A Manual on the Turanians and Pan-Turanianism
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I . L LD. 1199 MANUAL ON THE TURANIANS AND PAN-TURANIANISM Compiled by the Geographical Section of the Naval Intelligence Division, Naval Staff, Admiralty LONDON: PUBLISHED BY HIS MAJESTY'S STATIONERY OFFICE. ,To be purchased through any Bookseller or directly from H.M. STATIONERY OFFICE at the following addresses : Imperial House, Kingsway, London, W.C. 2, and 28 Abingdon Street, London, S.W. 1 ; 37 Peter Street, Manchester ; 1 St. Andrew's Crescent, Cardiff ; 23 Forth Street, Edinburgh ; or from E. PONSONBY, Ltd., 116 Grafton Street, Dublin. Price 7s, 6d. net Printed under the authority of His Majesty's Stationery Office By Frederick Hall at the University Press, Oxford. j]sn 1: - / NOTE The present Manual has been written with a view to supplying the information which is essential to a thorough understanding of the character and aims of ^ Pan-Turanianism '. The work is divided into six chapters. The first, after stating the source and meaning of the term ' Turanian % furnishes a general survey of the Turanian race, setting forth its origin, migrations, present dis- tribution, numbers, characteristics, language, religion, and civilization. The following chapters describe the five main branches of the Turanian people together with the subdivisions of each branch. Each chapter begins with a general characterization of the branch with which it deals. Then comes a detailed account of the tribes forming divisions of the main branch. Each is uniformly de- scribed with regard to its habitat, name, number, mode of life, characteristics, language, literature, religion, and history. This arrangement is intended to facilitate the comparison of the numerous tribes described in the Manual. Each section of a chapter concludes with a bibliographical note, while the many numbered notes 493784 6 NOTE relating to points of detail are relegated to the end of the chapter itself. The subject-matter is as a rule presented in such a way as to leave the reader to draw his own conclusions. But sometimes, when occasion offers, as in the comparison of the Turks and Hungarians (pp. 77-8), observations bearing on Pan-Turanianism are made. Otherwise some general conclusions that may be drawn from the data supplied in this volume are reserved for the end of the last chapter. The accom- panying map presents the area occupied by Turanian populations in five colours corresponding to the five main branches, while the subdivisions are indicated by coloured names only and without boundaries^ which in all cases are somewhat indefinite. The ethnographical, in contrast with the political, frontiers are only approxi- mate as indicated by the edges of the five colours. Thus within the confines of the yellow Mongolian area in the south-west some Tibetan, and in the extreme east some Chinese, elements are scattered. CONTENTS PAGE Note 5 Chapter I. Introduction .... 11 ' ' ' ' t/ Turania and Turanian : meaning and history of the terms ...... 1^ ' ' '^ Origin of the term Turanian 14 General distribution of the Turanians 14 Their common characteristics . 15 Turanian linguistic unity 15 Five main branches of the Turanian family 16 The successive migrations of the Turanians 16 Total Turanian population 17 Physical characteristics of the Turanians . 17 Original religion of the Turanians . 18 Turanian civilization .... 20 Notes 21 Chapter II. The Finno-Ugrian Division . 24 Finno-Ugrian characteristics and civilization 25 History of the Finno-Ugrians 26 A. The Finns 28 i. Western or Baltic Finns 30 a. The Karelians . 34 b. Other Western Finns 37 1. Vepsas . 37 2. Votes . 37 3. Esthonians . 37 4. Livonians 38 c. The Lapps 39 ii. Eastern Finns 43 a. Permyaks 44 h, Zirians 45 c. Votyaks . 46 d. The Volga group 47 1. Mordvins 4S 2. Cheremisses . 49 3. Chuvash es . 50 CONTENTS B The Ugrians . a. Ugrian Ostyak^ h. Voguls c. Hungarians or Magyars a. Hungarians and Turks Notes . Chapter III. The Samoyed Division . a. Yuraks ..... h. Tavghis c. Ostyak Samoyed s d. Sub-tribes of the Southern Samoyed s 1. Soyotes or Soyones 2. Karagasses . 8. Motars 4. Kamassins . 5. Koibals .... 6. Beltirs ..... Notes Chapter IV. The Tunqus Division A. The northern or Siberian group and its tribes B. The southern or Manchurian group Notes ..... Chapter V. The Mongol Division Its three branches . i. Eastern Mongols ii. Buryats iii. Kalmuks Notes j Chapter VI. The Turkish Division Turks and Mongols . Total number of Turks ' ' Meaning of the name Turk . The Turkish language and writing Ethnic affinities and types Turkish religion Turkish character and civilization Migrations of the Turks . CONTENTS 10 CONTENTS PAGE iv. Black Sea Turks 194 * a. , . Nogaians . 194 h. Caucasian Turks . .197 1. Kumuks .197 2. Karachais . .199 Total number of Caucasian Turks .... 200 c. Crimean Turks ....... 201 V. Western Turks 204 a. Persian or Iranian Turks . 204 h. Ottoman or Osmanli Turks ..... 212 Conclusions . 