Turanism

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Very popular with Panturanists is showing all the flags of areas in which Ural-Altaic languages ​​are spoken - as here in Istanbul in 2009 .

The (Pan) Turanism ( Turkish Turancılık ) is a pseudo-historical ideology having a common origin of the Turkic , Finno-Ugrians , Mongolian and Manchurian Tungusian peoples assumes. The actual original home of this "Turanians" or "Turanid race" is Turan , a mythical landscape in Central Asia, beyond the Oxus ( Amu Darya ). At the same time, Turanism describes the endeavor to bring these peoples together into an intellectual and cultural unit. Turanism has irredentist traits and belongs to the so-called pan movements .

Turanism and Pan-Turkism

Distribution area of ​​the Turkic languages

Turanism or Pan-Turanism are often used as a synonym for the term Pan-Turkism, whose concept of unity is limited exclusively to Turkic peoples and does not include any Finno-Ugric, Mongolian or other peoples. Common to both is the myth of descent and the desire for cultural or political unity. Turanism and Pan-Turkism are variants of Turkish nationalism and have now largely lost their political significance.

history

Turanism first developed in Hungary in the first half of the 19th century as a reaction to Pan- Germanism and Pan-Slavism . Instrumental in the expression were Turcologists . One of these representatives was the Jewish-Hungarian traveler and Turkologist Ármin Vámbéry . In 1868 Sketches of Central Asia he dedicated a chapter to the "Turanians". Vambéry believed that all Turkish groups belonged to a single race . Three years earlier he had already conceptualized a Turkic empire. It should extend from the Adriatic to far into China. Later he should distance himself from this "chimera". It is possible that his good contacts with the top management of the Young Turks also contributed to the fact that the concept of Turanism found acceptance there. Another orientalist who had a great influence on the development of Turanism was Léon Cahun . Turanism was also favored by the Russian attacks against the various Turkic peoples in Central Asia in the 1860s and also by the treatment of the Turks in the newly formed Bulgaria. The general spread of the racial theory also contributed to the emergence of Turanism.

In Hungary , due to the ethnic peculiarities of Hungarians (at least the Hungarian language), the current of Turanism enjoyed great popularity among Slavic and other Indo-European peoples. From 1913 to 1970 a magazine called "Turan" appeared there regularly. There the “Turanian Society”, founded in 1918 and later renamed, pursued the goals of Turanism.

Protagonists

One of the best-known representatives of Turanist ideas was Ziya Gökalp , who drafted plans for a common Turan. His poem became particularly famous with the verse Vatan ne Türkiye'dir Türklere ne Türkistan, Vatan büyük ve müebbet bir ülkedir: Turan . The lines tell of Turan, the common fatherland of all Turks. Another outstanding representative of Turanism was the Turkish Jew Munis Tekinalp , who also designed concepts for the creation of Turan. In addition, there were a number of publicists and authors who propagated Turanism at that time. Examples are the Tatar Yusuf Akçura , Mehmet Emin Yurdakul with his poem Turana Doğru ("After Turan"), the novel by Halide Edip Adıvar with the title Yeni Turan ("New Turan"), Ömer Seyfettin's book about "Tomorrow's State of Turan" ( Yarınki Turan Devleti ) and Mehmet Fuat Köprülü's elementary school reading book with the title Turan . Many of the named later distanced themselves from Turanism. One of the most radical representatives of Turanism was Nihal Atsız , whose ideas were shaped by the superiority of the Turkish race. Turanist ideas, especially in the person of Enver Pasha, also influenced the Young Turkish leadership and favored entry into the war against Russia in the First World War .

First World War

As in all warring states, the outbreak of the First World War produced chauvinistic propaganda literature. Hatred of the "hereditary enemy Russia ", combined with the establishment of the Turan Empire, was in the foreground. Extremists announced a federal state that would encompass all countries inhabited by Turkic peoples as the next target. The ultimate goal was a “Groß-Turan” stretching from Japan to Norway and from Beijing to Vienna. After the conquest of the Caucasus, others wanted the establishment of a caliphate that included Turkestan , southern Siberia and the Pamirs : " Turkey will grow, will become Turan ". On the day of the declaration of war, the Young Turks declared themselves to annihilate the " Muscovite enemy ... in order to preserve a natural imperial border that includes and unites all our national comrades ". This resulted in the genocide of the Armenians , whose settlement area lies between that of the Turks of Asia Minor and the Azerbaijanis and was therefore "in the way" of a territorial unification of these Turkic peoples.

