Pan-Turkism
Pan-Turkism or Turkism is a political movement that emerged during the 1880s among Turkic intellectuals who lived in the Russian region of Kazan, South Caucasus and the Ottoman Empire, with its aim being the cultural and political unification of all Turkic peoples. Turanism is a closely related movement but it is a more general term, because Turkism only applies to Turkic peoples. However, researchers and politicians who are steeped in the pan-Turkic ideology have used these terms interchangeably in many sources and works of literature.
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. Ottoman poet Ziya Gökalp defined pan-Turkism as a cultural, academic, and philosophical and political concept advocating the unity of Turkic peoples. Ideologically, it was premised on social Darwinism. Pan-Turkism has been characterized by pseudoscientific theories known as Pseudo-Turkology.
Name
In research literature, "pan-Turkism" is used to describe the political, cultural and ethnic unity of all Turkic people. "Turkism" began to be used with the prefix "pan-".Proponents use the latter as a point of comparison, since "Turkic" is a linguistic, ethnic and cultural distinction rather than a citizenship description. This differentiates it from "Turkish", which is the term which is officially used in reference to citizens of Turkey. Pan-Turkic ideas and reunification movements have become popular since the collapse of the Soviet Union in Central Asian and other Turkic countries.
History
Development and spread
In 1804, the Tatar theologian Ghabdennasir Qursawi wrote a treatise calling for the modernization of Islam. Qursawi was a Jadid. The Jadids encouraged critical thinking, supported education and advocated the equality of the sexes, advocated tolerance of other faiths, advocated Turkic cultural unity, and advocated openness to Europe’s cultural legacy. The Jadid movement was founded in 1843 in Kazan. Its aim was the implementation of a semi-secular modernization program and the implementation of an educational reform program, both programs would emphasize the national identity of the Turks. Before they founded their movement in 1843, the Jadids considered themselves Muslim subjects of the Russian Empire, a belief which they held until the Jadid movement disbanded.After they joined the Wäisi movement, the Jadids advocated national liberation. After 1907, many supporters of Turkic unity immigrated to the Ottoman Empire.
The newspaper Türk in Cairo was published by exiles from the Ottoman Empire after the suspension of the Ottoman constitution of 1876 and the persecution of liberal intellectuals. It was the first publication to use the ethnic designation as its title. Yusuf Akçura published "Three Types of Policy" anonymously in 1904, the earliest manifesto of a pan-Turkic nationalism. Akçura argued that the supra-ethnic union espoused by the Ottomans was unrealistic. The Pan-Islamic model had advantages, but Muslim populations were under colonial rule which would oppose unification. He concluded that an ethnic Turkish nation would require the cultivation of a national identity; a pan-Turkish empire would abandon the Balkans and Eastern Europe in favor of Central Asia. The first publication of "Three Types of Policy" had a negative reaction, but it became more influential by its third publication in 1911 in Istanbul. The Ottoman Empire had lost its African territory to the Kingdom of Italy and it would soon lose the Balkans. Pan-Turkish nationalism consequently became a more feasible political strategy.
In 1908, the Committee of Union and Progress came to power in Ottoman Turkey, and the empire adopted a nationalistic ideology. This contrasted with its largely Muslim ideology which dated back to the 16th century, when the sultan was the caliph of his Muslim lands. Leaders who espoused Pan-Turkism fled from Russia and moved to Istanbul, where a strong pan-Turkic movement arose; the Turkish pan-Turkic movement grew and transformed itself into a nationalistic, ethnically oriented movement which sought to replace the caliphate with a state. After the fall of the Ottoman Empire, some of them tried to replace the multi-cultural and multi-ethnic empire with a Turkish commonwealth, the advocates of this idea were influenced by the nationalism of the Young Turks. 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.
The Türk Yurdu Dergisi was founded in 1911 by Akçura. This was the most important Turkist publication of the time, "in which, along with other Turkic exiles from Russia, attempted to instill a consciousness about the cultural unity of all Turkic peoples of the world."
In 1923, Ziya Gökalp, famous poet and theorician of Turkism ideology, wrote his book The Principles of Turkism and idealized the unity of Turkic peoples by calling Turan as a goal of Turkism.
A significant early exponent of pan-Turkism was Enver Pasha, the Ottoman Minister of War and acting commander-in-chief during World War I. He later became a leader of the Basmachi movement against Russian and Soviet rule in Central Asia. During World War II, the Nazis founded a Turkestan Legion which was primarily composed of soldiers who hoped to establish an independent Central Asian state after the war. The German intrigue bore no fruit.
When the Turkish Republic was established under the leadership of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk in 1923, interest in Pan-Turkism declined, because Atatürk promoted Turkish nationalism within Turkey. 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. The development of pan-Turkist and anti-Soviet ideology, in some circles, was influenced by Nazi propaganda during this period. Some sources claim that Nihal Atsız advocated Nazi doctrines and adopted a Hitler-style haircut. Alparslan Türkeş, a leading pan-Turkist, took a pro-Hitler position during the war and developed close connections with Nazi leaders in Germany. Several pan-Turkic groups in Europe apparently had ties to Nazi Germany at the start of the war, if not earlier. The Turco-Tatars in Romania cooperated with the Iron Guard, a Romanian fascist organisation. Although the Turkish government's archives which date back to the World War II years have not been declassified, the level of contact can be ascertained from German archives. A ten-year Turco-German treaty of friendship was signed in Ankara on 18 January 1941. Official and semi-official meetings between German ambassador Franz von Papen and other German officials and Turkish officials, including General H. E. Erkilet took place in the second half of 1941 and the early months of 1942. The Turkish officials included General Ali Fuad Erdem and Nuri Pasha, brother of Enver Pasha.
Pan-Turkists were not supported by the Turkish government during this time and on 19 May 1944, İsmet İnönü made a speech in which he condemned Pan-Turkism as "a dangerous and sick demonstration of the latest times" going on to say that the Turkish Republic was "facing efforts hostile to the existence of the Republic" and those who advocate these ideas "will only bring trouble and disaster". Nihal Atsız and other prominent pan-Turkist leaders were tried and sentenced to imprisonment for conspiring against the government. Zeki Velidi Togan was sentenced to ten years imprisonment and four years in internal exile, Reha Oğuz Türkkan was sentenced to five years and ten months in prison and two years in exile, Nihal Atsız was sentenced to six years, six months and 15 days in prison and 3 years in exile. Others were sentenced to prison terms which only ranged from a few months to four years in length. But the defendants appealed the convictions and in October 1945, the sentences of all the convicted were abolished by the Military Court of Cassation.
While Erkilet discussed military contingencies, Nuri Pasha told the Germans about his plan to establish independent states which would be allies of Turkey. These states would be formed by the Turkic-speaking populations which lived in Crimea, Azerbaijan, Central Asia, northwestern Iran, and northern Iraq. Nuri Pasha offered to assist Nazi Germany's propaganda efforts on behalf of this cause. However, Turkey's government also feared for the survival of the Turkic minorities in the USSR and it told von Papen that it could not join Germany until the USSR was crushed. The Turkish government may have been apprehensive about Soviet might, which kept the country out of the war. 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. The units, which were reinforced, numbered several hundred thousand. Turkey took a cautious approach at the government level, but pan-Turkists were angered by the Turkish government's inaction because they believed that it was wasting a golden opportunity to achieve the goals of pan-Turkism.