Pan-Turkism - History

History

In 1804, Tatar theologian Kursavi wrote a treatise calling for Islam’s modernization. Kursavi was a founder of the religious thought of Jadidism (from Arabic 'jadid', which means 'new'). The idea of Jadidism was encouragement of critical thinking, as opposed to insistence on unquestioning loyalty. It supported education for Muslims and promoted equality among the sexes; advocated tolerance for other faiths, Turkic cultural unity, and openness to Europe’s cultural legacy. In 1843 in Kazan the Jadid movement was created. Its aim was a semi-secular modernization and educational reform, and within Jadid for the first time sprout the idea of a national, and not religious identity of the Turks. Before that they were solely Muslim subjects of Russia, and the Empire continued this attitude to its very collapse.

Following the upsurge in Russian colonization of the Volga area in 1880s, the Islamic social movement Jaddidism added motives of national-liberation, but as a result of increase of the imperial tendencies in the Russian internal politics after the 1907 many partisans of Turkic unity immigrated to Turkey.

In 1908, the “Unity and Progress” committee came to power in Ottoman Turkey, and the Ottoman Empire turned toward nationalistic ideology. From the 16th c. the Empire was a Muslim Empire and the Sultan was a Caliph for the part of the Muslim lands under his control. From Russia, the exiled Enlightenment leaders espousing Pan-Turkism fled to Istanbul, where a powerful Pan-Turkic movement rose. From that time, the Turkish Pan-Turkism grew into a nationalistic, ethnically oriented replacement of the Caliphate by a worldwide state. Following the fall of the Ottoman Empire with its multi-cultural and multi-ethnic population, influenced by emerging racial theories and Turkish nationalism of the Young Turks, some tried to replace the lost empire with a new Turkish commonwealth. But leaders such as Mustafa Kemal (Atatürk) acknowledged that such a goal was impossible at the time and reluctantly replaced Pan-Turkic idealism with solely Anatolian nationalism aimed at preservation of an Anatolian nucleus instead of global imperial pretenses.

One of the most significant early exponents of pan-Turkism was Enver Pasha, the Ottoman Minister of War and acting Commander-in-Chief during World War I. He later became one of the leaders of the national-liberation Basmachi uprising against the Russian Empire and Soviet Russian rule in Central Asia.

The last episode in the history of Pan-Turkism played out during WWII, when the Nazis attempted to undermine Soviet unity under a flag of Pan-Turkism in their fight with the USSR. The German intrigues, however, did not bear any results.

While of little impact during much of the 20th century, the dissolution of the Soviet Union in the late 20th century meant that the majority of the Turkic peoples were suddenly again able to exert considerable independence in business and political endeavours.

Today, many new Pan-Turkic movements and organizations are concentrating on economic integration of the 7 sovereign Turkic states, and hope to achieve an economic-political union very similar to the EU.