"I'am a Turk", proclaimed the nationalist poet Mehmed Emin Yurdakul in the early 20th century, "my faith and my race are mighty." This poetic line of effusive pride apotheosized "din" (religious faith: Islam) and "cins" (ethnic stock: Turkishness). It reflected a mood prevalent at the time. These two components, however, did not always hold equal power in the fifteen centuries of the recorded history of the Turks. At the outset, tribal culture shaped their identity. Islam started to gain ascendancy in their consciousness after the 9th century. In the Seljuk and Ottoman periods, Turkishness was relegated to a lesser status than religious and dynastic allegiance. In the Turkish Republic, secular nationalism rather than Islam has played a dominant role in government and education. Patriotc pride aside, Turks point, with some justification, to several truisms or objective facts: ♦ Few nations have been sovereign so long (about a thousand years) without interruption. ♦ Few have had a broader geographic spread (from China and inner Asia through the Middle East and the Balkans to the Westernmost reaches of North Africa, virtually from the Pacific Ocean to the Atlantic Ocean). ♦ Few have experienced a similar diversity of religious life (pagan beliefs, "sky religion", shamanism, Buddhism, Manichaeism, Judaism, Christianity, Islam, secularism, etc.) ♦ Few have lived in a greater variety of political systems (tribal organization, nomadic confederacy, principalities, small states, empires, republics.) ♦ Few have employed more systems of writing for essentially the same language (The Goktiirk, Uighur, Arabic, Latin and Cyrillic scripts). The story of the culture of the Turks, whether they live in the Republic of Turkey or in such recently created Asian republics as Azerbaijan, Kirghizia, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and others or as guest-workers in Germany and other European countries or as minorities in Bulgaria and Iraq or as the majority in the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus — is one of diversity, change, disparity, and sometimes cataclysmic transformation. Yet, it is also a story of unity, even uniformity, and certainly solidarity. One can make, with impunity, one more generalization — that few nations have undergone so much change and preserved an authentic identity and cultural personality. The population of the Turkish Republic (close to 60 million in 1992) is comprised of the descendants of three masses: 1. Natives of Asia Minor since antiquity 2. Migrants from Central Asia since the 9th century 3. Immigrants from the Middle East, the Balkans, and the Mediterranean basin since the 15th century. The territory of present-day Turkey (often referred to in classical times as Anatolia or Asia Minor) has by and large remained under Turkish control since the 1070s. This dominion, now in its tenth century, has witnessed one of history's most extensive and sustained processes of miscegenation. Seljuk and Ottoman ethnic groups intermingled. Conversions and mixed marriages frequently occurred. Although most non-Muslim communities maintained their cultural autonomy under the "millet" system and some isolated rural communities and nomadic tribes remained cohesive, Anatolia created a vast melting pot which has been inherited by the Turkish Republic. Consequently, it would be foolhardy for any "Turk" living in Turkey today to claim ethnic purity. The definition of the"Turk" is certainly untenable in terms of race, blood, or ethnic background. The only valid criteria are the Turkish language and presumably the emotional commitment to "Turkishness." There are those who insist on the Islamic dimension as a sine qua non. This, however, contradicts the constitutional imperative of secularism — and the Republic has many non-Muslim Turkish-speaking citizens although more than 99 per cent of the population belong to the Islamic faith, mostly of the mainstream Sunni persuasion. In cultural terms, the diversity of the heritage of the Turkish mainland is astonishing. Anatolia, inhabited with an unbroken continuity for nine millennia, was truly "the cradle and grave of civilizations"— Hattian, Hittite, Urartian, Phrygian, Lydian, Lycian, Carian, Greek, Hellenistic, Roman, Byzantine. It was a peninsula of countless cultures, cities, religions, cults. It nurtured its own myths, epics, legends — and an amazingly broad spectrum of styles, native and foreign, flourished in architecture and in all creative arts. Asia Minor produced a diversity that stands today as a marvel of archaeology. Into the heartland of Anatolia's life of civilizations the Turkish exodus from Asia brought the dynamics of nomadic culture, rich in oral literature, music, dance, decorative arts. The incoming culture had its autochthonous norms and values. New converts to Islam, the Turks embraced not only the Islamic ethics but also the Arabo-Persian esthetics whose achievements held sway in the areas into which they moved wave upon wave, conquest after conquest. Yet, they clung to their own Turkish language for identity, for state affairs, and for literary expression. Especially in the rural areas, their ethnic/folk culture, with their Asian roots, remained alive. The Seljuk state, which controlled much of Anatolia from the middle of the 11th century to the latter part of the 13th, embodied the new Islamic orientation and the regions enchorial traditions while perpetuating the basic forms of Central Asian Turkic culture. This amalgam was to culminate in the grand synthesis created by the Ottomans. The Ottoman state, growing from a small mobile force in the closing years of the 13th century into an empire within two hundred years and the worlds leading superpower in the 16th century, enriched the synthesis by adding to it the features of the cultures of its minorities, "millets", conquered or subject peoples and the technology and the arts of Europe. Central Asia, ancient Anatolian cultures, Islamic civilization, Middle Eastern and North African creativity, and a Turkish spirit and style coalesced into a unique synthesis. During its life span of more than six centuries (from the late 13th century until 1922), a single dynasty — the House of Osman — reigned in unbroken continuity. Islam was not only the religious faith but also the political ideology of the theocratic state. The Empire was multi-racial, multinational, multi-religious, multi-lingual. Its ethnic diversity may be likened to the composition of the U.S. population. Although minorities and subject peoples were allowed to speak their own languages, Turkish served as the Empires official language, its lingua franca, and its vehicle of literary expression. —TALATS. HALMAN, Ph.D. |
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