Turanism

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Turanism, or Pan-Turanism, is a political movement for the union of all Turanian peoples. It implies not merely the unity of all Turkic peoples (as in Pan-Turkism), but also the unity of Turks with Mongols, Tungus, Koreans, Japanese, Hungarians, Finns, Estonians, and Ryukyuans. Therefore, Turanism is the collective inclusion of all peoples who are controversially put together as the Ural-Altaic group, and so can be understood as "pan-Altaicism". Ural-Altaic linguistic hypothesis, now often disputed, inspired the emergence of Hungarian and Japanese branches of the Turanian Society in the 1920s and 1930s.

Origins of Pan-Turanianism

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.

…they (the Turks) could form a political entity stretching from the Altai Mountains in Eastern Asia to the Bosphorus.

Criticism

The political party of the Young Turks, Ittihad ve Teraki (the Turkish Committee of Union and Progress), espoused the notion of Turanism, a mythic glorification of Turkish ethnic identity, and was devoted to restoring Ottoman Empire's shattered national pride.

Turanism forms an important aspect of the ideology of the Turkish Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), whose members are informally known as Grey Wolves. Grey Wolf (the mother wolf Asena) was the main symbol of the ancient Altaic people.

According to Kaveh Farrokh,

Pan-Turanianism, like Nazi “racial sciences”, or Stalinist “History”, has failed to convince the majority of western scholarship to its cause, and has been as equally unsuccessful in Eastern Europe, with the exception of Hungary and the Republic of Azerbaijan.

Key personalities

References and notes

Further reading

Atabaki, Touraj (2000). Azerbaijan: Ethnicity and the Struggle for Power in Iran.
Farrokh, Kaveh (2005) Pan-Turanianism takes aim at Azerbaijan: A geopolitical agenda.
Landau, J.M. (1995). Pan-Turkism: From Irredentism to Cooperation. London: Hurst.
Lewis, B. (1962). The Emergence of Modern Turkey. London: Oxford University Press.
Lewis, B. (1998). The Multiple identities of the Middle East. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson.
Paksoy, H.B. (1991). ‘Basmachi’: TurkestanNational Liberation Movement 1916-1930s. In Modern Encyclopedia of Religions in Russia and the Soviet Union (Vol 4). Florida: Academic International Press.
Poulton, H. (1997). Top Hat, Grey Wolf, and Crescent: Turkish Nationalism and the Turkish Republic. London, England: Hurst.
Richards, G. (1997). ‘Race’, Racism and Psychology: Towards a Reflexive History. Routledge.
Richards Martin, Macaulay Vincent, Hickey Eileen, Vega Emilce, Sykes Bryan, Guida Valentina, Rengo Chiara, Sellitto Daniele, Cruciani Fulvio, Kivisild Toomas, Villerns Richard, Thomas Mark, Rychkov Serge, Rychkov Oksana, Rychkov Yuri, Golge Mukaddes, Dimitrov Dimitar, Hill Emmeline, Bradley Dan, Romano Valentino, Cail Francesco, Vona Giuseppe, Demaine Andrew, Papiha Surinder, Triantaphyllides Costas, Stefanescu Gheorghe, Hatina Jiri, Belledi Michele, Di Rienzo Anna, Novelletto Andrea, Oppenheim Ariella, Norby Soren, Al-Zaheri Nadia, Santachiara-Benerecetti Silvana, Scozzari Rosaria, Torroni Antonio, & Bandelt Hans Jurgen. (2000). Tracing European founder lineages in the Near Eastern mtDNA pool. American Journal of Human Genetics, 67, p.1251-1276.
Said, E. (1979). Orientalism. New York: Vintage Books.
Searle-White, J. (2001). The Psychology of Nationalism. Palgrave Macmillan.
Toynbee, A.J. (1917). Report on the Pan-Turanian Movement. London: Intelligence Bureau Department of Information, Admiralty, L/MIL/17/16/23.
Zenkovsky, S. A. (1960). Pan-Turkism and Islam in Russia. Cambridge-Massachusetts: Harvard University Press.
Zeman, Zbynek & Scharlau, Winfried (1965), The merchant of revolution. The life of Alexander Israel Helphand (Parvus). London: Oxford University Press. See especially pages 125-144. ISBN 0192111620 ISBN 978-0192111623

External links

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