THE TURKS OF RUSSIA By :MEDINA SELIHMET
The word "Turks" 'is commonly used onl1J lor the inhabitants 01 Turkey. However it a,lso possesses a. 11l'uch tvider senSe in which it in cludes those peoples in western, centml, a"td northeastern Asia. who speak closelll related dia.lects of the Turkic languages, belong to the Moham medan faith. and al'e stl'mlgly influenced b1J Al'abic-Ettropean civilizat'ion. In the following (n·tiele the .noun "Turk" will be used in thi.8 wider sense togethel' t~>ith the «djee-ti've "Turlcic." For the inhabitants of T'urkey the te'l')/l. "Turks of T'I~rkey" will be employed togethel' with th~ adjective "T'/t'rl.. i,~h." A1)wrt fro'ln the Turks of Turk~ll, the tribe/< of Ch·inese TW'kestan, tlte Yak-Ilis of nO?,theasf.('rn Sibe?'ia, and SO'lne sea,ttered groups i1t the Balkan penins'ula and han, all Tl/?'ks today !'ive with'in the bou.ndaTies of tlte USSR. Tltell include the following ·main g?'oups: the TaJrt.ars of the Vo[gtt and the Bashki?·s of the Ul'als, both com.bined mule-r the newly created t.enn ldel-Ural (ldel 'is the Turkic tl;q?'d for Volga.); t.hc Tartars of the Crimea; the Azel"baidjanians of Tl'anscaucasia; runcl the Kazttks. Ki1'yhlZ, T1l1'k'llre1?s, ((nd Uzbeks of Cent'ral Asia.. They inhub'it a 7rracti cally closed block of l'oughl'l/ a ·/it·ill'ion a.nd p. hall sqlla?:e miles, that 'is a,n a.rea as large as conti1?ental Em'ope witho'nt Russ·in and the Balkan peni1Vo ""./", The incl"".ion of Yal",tia u;(ntld tUld a:nothcr l,COO,OOO 8quartJ ·".ilC8. The (intI res (or the Turks livina within the USSR are verv mruch in dillml,te: it is in the intel'e~t of the Russians and Soviets to 11lrin'imize the 'uunf/1f:,··"S of Tu-rk.s -in. the;'I" cou
TURKS AND RUSSIANS dent states in the areas inhabited by Some 40 million Turks live within them. the borders of the Soviet Union. It To most people, even those who are was against their will that they were regular readers of newspapers and incorporated into the Russian empire magazines, it will come as a surprise during the last few centuries, and they when we speak of a Turkic problem have never ceased to long for their in the USSR. Russia, the link between freedom. The present war between Europe and the Turkic peoples, has Germany and the USSR has given new purposely prevented the world from impetus to their hope for liberation having any knowledge about this ques and for the establishment of indepen- tion, and has done her utmost to make 100 THE XXth CENTURY it seem unimportant and unworthy of eastern Siberia, the Uzbeks and Kirghiz consideration. In order to eliminate of Central Asia, the Tartars and Bash forever the danger of an organized kirs of Russia, and, of course, the Turkic population, the Russiansemployed Turks of Turkey. the ancient policy of "divide and The earliest reference to a Turkic rule." They cultivated every antago tribe is probably the mention of tbe nism among the Turks and tried to Hiung-Nu people in the Chinese Annals convince them that a Turkic question (about 2000 B.C.), and the first mention did not exist. They had good reason of the name "Turk" is to be found in for this policy, for the Turkic issue is Byzantine, Persian, and Chinese sources. of vital interest for Russia. Zemorevos, sent by the Emperor Jus The Turks themselves must bear tinian to the Altai in 568 A.D., refers part of the blame for the world's to them as Turks, and in Arab sources ignorance of them and their problems. of this period the same name can be In irreconcilable hostility toward the found. In the oldest written alphabet, Russians, the Turks fenced themselves invented by the Turks, and in a off from the rest of the world, became language understandable to all Turks, egocentric and provincial, they "stew ancient Wl'itings praise the deeds of ed in their own juice" and lived under Bilge Khan whom they calI the Khan the influence of ou tworn conceptions of the Turks, and they include a prayer which had lost their meaning long ago. to God that he may alIow the Turks This was the case, at any rate, up to to live forever. the second half of the nineteenth cen Compared with that of other great tury. At that time a decisive change human races, the history of the Turks took place. The Turkic leaders were has been given little attention, and no stirred by a new interest in the world agreement as to their racial affiliations beyond the Russian borders, whence a has as yet been reached. As a Turk, breath of fresh air was blowing into the author prefers to accept the result their own stuffiness. Their eyes were of recent Turkic investigations which opened, their national consciousness maintain that the Turkic people are a awoke, and an active struggle for in race of their own, although in regions dependence took the place of passive bordering upon the Mongols and Ugro. resistance. Finns they are mixed with these peoples. This latter fact can be noticed particu WHE'RE DO THEl TURKS larly in the ca"se of the Kirghiz, the COME FROM? Kazaks, and part of the Bashkirs. Legend has it that the Turks originat ed in the Orkhon country south of SONS OF THE STEPPE Lake Baikal. Their home for thousands It is commonly