Pan-Turkism: From Irredentism to Cooperation / Edition 2 available in Paperback
Pan-Turkism: From Irredentism to Cooperation / Edition 2
- ISBN-10:
- 0253209609
- ISBN-13:
- 9780253209603
- Pub. Date:
- 11/22/1995
- Publisher:
- Indiana University Press
- ISBN-10:
- 0253209609
- ISBN-13:
- 9780253209603
- Pub. Date:
- 11/22/1995
- Publisher:
- Indiana University Press
Pan-Turkism: From Irredentism to Cooperation / Edition 2
Paperback
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Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780253209603 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Indiana University Press |
| Publication date: | 11/22/1995 |
| Edition description: | 2nd Revised, Updated Edition |
| Pages: | 275 |
| Product dimensions: | 5.25(w) x 8.50(h) x (d) |
| Age Range: | 18 Years |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
Pan-Turkism: From Irredentism to Cooperation
By Jacob M. Landau
Indiana University Press
Copyright © 1995 Jacob M. LandauAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-253-32869-4
CHAPTER 1
THE OUTSIDE TURKS: THE RISE AND FALL OF PAN-TURKISM ABROAD
The Dis Tiirkler, or 'Outside Turks', is a term frequently employed by Pan-Turkists in Turkey in recent years; it covers a wide range of groups comprising people of Turkic origins. At least some of them have been in close contact with the Turks for many centuries. During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, most such groups living outside the borders of the Ottoman Empire resided in Czarist Russia. Imbued with a new brand of nationalism, a handful of intellectuals among these Turkic groups in Russia planted and nurtured the seeds of Pan-Turk ideology. This chapter briefly describes and examines the development of Pan-Turkism in Russia and the Soviet Union, a topic which has been considered, to some extent, by other works as well (not all of which have been equally objective and scholarly).
The most prominent Turkic groups during that period were the Volga Tatars, Crimea Tatars, Kazakhs, Turkmens, Uzbeks, Kirghiz and Azeris, although there were Turkic elements among the Tajiks as well. Virtually all were Muslims. While precise demographic figures are not available, and estimates vary considerably, the Russian census of 1897 indicated their total number as 13,600,000 out of a total population of 125,600,000, i.e. almost 11 per cent. In their own areas, of course, these groups predominated, although, as a rule, they shared them with others, especially Russian settlers. Russian rule in Central Asia, imposed only during the nineteenth century, was essentially bearable thanks to the remoteness of the central government and the insufficiency and inefficiency of local control. As the economic situation in these areas did not change for the worse during the late nineteenth century, local grievances were generally not of an economic nature. At that time, however, two main trends in the relations of the Russian authorities with Turkic groups (and several others) became increasingly evident: Christianisation and Russification. Many of these Turkic people reacted by standing more strongly by their faith and national origins; Islam and Turkism, both separately and jointly, were their rallying points. As the Turkic groups were rather isolated from others, their search for potential allies lay naturally within the parameters of Pan-Islam, Pan-Turkism, or both. Pan-Islam was especially available and convenient, because of the relative proximity of the Ottoman Empire, whose Sultan Abdul Hamid II was partial to Pan-Islam and had been attempting to foster it since the late nineteenth century. Pan-Turkism, however, was more of an innovation, not easily grasped by the uneducated. It was largely conditioned by the development of nationalism in Southeastern Europe in the late nineteenth century; in this particular case it was further encouraged by the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-8, with the attendant suffering of the defeated Turks at the hands of Russian and Bulgarian troops.
The concept of a common origin for all Turkic groups (bolstered by racial 'proofs' which look odd nowadays), leading to the possibility — and desirability — of a future union, was largely a response to Pan-Slavism and its pressures (such as Russification). This was especially relevant in the light of the increase in Pan-Slavist activities in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, as demonstrated for example in the policies of Izvolskiy. Pan-Slavism was directed primarily against the Germans, especially because, even after 1871, there were still several strong undercurrents of public opinion in the new German state, declaring that German unity was not yet complete. However, a secondary target of attack for Pan-Slavist propaganda was the Ottoman Empire, as expressed, for example, in an aggressive book by I. de Malkhazouny, Le Panslavisme et la question d'Orient, which claimed that 'Turkey will disappear from the political scene of Europe ... The Southern Slav race will acquire the heritage of the Oriental Empire ... The Southern Slavs will sit upon the Throne of the Levant ...'
