkish nationality within the Ottoman Empire, and (b) to link up the Ottoman Turks with the other Turks in the world. These objects were first pursued in the cultural sphere by a private group of 'Intellectuals', and promoted by peaceful propaganda. After 1913, they took on a political form and were incorporated in the programme of the C.U.P.", [33] but Ottoman defeat in World War I briefly undermined the notion of Turanism. [34]

After World War I, Turkish nationalists and Turanists joined the Basmachi movement in Central Asia, to help their struggle against the Soviets. The most prominent amongst them was Enver Pasha, the former Ottoman war minister.

Turanism forms an important aspect of the ideology of the modern Turkish Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), whose youth movement is informally known as the Grey Wolves. Grey Wolf (the mother wolf Asena) was the main symbol of the ancient Turkic peoples.

In the wake of the Turkish-assisted victory by Azerbaijan in its war with Armenia in 2020, "a certain 'Turan' (greater Turkic world) euphoria took hold on social media," Tanchum, a senior fellow at the Austrian Institute for European and Security Policy and a non-resident fellow at the Middle East Institute in Washington, said. [35]

Americas

Some Pan-Turanists proposed that Native Americans may have possible genetic and linguistic connection with the Turkic and other nomadic tribes in Asia. They have pointed to Native American culture, dance, and customs as being similar to those found in Siberia and Northeast Asia, although since changed after the migration of the Native Americans from Siberia to the Americas; examples of Native American peoples whose customs are cited include Melungeon people, as well as the Inuit and Quechua. [36] [ dead link ‍]

Pseudoscientific theories

Turanism has been characterized by pseudoscientific theories. [37] [38] According to other opinions the scientific work of the scholar members (like Jenő Cholnoky, Lajos Ligeti, Zoltán Felvinczi Takács and others) of the Hungarian Turanian Society belonged to the frontline of the scientific life of the era. [39] According to the Turanian or Ural-Altaic kinship theories, "Turanians" include Bulgarians, Estonians, Mongols, Finns and Turks. [37] Though the underlying scientific theories are widely questioned or rejected in contemporary scholarship, Turanism still has extensive support in certain Turkic-speaking countries. Referred to as Pseudo-Turkologists, [40] these scholars stamp all Eurasian nomads and major civilizations in history as being of Turkic or Turanian origin. [41] In such countries, Turanism has served as a form of national therapy, helping its proponents cope with the failures of the past. [42]