accepted that environ of years can be approximately defined ment played an important role in the by the following line: from the hills history of any nation. In no other of the Khingan in the Far East to the case, perhaps, did environment play so basin of Lake Baikal, along the snow paramount a role as in the historical capped giants of the Altai through development of the Turks. At the foot Tarbagatay and the Ural mountains of the giant mountain ranges begin the down the Idel (Volga) river, to the endless steppes, stretching thousands of Caspian Sea and easnvard along the miles in every direction. Then comes Tien Shan and Karakorum mountains the region of the dead sands, the back to the Khingan. This was the "hunger steppes," where hardly any home of great tribes of the past, the thing grows, and then more steppes, cut Alans, Avars, Huns, Scythians, Pet from time to time by the blossoming chenegs, Komans, and Seldjuks, as well valleys of the rivers. These valleys as of many Turkic tribes existing to and their fertile soil reward the labor this day, among them the Yakuts of of men a hundredfold. They caused THE TURKS OF RUSSIA 101 people to settle, to work, and to create tribes have proved that the Turks have civilizations. The steppes, on the other at different times developed a high band, were the ideal ground for cattle civilization of their own. Cultural breeding. Man moved with his herds treasures tit to stand side by side with into the steppe, and the steppe, like an those of other ancient civilizations have ocean, carried him on its waves. The been brought to light from the envelop steppe created nomads. There were ing cloak of the wandering sands. The times when violent storms from the myth that the Turks received their
north changed the face of the steppe, civilization from outside, particularly transforming it into a desert. Then from the Arabs together with Islam, the nomads in their terror swarmed into is gradually being broken down. It the river valleys, destroying all in their appears that the Arab conquerors them path. selves were greatly astonished at the high degree of culture reached by the TURKIC TRADITIONS Turks. Excavations carried out by archeolo Islam, of course, exercised a profound gists in regions inhabited by Turkic influence on the Hie of the Turks and 102 THE XXth CENTURY
united them spiritually. However, THE TART.4RS Turkic genius may claim a lion's share The basin of the river Volga (or IdeO in the progress of science and enlighten became in its central and lower reaches ment which took place after the Islam the habitation of Turkic people several victory, and in the development of Islam centuries before Christ. Khanates culture. The philosopher Ibni Sina, the (Khan-states) were formed there under Aristotle of Islam, and that other various names. Among the first to leading Moslem philosopher, Farabi, arrive were the Turkic Bolgars, who e were Turks. Many intellectual and name is probably related to that of the spiritual leaders were given to the river Volga. One branch of this tJ·ibe Islam world by the Turks from earliest later migl·ated to the Balkan peninsula, times up to this day. But, since they mixing with peoples of Slavic origin wrote in the language of the Koran, and settling in the territory now known that is in Arabic, they were wrongly as Bulgaria. The other, moving north considered to be Arabs. When the along the Idel and ousting the Finns Turks accepted Islam they also accepted living there, established the powerful the Arabic alphabet, although they Bolgar Khanate. Later, in the low'r already possessed theil· own system of reaches of the Idel, there existed the writing. The ancient Orkhon monu rich Khazar Khanate. In the thirteenth ment shows that the latter consisted century the Mongol invasion led to th of thirty-eight characters. From the formation of the Golden Horde as th seventh century A.D. the Turks had been westernmost part of the mighty empir using the Vigur alphabet, which, in of Genghis IGlan and his successor::.. spite of the coming of Islam, remained The members of the Golden Horde in use up to the fifteenth century. became known in Russia and Europ as Tartars. They were predominantly The most brilliant period in Turkic of Turkic rather than Mongol stock: art was the l\Iiddle Ages, from which for the farther w . t the armies f magnificent masterpieces have come Genghis Khan moved the smaller became down to us. They have been especially the percentage of Mongols in their well preserved in Turkestan from the ranks. days of the great Tamerlane and his successors. .Iosques, religious schools, When the Golden Horde disintegrated, astronomical observatories, mausoleum , three Tartar Khanates emerged in its monuments of all kinds, tombstones-all place, two on the Idel- the Kazan and the Astrakhan Khanates - Bnd Llll~:S~ IJcauLiful examples uf medieval architecture are the work of Turkic one in the Crimea and the steppes to the north of it. The Khanate of Knzan gcniul:'. Great achiev't:lIleIlLs were ..dsu accomplished in the fields of scien<'e was the most important of the three, and literature. In the neighborhood of