Thus, although the concept of Pan-Turkism was original, many of the tactics — and even some of its terms — were largely borrowed from Pan-Slavism. It is therefore highly understandable why those who took the lead in initiating and propagating Pan-Turkism were Tatars, i.e. the very group which had been longest under Russian rule. Furthermore, the Tatars were most heavily subjected to the pressures accompanying Christianisation and Russification. The Crimea Tatars in particular lived in relative proximity to the Turkish population of the Ottoman Empire, thus providing greater opportunities for the latter to influence them. Moreover, they were surrounded by non-Tatars and their only hope of survival as an entity was rapprochement with other Turkic groups. A large and active bourgeoisie had been developing among the Tatars since the end of the seventeenth century, capable of leading the nationalist awakening from the late nineteenth century on. Pan-Turkism provided a convenient ideological basis for this bourgeoisie's commercial rivalry with the Russians, as Bennigsen and Quelquejay have pointed out. In addition, Tatar intellectuals were the first to grasp that, since Turkic groups were not contiguous geographically, some other element should be selected and developed to bring them closer to one another. The linguistic element was obviously the first choice, as languages were similar, although not identical, among these groups, and intellectuals could communicate in a sort of 'High Turkish'. The main difficulty in this respect was that vernaculars often varied markedly, and literacy rates were very low. Not unexpectedly, increasing literacy and the creation of a common language for cultural rapprochement became the order of the day as a first step towards union. In consequence, education, language reform, and journalistic propaganda were focal activities of Tatar nationalist intellectuals. The prevalent printing presses in Southern Russia and Central Asia during the second half of the nineteenth century assisted in the dissemination of ideas amongst Tatars and others, thus encouraging publication of periodicals and other works.
One man whose life work exemplified such activities was Ismail Gasprinsky (or Gasparinsky), better known in Turkey as Gaspirali (1851-1914). Bom in Gaspara, in the Crimea, he was highly active in all three above-mentioned domains — education, language-reform, and journalism. Gasprinsky, a schoolmaster and one-time mayor of the Tatar town of Bahfesaray, had studied in Russia, Turkey and France. He fought simultaneously against two powerful adversaries: the Russian government and the Muslim mullahs. With both he had to tread cautiously, as the Russian authorities disapproved of any Tatar renaissance; while Islam was strongly entrenched among the masses and served as a powerful bond between them. Noting that Tatar intellectuals were fluent in Russian or French, rather than in their own language, and that a major portion of the five-or six-year Tatar school curriculum concentrated on Arabic and the Koran, Gasprinsky devised 'a new [that is, modem] system' (usul-i cedid), first experimenting with it in 1884 at a Bahçesaray school. Reforming both the curriculum and the methods, he introduced the Turkish language together with Arabic. The system was subsequently adopted by other schools in Tatar centres and elsewhere. Graduates of schools which employed the new system proved to be better equipped for advanced studies (including university) than did those who had studied at institutions which did not opt for reform.
An achievement of Gasprinsky which had no less impact was his journalistic activity. The spread of printing presses among the Tatars and other Turkic groups had already brought about a substantial increase in the publication of books and circulation of periodicals, most of which had little, if anything, to do with politics. However, the very availability of newsprint, together with the increase in literacy, afforded an opportunity for preaching of nationalist ideas, both local and Pan-Turk in nature. In this context, a special role was played by Gasprinsky's journal, started on 10 April 1883, and named Tercüman (Interpreter). This was the most important, although not the only journal published by the Turkic groups in Russia. Its first issue promised to acquaint readers with the knowledge required for national needs. It indeed accomplished all this — and more, fostering interest in educational reform, social affairs, and modern science. Careful not to antagonise the mullahs (and even attempting to win them over), it advocated secular nationalism with very definite Pan-Turk nuances. Pan-Turk sentiment was expressed cautiously, due to official press censorship, focusing chiefly upon the oft-repeated phrase: 'unity in language, thought and action' (Dilde, fikirde, iste birlik).
Briefly stated, Gasprinsky's basic approach in advocating PanTurkism was to work for a union of all the Turkic groups in Russia, under the spiritual guidance of Turkey, based upon a culture rejuvenated by a common language — a modified version of Crimean Tatar. The emphasis on language was not accidental; Gasprinsky's usul-i cedid curriculum reform and journal Tercüman both advocated a common language as a top-priority means of rapprochement (implying subsequent union) among all Turkic peoples. As dialect differences consisted chiefly of vocabulary variations, a special effort was made to 'purify' the language of foreign words, such as those of Russian, Arabic, or Persian origins — which presumably were employed in only a part of the Turkic languages — and substitute for them others of Turkish or Turkic origin as used in the Ottoman Empire, also the object of linguistic reform. A parallel effort (apparently less successful) was directed at minimising phonological diversity. The result was a language somewhere between Ottoman Turkish and Tatar, reasonably comprehensible to both groups and to others as well. This hybrid, called 'the Common Language' (Lisan-i umumî), was one of the factors contributing to the success of Tercüman, which reached not only Southern Russia, but also Central Asia and Eastern Turkestan, with a circulation of about 5,000 in the 1880s, and 6,000 some twenty years later, an impressive figure for that time. This emboldened its contributors as well as those of similar publications in Tatar and other Turkic areas to speak more openly about the objectives of Pan-Turkism. Tercüman advocated with increasing frankness a union of all 'Turkish peoples' in Russia. A report of the Russian secret police, the Okhrana, shows that they had then correctly surmised that the Islamic propaganda of this and other journals was being used as a cover for Pan-Turkism. Indeed, the theme of Pan-Turkism, along with that of language reform, was taken up, after 1905, by other Tatar journals, several Azeri ones (to be discussed later) or, in the years immediately preceding the First World War, by such Uzbek periodicals as Turan and Bukhoro-i Sarif, both of which were closed down in 1913 (the former after forty-nine issues, the latter after 153).