See also

References and notes

  1. 1 2 3 Farkas, Ildikó (2013). "A magyar turanizmus török kapcsolatai" [The Turkish connections of Hungarian Turanism] (in Hungarian). www.valosagonline.hu [Valóság (2013 I.-IV)]. Retrieved 7 March 2014.
  2. ↑ Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm (1710). Brevis designatio meditationum de originibus gentium ductis potissimum ex indicio linguarum [A brief summary of the thoughts on the origins of the nations drawn mainly from the information of languages](PDF) (in Latin).
  3. ↑ Houtsma, M. Th.; Arnold, T.W.; Basset, R.; Hartmann, R., eds. (1913–1936). "Tūrān". Encyclopaedia of Islam (First ed.). doi:10.1163/2214-871X_ei1_COM_0206. an Iranian term applied to the country to the north-east of Iran.
  4. ↑ van Donzel, Emeri (1994). Islamic Reference Desk . Brill Academic. p.  461. ISBN   9789004097384. Iranian term applied to region lying to the northeast of Iran and ultimately indicating very vaguely the country of the Turkic peoples.
  5. ↑ "The languages of the seat of war in the East. With a survey of the three families of language, Semitic, Arian and Turanian". 1855. MÜLLER, Friedrich Max. The languages of the seat of war in the East. With a survey of the three families of language, Semitic, Arian and Turanian. Williams and Norgate, London, 1855. https://archive.org/details/languagesseatwa00mlgoog
  6. ↑ Müller, Friedrich Max (1854). Letters to Chevalier Bunsen on the classification of the Turanian languages. London: A. & G.A. Spottiswoode. Retrieved 30 September 2024.
  7. ↑ M. Antoinette Czaplicka, The Turks of Central Asia in History and at the Present Day, Elibron, 2010, p. 19.
  8. ↑ BROWN, Keith and OGILVIE, Sarah eds.:Concise Encyclopedia of Languages of the World. 2009. p. 722.
  9. ↑ EB on Matthias Alexander Castrén. http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/98799/Matthias-Alexander-Castren
  10. ↑ "Turancılık – (H. Nihal ATSIZ) – Ulu Türkçü Nihal ATSIZ Otağı – Türkçülük – Turancılık ve Hüseyin Nihal Atsız" [Turanism – (H. Nihal ATSIZ) – The Great Turkist Nihal ATSIZ Post – Turkism – Turanism and Hüseyin Nihal Atsız]. www.nihal-atsiz.com (in Turkish). 8 May 2016.
  11. ↑ Türkçülüğün Esasları pg.25 (Gökalp, Ziya)
  12. ↑ Stoddard, T. Lothrop (1917). "Pan-Turanism". American Political Science Review. 11 (1): 16. doi:10.2307/1944138. ISSN   0003-0554. JSTOR   1944138. S2CID   251097785.
  13. 1 2 SOMMER, Łukasz: Historical Linguistics Applied: Finno-Ugric Narratives in Finland and Estonia. in: The Hungarian Historical Review. Vol. 3. Issue 2. 2014. http://hunghist.org/images/volumes/Volume3_Issue_2/Lukasz.pdf
  14. ↑ PAASVIRTA, Juhani: Finland and Europe: The Period of Autonomy and the International Crises, 1808–1914 1981. p. 68.
  15. ↑ Anonymus: Gesta Hungarorum. http://mek.oszk.hu/02200/02245/02245.htm
  16. ↑ Kézai Simon mester Magyar krónikája. http://mek.oszk.hu/02200/02249/02249.htm
  17. ↑ Magyar Életrajzi Lexikon. http://mek.oszk.hu/00300/00355/html/index.html
  18. ↑ VINCZE Zoltán: Létay Balázs, a magyar asszirológia legszebb reménye http://www.muvelodes.ro/index.php/Cikk?id=155
  19. ↑ PORTIK Erzsébet-Edit: Erdélyi magyar kisebbségi sorskérdések a két világháború között. In: Iskolakultúra 2012/9. p. 60-66. http://epa.oszk.hu/00000/00011/00168/pdf/EPA00011_Iskolakultura_2012-9_060-066.pdf
  20. ↑ UHALLEY, Stephen and WU, Xiaoxin eds.: China and Christianity. Burdened Past, Hopeful Future. 2001. p. 219.
  21. ↑ FARKAS Ildikó: A Magyar-Nippon Társaság. In: Japanológiai körkép. 2007. http://real.mtak.hu/34745/1/Farkas_Magyar_Nippon_Tarsasag_u.pdf
  22. ↑ 1924. évi XVI. törvénycikk a Török Köztársasággal Konstantinápolyban 1923. évi december hó 18. napján kötött barátsági szerződés becikkelyezéséről. http://www.1000ev.hu/index.php?a=3&param=7599 Archived 2017-03-26 at the Wayback Machine
  23. ↑ 1938. évi XXIII. törvénycikk a szellemi együttműködés tárgyában Budapesten, 1937. évi október hó 13. napján kelt magyar-észt egyezmény becikkelyezéséről. http://www.1000ev.hu/index.php?a=3&param=8078 Archived 2016-03-04 at the Wayback Machine