In April 1915, the Young Turks openly announced the conquest of all of Transcaucasia and the unification of all Turkic peoples under the Ottoman Sultan as their war aims .

In the course of the war, the most powerful man in the Ottoman Empire, Enver Pascha, became an increasingly fanatical advocate of Panturan ideas without giving up his Islamic views. He considered the thrust across the Caucasus to be the most promising for “ marching via Afghanistan to India ”, and in August 1915 dreamed of “ combining the 40 million Turks in one empire ”. Even if a permanent military occupation of "Turan" was not possible, it was hoped to "liberate" the Central Asian Turkic peoples in order to be able to enter into an alliance with them.

In the summer of 1918, because of the success in Baku , enthusiasm for Turan grew again in the country and the “Young Turkish Imperialists” could no longer be deterred from pursuing their Turan plans.

At the beginning of the war there was still a call for jihad , for the “holy war”, but towards the end of the war, pan-Turanism clearly gained in importance over pan-Islamism. Berlin, which had “cultivated” Pan-Islamism and Pan-Turanism for years, ultimately got a war target with him on its way to India. Even according to the German assessment, the Muslim Caucasians, Tatars and Turkmens were not interested in Turkish sovereignty because they wanted their independence.

literature

  • Jacob M. Landau : Pan-Turkism: From Irredentism to Cooperation. Hurst, London 1995, ISBN 1-85065-223-6 .
  • James H. Meyer: Turks Across Empires. Marketing Muslim Identity in the Russian-Ottoman Borderlands, 1856–1914. Oxford University Press, Oxford 2014, ISBN 978-0-19-872514-5 .
  • Berna Pekesen: Pan-Turkism . In: European History Online (EGO). Edited by the Leibniz Institute for European History (IEG). Mainz 2014.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ JM Landau in Encyclopaedia of Islam new edition, sv PAN-TURKISM
  2. ^ This differentiation was first made by AJ Toynbee: Report on the Pan-Turanian Movement 1917. S. 3f.
  3. ↑ Katy Schröder: Turkey in the shadow of nationalism. Hamburg 2003, p. 44.
  4. ^ Arminius (Hermann) Vambéry: Sketches of Central Asia 1868. pp. 282-312.
  5. ^ Arminius Hermann Vambéry: Travels in Central Asia 1871, pp. 485f.
  6. ^ Jacob M. Landau: Pan-Turkism: From Irredentism to Cooperation. 2nd edition, Hurst 1995, ISBN 1-85065-269-4 , p. 2.
  7. ^ Ibrahim Kaya: Social Theory and Later Modernities. Liverpool 2004, p. 60
  8. ^ Jacob M. Landau: Pan-Turkism: From Irredentism to Cooperation. 2nd edition, Hurst 1995, ISBN 1-85065-269-4 , p. 1.
  9. ↑ Gökalp in the newspaper Genç Kalemler 1911
  10. ↑ See Landau: Tekinalp: Turkish Patriot 1883–1961. Istanbul and Leiden 1984
  11. ↑ Gotthard Jäschke : The Turanism of the Young Turks. On Ottoman foreign policy in the world war . In: Die Welt des Islam 23 (1941), pp. 1–54, here pp. 7ff. And Lothar Krecker: Germany and Turkey in World War II. Klostermann Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1964, p. 207.
  12. ↑ Wolfdieter Bihl: The Caucasus Policy of the Central Powers. Part 1: Your basis in Orient politics and your actions 1914–1917 . Verlag Böhlau, Vienna 1975, p. 234.
  13. ↑ Wolfdieter Bihl: The Caucasus Policy of the Central Powers. Part 1: Your basis in Orient politics and your actions 1914–1917 . Verlag Böhlau, Vienna 1975, pp. 155 and 242.
  14. ↑ Werner Zürrer: Caucasus 1918–1921. The struggle of the great powers for the land bridge between the Black and Caspian Seas . Verlag Droste, Düsseldorf 1978, ISBN 3-7700-0515-5 , p. 79.
  15. ↑ Werner Zürrer: Caucasus 1918–1921. The struggle of the great powers for the land bridge between the Black and Caspian Seas . Verlag Droste, Düsseldorf 1978, ISBN 3-7700-0515-5 , pp. 117ff. As well as Wolfdieter Bihl: The Caucasus Policy of the Central Powers. Part 1: Your basis in Orient politics and your actions 1914–1917 . Verlag Böhlau, Vienna 1975, p. 244f.