with rich agricultural soil and fat pasture'J for cattle, linked by the far Samarkand a fallllJW:i ulJ:servatury has been discovered where the outstanding flung system of the Idel with Moscovy astronomer Ulug-Bek, the son of Tamer to the west and Central Asia to the lane, for many years carried out his south. Kazan itself became a com mercial and cultural center. observations. His stur tables, 118 we now know, were more exact than those worked out by European astronomers THE RISE OF MOSCOVY a century after his death. He was the But rising Moscovy, after fighting first to prove the sphericity of the in the course of a century twenty-five earth and its movement around the campaigns against the Khanate, in sun, while Europe was still under the 1552 conquered Kazan under Ivan the influence of Ptolemy. It is from mem Terrible. A few years later the ories like these that the Turks draw Astrakhan Khanate also ceased to the strength and determination for exist. Only the Crimea held out for their struggle for freedom. another two centuries. The entire THE TURKS OF RUSSIA 103 course of the Idel was in Russian by the Turkic Kirghiz. Next they hands. Moscovy immediately began to turned against the Caucasus, where colonize, to Russianize, and to Chris the Christian Grusians (or Georgians) tianize the newly won lands. Russian had asked the Russians for aid against peasants were settled on Tartar lands, their Mohammedan neighbors Turkey mosques were closed and destroyed, and Persia. The Russians came, and and Russian churches and monasteries soon transformed Georgia into an out erected. post of their imperialism. The Turkic tribes of the Caucasus, under their The Tartars' answer was in the great leader Shamyl, for many decades form of frequent rebellions and upris offered heroic resistance, but in the ings. Every internal disturbance in end the Caucasus and the regions to Russia was used by the Tartars for the south of it inhabited by the Azer their attempts to win back their free baidjan Turks became part of Russia. dom. When Moscovy passed through The stage was set for the final scene her "Troubled Times," between her of the Turkic tragedy, the conquest of first and second dynasties, the Tartars Turkestan, which began in 1864 and allied themselves with the Poles; during ended in 1883 with the complete sub the rising of Stenka Razin the Tartars jugation of western Turkestan as far took his side; and joining the rebellious as the great mountain wall of Central Pugatchov in the civil war against Asia. lVIoscovy they made yet another attempt at independence. NATIONAL REBIRTH Under such conditions of continuous struggle there could be no question The conquest of Turkestan, center of a normal cultural and economic of their culture and historical tradi development. Not until the end of the tion, was a terrible blow for the Turks. eighteenth century did the contest It disclosed the weakest point of the become less fierce. Moscow tried to Turkic nation: their stagnation and compromise. Schools were built, and backwardness. The Turkic leaders in 1799 permission for the printing began to realize that their fanatical of religious books was given. The hostility towards everything non economic life of the country improved. Moslem had made the assimilation of Factories were erected, and commercial western culture and civilization im relations taken up with Central Asia possible. New roads were sought for and China. The subsequent quick rise and a new ideal was born: orientation of Kazan alarmed the Russian Govern towards Europe. It now became neces ment, and the further building of sary to carryon a struggle among new factories, the founding of credit their own people in order to prepare associations, and many other things the ground for these new ideas. were prohibited. Everything was done One of the outstanding men who to increase the importance of Moscow decisively turned the trend of Turkic as a commercial and industrial center cultural life towards Europe was at the expense of Kazan. Draconian Shigabetdin Merdjani (1815-1889). With measures were introduced against the tremendous energy he fought against cultural and spiritual development of religious fanaticism and the seclusion the Tartars. of women. He was the first to teach European sciences in his school and to CONQUEST OF TURKESTAN insist on the study of the Turkic lan guage and Turkic history in addition The conquest of the Idel Tartars to the hitherto exclusive interest in opened the road to the east for the things Islamic. The linguist Kayum Russians. Early in the eighteenth Nassyri was another leader of Turkic century they won control over the nationalism. Fully aware of the enor steppes of northern Turkestan, inhabited mous importance of the written word, 104 THE XXtb CENTURY