  24. ↑ 1938. évi XXIX. törvénycikk a szellemi együttműködés tárgyában Budapesten, 1937. évi október hó 22. napján kelt magyar-finn egyezmény becikkelyezéséről. http://www.1000ev.hu/index.php?a=3&param=8084 Archived 2016-03-04 at the Wayback Machine
  25. ↑ 1940. évi I. törvénycikk a Budapesten, 1938. évi november hó 15. napján kelt magyar-japán barátsági és szellemi együttműködési egyezmény becikkelyezéséről. http://www.1000ev.hu/index.php?a=3&param=8115 Archived 2016-03-04 at the Wayback Machine
  26. ↑ 1941. évi XVI. törvénycikk a szellemi együttműködés tárgyában Szófiában az 1941. évi február hó 18. napján kelt magyar-bolgár egyezmény becikkelyezéséről. http://www.1000ev.hu/index.php?a=3&param=8169 Archived 2016-03-04 at the Wayback Machine
  27. ↑ "While Turanism was and remained little more than a fringe ideology of the Right, the second orientation of the national socialists, pan-Europaism, had a number of adherents, and was adopted as the platform of several national socialist groups." JANOS, Andrew C.: The Politics of Backwardness in Hungary, 1825–1945. 1982. p.275.
  28. ↑ Paksoy, H.B., ‘Basmachi’: Turkestan National Liberation Movement 1916-1930s – Modern Encyclopedia of Religions in Russia and the Soviet Union, Florida: Academic International Press, 1991, Vol. 4
  29. ↑ CSIRKÉS Ferenc: Nemzeti tudomány és nemzetközi politika Vámbéry Ármin munkásságában. http://www.matud.iif.hu/2013/08/07.htm
  30. ↑ ERICKSON, Edward J.: Ottomans and Armenians. 2013.
  31. ↑ GORECZKY Tamás: Egy görög-török konfliktus története a 19. századból – az 1896-97-es krétai válság az osztrák-magyar diplomáciai iratok tükrében http://real.mtak.hu/19319/1/17-GoretzkyTamas.pdf
  32. ↑ Caravans to Oblivion: The Armenian Genocide, 1915 (Hardcover) by G. S. Graber
  33. ↑ President (1913–1921 : Wilson). The Inquiry. 1917-12/1918 (1917–1918). Records of the American Commission to Negotiate Peace, 1914 – 1931. Series: Special Reports and Studies, 1917 – 1918. Series: Special Reports and Studies, 1917 – 1918 Record Group 256: Records of the American Commission to Negotiate Peace, 1914 – 1931. p. 7.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  34. ↑ Current History. Vol. 11. New York City: New York Times Company. 1920. p. 335.
  35. ↑ "Turkey's 'Turkic world' ambitions face reality check in Kazakhstan". Nikkei Asia. Retrieved 12 January 2022.
  36. ↑ "Turks and American Indians". 25 June 2008.[ dead link ]
  37. 1 2 Nagy, Zsolt (2017). Great Expectations and Interwar Realities: Hungarian Cultural Diplomacy, 1918–1941. Central European University Press. p. 98. ISBN   978-9633861943.
  38. ↑ "The Flowering of Pseudo-Science In Orbán's Hungary". Hungarian Spectrum . 13 August 2018.
  39. ↑ FAJCSÁK Györgyi: Keleti Művészeti Kiállítás. Keleti magángyűjtemények, kínai tárgyak a két világháború között Budapesten. In: Tanulmányok Budapest Múltjából. 34. 2009.http://epa.oszk.hu/02100/02120/00034/pdf/ORSZ_BPTM_TBM_34_185.pdf
  40. ↑ Frankle, Elanor (1948). Word formation in the Turkic languages. Columbia University Press. p. 2.
  41. ↑ Simonian, Hovann (2007). The Hemshin: History, Society and Identity in the Highlands of Northeast Turkey. Routledge. p. 354. ISBN   978-0230297326. Thus, ethnic groups or populations of the past (Huns, Scythians, Sakas, Cimmerians, Parthians, Hittites, Avars and others) who have disappeared long ago, as well as non-Turkic ethnic groups living in present-day Turkey, have come to be labeled Turkish, Proto-Turkish or Turanian
  42. ↑ Sheiko, Konstantin; Brown, Stephen (2014). History as Therapy: Alternative History and Nationalist Imaginings in Russia. ibidem Press. pp. 61–62. ISBN   978-3838265650. According to Adzhi, Huns, Alans, Goths, Burgundians, Saxons, Alemans, Angles, Langobards and many of the Russians were ethnic Turks (p. 161). The list of non-Turks is relatively short and seems to comprise only Jews, Chinese, Armenians, Greeks, Persians, and Scandinavians... Mirfatykh Zakiev, a Chairman of the Supreme Soviet of the Tatar ASSR and professor of philology who has published hundreds of scientific works, argues that proto-Turkish is the starting point of the Indo-European languages. Zakiev and his colleagues claim to have discovered the Tatar roots of the Sumerian, ancient Greek and Icelandic languages and deciphered Etruscan and Minoan writings.