222 Notes .......... 223 Appendix A. A German's Two Years' Journey . 229 B. The Disturbances in Semirechie and Confisca- tion of Land in Turkestan .... 229 Index 236 Map of Eurasia showing the distribution of Turanian Peoples . CHAPTEK I ^ ^ INTRODUCTION DufeiNG the last few years there has taken place in Turkey the awakening of a national consciousness aiming at the purification of the Turkish language by the expulsion of all foreign elements, and the establishment of a civilization based entirely on old Turkish traditions. With this is combined a Pan-Turanian, that is to say, a Pan-Turkish movement, the goal of which is a powerful and independent union of all the ^ Turks in the world, embracing a population of 5 0,000,000. This movement involves a policy of Irredentism, which aspires not only to stimulate by moral and intellectual propa- ganda the feeling of racial community among kindred peoples, but under favourable circumstances to free their kinsmen politically irom their Russian, British, Persian, and Afghan ' rulers. Turkish writers have begun to speak of their ideal fatherland, their Turania, the cradle of their nation and home of their race '. The poet Ziya Gok Alp, called by a country- * the celebrates man great apostle of Turanianism ', Attila, Jenghiz, and Oghuz Khan as heroic figures that stand for the proud fame of his race, and describes the fiatherland of the Turks not as Turkey or Turkestan, but as ' the broad eternal land of Turania '. While the primary object of the National Pan-Turanian ideal is the inclusion and union of all branches of the race within the Turkish Empire, it is an important secondary aim to give independence to all the followers of Mohammed, the united Turks being then the centre of gravity of the world of Islam. In view of this new situation it is of importance to examine the geographical, historical, ethno- logical, religious, and social facts bearing on the populations that may 'be affected by Pan-Turanian aspirations. It will then be easier to estimate the likelihood of these aspirations, if unchecked, being realized. Such is the purpose of the following pages. ';l\l,'':\': '[..': /'''. -,/ INTRODUCTION Turania The term ' Turanian as a of ', designating group languages and the peoples speaking those languages, is derived from the Persian Tflrdn, which is used by the Persian poet Firdusi in ' ' his 8hahnar)ie or Book of Kings (composed about a. d. 1000) as the name of the country beyond (i.e. north and east of) the Oxus (now Amu Darya) as opposed to Iran or Persia. Though the name Turdn is found neither in the inscriptions of Darius I (521-435 B.C.) nor in Greek writers, it is of great antiquity. For its earliest form Tu7*a (with the adjective ' tuirya^ Turanian 'Y is not only repeatedly found in the ancient sacred book of the Zoroastrians, the Avesta^ but also occurs in an Avestan hymn (gdtha) which was undoubtedly composed by Zoroaster himself and in which the Turanian Fryana and his descendants are commemorated as faithful followers of the prophet.^ The name Tura also appears in the Avesta when it sets forth its primitive ethnographic division of the inhabi- tants of the earth, which is based solely on acquaintance with the immediate neighbours of ancient Iran. Just as in the Old Testament Noah has three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japhet, ancestors of the three races of the earth, so Thraetaona, the successor of Yima (the Avestan Noah) has three sons, Airya, Sairima, and Tura, between whom the earth is apportioned, Airya* receiving Iran,^ the centre, Sairima the West, and Tura the East.^' The Aryans must have been in occupation of the Iranian plateau by 900 B.C., for we know that the Assyrian King Shalmaneser II came into conflict with one of the Iranian tribes, the Modes, in 836 b. c. The evidence of the Avesta shows that by . the time of Zoroaster"^ the Iranians formed a settled people who practised agriculture, and among whom (as among the cognate Indo- Aryans) the cow, on which their industry chiefly depended, had acquired a peculiar sanctity. It is also clear from the Avesta that hostilities prevailed between the Iranians and the predatory nomad Turanians, who moreover differed from the former in religion. In these conflicts the Turanians were sometimes victorious.^ Attempts were also made to prosely- tize the Turanians, for the Avesta states that at least one Turanian tribe was converted to Zoroastrianism,^ and it THE TERM / TURANIAN-^ A :..::' '.: :t^"^{ i A observes that there was hope even for the Turanian enemies-#)t' the Zoroastrian faith.^^ From a selection of Zoroastrian texts compiled about a.d. 900,^^ it appears that boundary disputes must have prevailed between ^^ ' the two hostile peoples, as we read there : For Iran . and for the sake of the pacification of a dispute which had arisen, Auharmazd (Ormuz, Ahura Mazda) produced a great Ox, by whom the boundary' of Iran next to Turan was intimated by pawing with his hoofs.' In his Shahname Firdusi (c.