he struggled for permission to publish were women with the highest educa a newspaper, which was constantly tion, such as physicians and university refused. Finally he was allowed to professors, and there were many with print a calendar, which he turned into a good average education. There were an effective political publication. journalists, authors, social workers, teachers, librarians, and many other In the field of education and schools professions in which women were build the outstanding leader was the Crimean ing their place in society. Ismail Bey Gasprali (1853-1914). After finishing military school in Moscow, The emancipation of women in the Gasprali spent much time abroad, par advanced parts of the Turkic nation ticularly in Turkey, where at that time exercised its influence also on the more the spirit of modernization was strong. remote regions. Everywhere the de Returning to the Crimea, Gasprali velopment was clearly in the direction worked as a teacher and compiled the of a complete liberation. It was at first textbook in Arabic letters based this stage tbat the Bolshevist revolution on a phonetic system. He did his broke out, and the Bolsheviks have since utmost to develop the school system taken credit for and used for their as the most important instrument for own purposes a development which was bringing new ideas into the minds already well under way before they of his countrymen. His newspaper came into power. Ta1'djman, which he was finally allowed to publish in 1883, greatly aided him THE TURKS AND THE RUSSIAr-,r in his endeavors. In it he fought against the dusty and out-of-date school REVOLUTIONS methods of the past and for his polit After the Russian revolution of 1905, ical and social ideas. His battle cry feverish activity set in in the field of was: "One ideal, one endeavor, and magazines and newspapers. From the one language for all Turks." very first meeting of the Russian Parlia ment (Duma) the representatives of the THE FEMININE QUESTION Turkic people:s alway~ acted in unison. This caused the Tsarist Government to The Bolsheviks have for many years reduce the number of Turkic de1egatea loudly proclaimed-and many people from forty to seven, while Turkestan abroad have taken this at its face ,\"Yil,:S cntil-el.y deprivt:u of it:; right tu value-that the Turkic woman owes vote. The reactionary policy following her liberation from seclusion entirely the bripf liberSlI era of 1905-1907 resulted to t.Jlt: Buklheviks. In real1ty, however, in new pressure being exerted on the the fight against the enslavement Turkic t.riheR; hilt it could not atop the of womt:ll lJegan in the secund half ot process of a rebirtb which had already the nineteenth century in connection set in. with the general awakening of the Turks. It made its first appearance in The outbreak of the Great War was Idel-Ural and the Crimea, and among welcomed by the Turks as a possible its most energetic leaders were Merd chance for tbe solution of tbeir national jani and Gasprali. In this struggle, problems. A "Committee for the Protec modern literature played a powerful tion of Rights of the Enslaved Turkic part, novels, magazines, and newspapers Tartarian Moslems of Russia" was all participating in it. The representa formed abroad under the leadership tives of Islam had also shown increasing of Yussuf Aktchura. Aktcbura, after understanding for its necessity. The receiving part of his education in emancipated Turkic women turned Turkey, had become one of the founders eagerly towards education and by the of Turkism, the ideology which advo time the Bolshevist revolution broke cates the unity of all Turks. His com out their cultural level had already mittee included Turks from the Idel, been raised considerably. Among them the Caucasus, Turkestan, and the THE TURKS OF RUSSIA 105
Crimea. Its members tried to arouse more than the familiar etGreat Indivis interest in the fate of the Russian ible Russia" painted red. Turks through lectures in various Eu ropean cities and through the publication The next task of the Bolsheviks was of a memorandum describing the me to colonize the Turkic lands. In this thods used by the Russians against the they obviously followed the policy of Turks and Moslems. In 1916 the Turks the Tsars. In the so-called Tartar under Aktchura participated side by Republic on the middle reaches of the side with Ukrainians and other national Idel, for instance, 64.3% of the best ities in the "Congress of Nations" held land which formerly belonged to the at Lausanne, Switzerland. They asked Government and to monasteries was the world to assist them in their strug handed to Russian settlers. Likewise gle for liberation from Russian control. the best of the land opened up by the Meanwhile a bloody rebellion against construction of the Turksib railway Russian rule broke out among the (linking Turkestan and Siberia) was Kirghiz, Kazaks, and Uzbeks. given to Russians, while the native population was forced into regions un After the liberal revolution in the fit for habitation. Starvation and death spring of 1917 the Russian Turks were for a great number of Turks was the among the first to organize and to act result. as a unit. An "All-Russian Moslem Revolutionary Office" was formed which convoked a Moslem congress in Moscow. CHANGING ALPH.4BETS Among the 970 delegates were members Next the Bolsheviks attempted the of all the Turkic tribes of Russia and cultural disintegration of the Turks. even Eastern Turkestan. It was plan To destroy the unity of their education ned to convoke similar congresses in and literature, a congress of Turkolo the various parts of the Turkic world, gists, meeting in 1926 in Baku, but this program was upset by the abolished the Arab alphabet, replacing general political chaos which developed it with the Latin alphabet and pro in Russia. ducing for each of ten Turki h "nationalities" a Latin alphabet of it THE BOLSHEVIST VICTORY own. This was done in spite of th fact that all Turkic languages are ·,rery The Bolshevist revolution of October/ closely related. A second congress meet November 1917 found the Turks of ing two ~·cnr3 latcl- in J{azau Ldeu LU Russia in the midst of serious attempts unify the Latin alphabet. The Bol to form states of their own. As their .