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Turanian is an obsolete language-family proposal subsuming most of the languages of Eurasia not included in Indo-European, Semitic and Chinese. During the 19th century, inspired by the establishment of the Indo-European family, scholars looked for similarly widespread families elsewhere. Building on the work of predecessors such as Rasmus Rask and Matthias Castrén, Max Müller proposed the Turanian grouping primarily on the basis of the incidence of agglutinative morphology, naming it after Turan, an ancient Persian term for the lands of Central Asia. The languages he included are now generally assigned to nine separate language families.

The Turanian Society 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.

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nihal Atsız</span> Turkish writer and nationalist (1905–1975)

Hüseyin Nihâl Atsız was a prominent Turkish ultranationalist writer, novelist, and poet. Atsız self-identified as a racist, Pan-Turkist and Turanist. He later became a critic of Islam, calling it "a religion created by Arabs, for Arabs". He is the ideologue of Atsızism. He was the author of over 30 books and numerous articles and was in strong opposition to the government of İsmet İnönü, which he criticized for co-operating with the communists. He was accused of being a sympathizer of Nazi Germany and plotting to overthrow the Turkish government.

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nejdet Sançar</span>

Ahmet Necdet Sançar was a Turkish literature teacher, who became one of the prominent personalities of the Pan-Turkist ideology. He was the younger brother of another notable Turkish nationalist, Nihal Atsız.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Turkish nationalism</span>

Turkish nationalism is nationalism among the people of Turkey and individuals whose national identity is Turkish. Turkish nationalism consists of political and social movements and sentiments prompted by a love for Turkish culture, Turkish languages and history, and a sense of pride in Turkey and Turkish people. While national consciousness in Turkish nation can be traced back centuries, nationalism has been a predominant determinant of Turkish attitudes mainly since the 20th century. Modern Turkish nationalism rose during the Tanzimat era. It also has a complicated relationship with Muslim identity, Pan-Turkism, and Turanism.

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Turanid race</span> Outdated grouping of human beings

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.

<i>16 Great Turkic Empires</i> Concept in Turkish ethnic nationalism

The 16 Great Turkic Empires is a concept in Turkish ethnic nationalism, introduced in 1969 by Akib Özbek, map officer and widely invoked by Turkish authorities during the 1980s, under the government of Kenan Evren.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Great Kurultáj</span> Hungarian annual traditional event for peoples of Central Asian nomadic origins

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.

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.

Idealism, also known as Türkeşism is a Turkish–Islamic synthesist ideology developed by Alparslan Türkeş and the Nationalist Movement Party as a principle of the Nine Lights Doctrine.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Turkism Day</span>

Turkism Day or Turkists' Day is celebrated on 3 May since 1945 in memory of the rallies in defense of Nihal Atsız, who was prosecuted for defamation by Sabahattin Ali, whom Atsiz called a Soviet spy in an article he wrote. For the second hearing in his trial against Ali, Atsiz's supporters welcomed him arriving at Ankara train station, where they burned books by Ali and Nâzım Hikmet. The rally was mainly by racists and Turanists who shouted slogans against communists. During the trial, they massed in the courtroom, as well in front of the court. They later marched to Ulus Square where they eventually clashed with the police. Following the rally, many participants were arrested and some of them were defendants in the Racism Turanism trial. Reha Oğuz Türkkan, Atsız, Alparslan Türkeş, Nejdet Sançar and others, who were imprisoned in the Tophane Military prison, held a reunion on 3 May 1945 to remember the rallies in support of Atsız. This was the start of a 'Turkism Day' celebration; Turkism day is celebrated by the Turkish Hearths, the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), the Good Party, and other Turkish nationalist organizations. In 1967 the Union of Turkish Nationalists published a book in memory of Turkism day.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Racism-Turanism trials</span> Trials in Turkey

The Racism-Turanism trials were a series of legal prosecutions of defendants accused of spreading racist and pan-Turkist ideologies and attempting a coup on the Turkish government. The trials lasted between May 1944 and March 1947, and were triggered by nationalist demonstrations on 3 May 1944 in support of Nihal Atsız who was on trial against Sabahattin Ali for defamation. According to tried pan-Turkists as well as researchers like Edward Weisband and Uğur Mumcu, the trials were plotted to improve the relations between Turkey and the Soviet Union.

Atsızism is a far-right ideology based on the thoughts of Nihal Atsız, a Turkish ultranationalist writer and ideologue.

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