Pan-Turkism
Pan-Turkism (Turkish: Pan-Türkizm) or Turkism (Turkish: Türkçülük or Türkizm) is a political movement that emerged during the 1880s among Turkic intellectuals who lived in the Russian region of Kazan (Tatarstan), South Caucasus (modern-day Azerbaijan) and the Ottoman Empire (modern-day Turkey), with its aim being the cultural and political unification of all Turkic peoples.
[10] Although many of the Turkic peoples share historical, cultural and linguistic roots, the rise of a pan-Turkic political movement is a phenomenon of the 19th and 20th centuries.
[11] Ottoman poet Ziya Gökalp defined pan-Turkism as a cultural, academic, and philosophical[12] and political[13] concept advocating the unity of Turkic peoples.
[20] Yusuf Akçura published "Three Types of Policy" (Üç tarz-ı siyaset) anonymously in 1904, the earliest manifesto of a pan-Turkic nationalism.
Leaders like Mustafa Kemal Atatürk acknowledged that such a goal was impossible, replacing pan-Turkic idealism with a form of nationalism which aimed to preserve the existence of an Anatolian nucleus.
[22][23] The Pan-Turkist movements gained some momentum in the 1940s, due to the support which it received from Nazi Germany, which sought to use Pan-Turkism as leverage in order to undermine Russian influence in an effort to acquire the resources of Central Asia during the course of World War II.
[27] Alparslan Türkeş, a leading pan-Turkist, took a pro-Hitler position during the war[28] and developed close connections with Nazi leaders in Germany.
[32] While Erkilet discussed military contingencies, Nuri Pasha told the Germans about his plan to establish independent states which would be allies (not satellites) of Turkey.
These states would be formed by the Turkic-speaking populations which lived in Crimea, Azerbaijan, Central Asia, northwestern Iran, and northern Iraq.
On a less-official level, Turkic emigrants from the Soviet Union played a crucial role in negotiations and contacts between Turkey and Germany; among them were prominent pan-Turkic activists like Zeki Velidi Togan, Mammed Amin Rasulzade, Mirza Bala, Ahmet Caferoĝlu, Sayid Shamil and Ayaz İshaki.
Several Tatar military units which consisted of Turkic speakers from the Turco-Tatar and Caucasian regions of the USSR who had previously been prisoners of war of the Germans joined them and fought against the Soviets, the members of these Tatar military units generally fought as guerrillas in the hope that they would be able to secure the independence of their homelands and establish a pan-Turkic union.
Some view the young Turk leaders who believed that they could reclaim the prestige of the Ottoman Empire by espousing the pan-Turkist ideology as racist and chauvinistic.
[38] Its claims are based on the belief that current Armenia was ruled by Turkic tribes and states from the Late Middle Ages to the Treaty of Turkmenchay which was signed after the 1826–1828 Russo-Persian War.
The concept has been sanctioned by the government of Azerbaijan and its current president, Ilham Aliyev, who has said that Armenia is part of ancient Turkic, Azerbaijani land.
[45] This romantic thought led to the founding of nostalgic literary works, known as the "literature of longing"; examples amongst this genre are, for instance, Foggy Tabriz by Mammed Said Ordubadi, and The Coming Day by Mirza Ibrahimov.
[45] Azerbaijani president Abulfaz Elchibey (1992–93) devoted his life to carrying out this mission, and he, in tandem with other pan-Turkist elites, went on a campaign for the ethnic awakening of Iranian Azeris.
[45] In 1995-1996, according to one survey of the Azerbaijani press, the question of Iranian Azeris was covered more than any other topic by state-controlled and independent outlets in the young republic of Azerbaijan.
[52] Ahmad Kazemi, the author of the book Security in South Caucasus, told Iran's Strategic Council on Foreign Relations in a 2021 interview that "Azerbaijan is seeking to establish the so-called pan-Turkish illusionary Zangezur corridor in south of Armenia under the pretext of creating connectivity in the region", arguing that "this corridor is not compatible with any of the present geopolitical and historical realities of the region".
[65][66] A leading light among them is Murad Adzhi, who insists that two hundred thousand years ago, "an advanced people of Turkic blood" were living in the Altai Mountains.
These tall and blond Turks are supposed to have founded the world's first state, Idel-Ural, 35,000 years ago, and to have migrated as far as the Americas.
[65] According to theories like the Turkish History Thesis, promoted by pseudo-scholars, the Turkic peoples are supposed to have migrated from Central Asia to the Middle East in the Neolithic.
[64][65][66][67] The Kurgan cultures of the early Bronze Age up to more recent times are also typically ascribed to Turkic peoples by pan-Turkic pseudoscholars, such as Ismail Miziev.
[65] Philologist Mirfatyh Zakiev, former chairman of the Supreme Soviet of the Tatar ASSR, has published hundreds of "scientific" works on the subject, suggesting Turkic origins of the Sumerian, Greek, Icelandic, Etruscan and Minoan languages.
[65] Not only peoples and cultures, but also prominent individuals, such as Saint George, Peter the Great, Mikhail Kutuzov and Fyodor Dostoevsky, are proclaimed to have been "of Turkic origin".
[73] Several Turkish academics (Şevket Koçsoy, Özkan İzgi, Emel Esin) claim that Zhou dynasty were of Turkic origins.
[69] Often associated with Greek, Assyrian and Armenian genocide denial, pan-Turkic pseudoscience has received extensive state and state-backed non-governmental support, and is taught all the way from elementary school to the highest level of universities in such countries.
[78] Konstantin Sheiko and Stephen Brown explain the reemergence of such pseudo-history as a form of national therapy, helping its proponents cope with the failures of the past.