~hpvik!'l ('onsid':n·ed thig to be counter orgAlliUl.Lion hall not yet Deen complet revolutionary, and prohibited it. ed, the Turkic peoples were not ready to defend themselves successfully against After another ten years the attitude the flood of BoJ.~hevlgm. The~' were over of Moscow had bccome openly fiussian whelmed, although in some regions imperialistic. It was decided once particularly in Turk~stan-only after again to change the alphabet of the long and bitter fighting. On encountering Turkic people. In the summer of 1938 such strong resistance the Bolsheviks by order from Moscow the Latin al decided to compromise and organized phabet was replaced by the Russian, so-called etnational republics." However, again to be used differently in different in order to prevent any unity among republics. Thus even the outward the Turks, they artificially divided them forms of national culture were made to into a great number of "nationalities." disappear one by one. The Turkic The scissors of the Bolshevist Govern literature of the pre-revolutionary ment craftily cut the territory inhabited period was banned. In its place the by Turks into many small republics book stores and libraries were filled closely tied to Moscow. In the last with Russian books iu Turkic transla analysis the Soviet Union was nothing tions. Even the Turkic language was 106 THE XXth CENTURY , attacked as preventing the cultural the enforced shift of the agriculture unity between Russians and Turks. of Central Asia from grain to cotton production, which made the population, THE FIGHT AGAINST ISLAM who cannot eat their cotton, depe"ndent on the Soviet Government and the The struggle with the Mohammedan transportation of food supplies from religion passed through various stages. Siberia. First the Bolsheviks tried to introduce pro-Bolshevik movements into Islam. The fight for Turkic liberty is also car Failing in this, they began to attack ried on outside the Soviet Union. Turks the mullahs (Moslem priests). Enormous from all territories within the USSR taxes were levied on mullahs and have their national committees and mosques; many mosques were closed or their own press abroad. The leader of transformed into clubs and amusement the Idel-Ural Turks and one of the halls. When in 1926 a world congress most prominent men in the entire of Mohammedans was called together Turkic movement is Ayaz Ishaki. He in Mecca under the chairmanship of has been a leading writer among thE: Ibn Saud, the Bolsheviks, in order to Turks since the early years of this win the sympathy of the Moslem century. Until the Bolsheviks came world, allowed a delegation of Russian into power, his books \,,>'ere read by all Mohammedans under Mufti Fakhretdin young Turks of Idel-Ural. He was an to participate and slightly relaxed their implacable enemy of Tsarist tyranny pressure. But the campaign against and spent a large part of his life in Islam was soon resumed. Thousands Tsarist prisons. During bis visit to of mosques were closed and thousands the Far East in 1933 he organized a of mullahs exiled or executed. Turkic center in Mukden to unite the Idel-Ural Turks, of whom some fifteen THE TURKS FIGHT BACK thousand live in the Orient. The pe riodical Milli BaY'I'ak, founded by him, Stubbornly and ceaselessly the Turks is still published in Mukden. continued their resistance. There was a never-ending chain of political trials. In their fight for liberty, the Turks' The most extensive of these was held common history, language, culture, and against Sultan-Galiyev and led to the religion, as \vell as their common exile of many thousands. Similar enemy, are factors uniting them. They trials took place against Ibrahim have become conscious of this unity, in the Crimea. the Mussavatists in in the USSR as well as abroad. They Azerbaidjan, and the nationalists of look with sympathy and admiration Turkestan. They all prove the national toward frep. Turkf>Y. ann ::tre nh.o;erving istic ardor of the Turks, whose desire with suspicion the movements of Great for independence cannot be destroyed Britain in Iran. And they are con by any terroristic measures on the vinced that they now face' the fall of part of the Bolsheviks or Russians. the Bolshevist empire better prepared Nor will it be destroyed b;r the forcible than they ,-vere at the time of the settlement of Turkic nomads, nor by downfall of the Tsars.