Nationalist sentiment, with Pan-Turk overtones, thus found support among several of the Turkic groups in Russia, varying in both content and form in different areas. For example, Gasprinsky's strongly secularist stand was opposed by those who considered Islam a meaningful common bond, while his Pan-Turk propaganda was rejected by the 'Young Tatars' wishing to liberate the Tatars via a revolution against Czarist autocracy. Anyway, the awakening of nationalist sentiment, with its concomitant variations, was propelled into the arena of practical politics by the 1904-5 Russo-Japanese war (in which the former's weakness was revealed, in its defeat by an Asiatic state) and then by the proclamation of the constitution, the convocation of the 1905 Duma and the events which followed it. Earlier, Gasprinsky had promoted the creation of philanthropic societies as an organisational framework. Ostensible démocratisation and liberalisation in 1905 prompted several Turkic intellectuals to more concerted action. From that time on, political aspirations became more pronounced, as expressed in a series of public meetings among leaders of the various groups, wherein intellectuals generally had the major say. The first such Congress met at Nidzhni-Novgorod, between 15 and 28 August 1905, and was attended by approximately 150 delegates, mostly from the middle or upper bourgeoisie. Gasprinsky was one of the chairmen and Tatars predominated, although Azeris and other Turkic groups from Turkestan, Siberia and Inner Russia were very much in evidence. The Congress was presented as a Muslim gathering; the first of its resolutions demanded union (Ittifak) of all Russia's Muslims, which would strive to obtain reforms similar to those demanded by the young liberal bourgeoisie in Russia. The Congress also decided to set up a permanent organisation of all Muslims in Russia, dividing them into sixteen districts, each with an elected local assembly (meclis) of its own, while the union's Central Assembly was to meet in Baku. In practice, although several local meetings were held, only the Kazan Assembly functioned regularly.
A second Congress, with Gasprinsky presiding, met in St. Petersburg, between 13 and 23 January 1906, with the participation of some 100 Tatar, Kirghiz, Crimean and Caucasian delegates. The Congress resolved to establish the 'Union of the Muslims of Russia' (Russiya Müsülmanlarmm Ittifaki), which appeared from the outset to be chiefly an association of Tatar and Azeri nationalists, rather than a true representation of the Empire's Muslims. Much of this Congress's time was taken up in arguing over which common attitude members should adopt in the Duma.
The third Congress met, near Nidzhni-Novgorod, between 16 and 20 August 1906, with Kazan Tatars predominating once again: the presiding committee's fourteen members comprised ten Volga Tatars, one Crimean Tatar (Gasprinsky), one Azeri, one Kazakh and one Turkestani (who was also a Tatar in fact). Turkestanis had shown considerable interest in Pan-Turkism during those years, although they hardly participated actively in these Congresses. The third Congress decided to transform the Ittifak into a political party, with the programme adopted at the Second Congress as its platform.
The party, whose full name was 'the Union of Muslims' (Ittifakul-Muslimin), had to act with caution. It sponsored the formation of literary, educational and philanthropic societies, such as the Society for Assisting the Cultural Development of Muslims, established in the Khanskaya Stavka of Astrakhan, whose main declared aim was to unite all Muslims in Russia under the banner of a common language. Most of these societies were organised along similar lines and cooperated in their political moves, expressed in such journals as Vakit (Time) of Orenburg and Sada (Voice) of Baku.
The Tatars had been very active in the three Congresses, the Union of Muslims and the Duma. Their failure to recruit wide support for their Pan-Turkist organisational plans among other Turkic groups in Russia was probably due no less to objective factors (such as the vast distances separating these groups), than to their inability to set up an effective political organisation. This was only partly offset by the zeal which inspired Tatar spokesmen, as such enthusiasm raised doubts among others regarding the feasibility of an equal partnership in the future. Even though the resolutions of all three Congresses dealt with 'Muslims', the misgivings aroused were not dispelled. Consequently, during the decade before the defeat of the Russian Empire and the overthrow of the Czar, nationalist propaganda among Turkic groups was promulgated mostly through the press and other publications. The number of periodicals issued rose impressively: some 250 were published by Turkic groups between 1905 and 1917. Many of the journals published in Russian Central Asia during the period immediately preceding the First World War were short-lived. Nevertheless, they served to heighten interest in politics.
Difficulties in engaging in active politics were further compounded by the tightening of government control. At first, press censorship was none too effective, principally because Russian censors were rarely fluent in the Turkic languages. Over the years, however, government supervision became increasingly thorough, and nationalist editors and journalists had to emigrate, along with their periodicals. Some were prudent enough to leave of their own free will; others were exiled. Several settled in the Ottoman Empire, or at least maintained close relations with similarly-inclined circles there, thus making a substantial contribution to the development of Pan-Turkism in Turkey itself.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Pan-Turkism: From Irredentism to Cooperation by Jacob M. Landau. Copyright © 1995 Jacob M. Landau. Excerpted by permission of Indiana University Press.
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