Epic of Ergenekon

[6] According to academics such as the Russian linguist Zoriktuev, who attribute the myth originally to Mongolic peoples, the name was derived from the Argun River (Ergune) and kun, which in the Old Mongolian language meant a high plateau with steep slopes.

They were finally released when a blacksmith created a passage by melting the mountain, allowing the gray wolf Asena to lead them out.

In 1864 Ahmed Vefik Pasha translated Shajara-i Turk into the Ottoman language under the title Şecere-i Evşâl-i Türkiyye,[17] published in Tasvir-i Efkâr newspaper.

[26] The myth itself was a story about the survival of the Turkic people who, faced with extinction, were able to escape with the help of their totem god, the bozkurt "wolf".

Even the renowned Turkish dissident poet Nazim Hikmet lauded Mustafa Kemal Atatürk as a "blonde wolf" in the poem titled Kuva-yi Milliye.

While the original Ergenekon myth was about the survival of the ancient Turkic people, in its Republican form it carried the symbolism of Turkey's national self-determination.