Previously, completely different peoples lived in Turkey: Armenians, Greeks, Jews, Assyrians. Where did the Turks come from? Who are they?
Seljuks
According to official science, the first Turkic-speaking peoples appeared in Asia Minor in the sixth century. Byzantine rulers Bulgars settled here, Arabs attracted Turkic-speaking Muslims from Central Asia, and to protect the outskirts, the Armenian kings settled Avars. However, these tribes disappeared, dissolving into the local population.
The real ancestors of the Turks were the Seljuks - Turkic-speaking nomadic peoples who lived in Central Asia and Altai (the language of the Turks belongs to the Altai language family), who concentrated around the Oghuz tribe, whose rulers converted to Islam.
These were Turkmens, Kynyks, Avshars, Kays, Karamans and other peoples. First, the Seljuks strengthened themselves in Central Asia and conquered Khorezm and Iran. In 1055 they captured the capital of the Caliphate, Baghdad, and moved west. Farmers from Iran and Arab Iraq joined their ranks.
The Seljuk Empire grew, they invaded Central Asia, conquered Armenia and Georgia, occupied Syria and Palestine, significantly displacing Byzantium. IN mid-XIII century, the empire, not surviving the Mongol invasion, collapsed. In 1227, the Kayi tribe moved into Seljuk territory, ruled by Ertorgrul, whose son Osman became the founder of the Turkish state, which was later called the Ottoman Empire.
Mixture
The Mongol invasion caused a new flow of settlers, and in the 13th century Asia Minor tribes came from Khorezm. And today he wanders around Turkey ancient tribe Khorzum.
From the 12th century, the Turks began to settle down, mixing with indigenous peoples, which marked the beginning of the Islamization and Turkization of the population. At the same time, Pechenegs, Romanians and Eastern Slavs migrated from the northwest to Asia Minor.
The Turkish people were formed by the end of the century. Already in 1327, the official language in some areas of Turkey was Turkic, not Persian. Modern Turkish science believes that the population of Turkey consists of 70% descendants of the Seljuk Turks and 30% of the indigenous population.
Another version
Russian science thought differently. The Efron and Brockhaus encyclopedia indicated that the ancestors of the Turks were “Ural-Altai tribes,” but due to the mass of settlers of other nationalities, they have long lost their authenticity, and now the Turks are the descendants of Greeks, Bulgarians, Serbs, Albanians and Armenians.
It turned out that such confidence is based on the history of the warlike Ottomans. First they conquered the territories of Byzantium, then the Balkans, Greece, and Egypt. And captives and slaves were taken out from everywhere.
The conquered peoples paid with slaves; children and wives were taken from the Slavs for debts. Turks married Armenians, Slavs, and Greeks. And the children inherited the traits of these peoples.
There was another process that led to the “Turkification” of the Greeks and other peoples who were previously under the protection of Byzantium. After Constantinople was barbarously sacked by the Crusaders in 1204, the Greeks no longer considered the Latins allies.
Many chose to remain “under the Ottomans” and pay the jizya, a tax for infidels, rather than leaving for Europe. Just at this time, Islamic preachers appeared, preaching that there were not many differences between religions and persuading the Byzantines to convert to Islam.
Genetics
Genetic studies confirm that Turks are heterogeneous. Almost a quarter of Anatolian Turks can be classified as autochthonous peoples, a quarter can be classified as Caucasian tribes, 11% have a Phoenician gallogroup (these are descendants of the Greeks), 4% of the population have East Slavic roots.
Anthropologists believe that the average Turk is a representative Caucasian, but the Seljuk Turks were not Caucasians. Central Asia is still inhabited by monogoloid peoples.
What do the Turks think?
The Turkish ethnographer Mahturk became interested in this question. He went to Central Asia and Altai to find there nationalities related to the Turks, to find common legends, identical elements in patterns and clothing, and common rituals. He climbed into remote villages and remote camps, but found nothing.
Moreover, he was surprised that anthropologically the people in Central Asia were very different from the Turks. And then the professor had a theory that official history embellishes the reality, and in the 12th century the Turkic tribes began their migration due to lack of food. They moved first to the southeast, and then to Iran and Asia Minor.
The ethnographer noted that there are still purebred Turks in Turkey; they have retained their Mongoloid appearance and live compactly in just a few regions of the country.
According to statistics, there are now 89 million Turks living in the world. 59 million of them live in Turkey, five in Syria and Iraq, and almost seven in Europe.
Germany has the largest number of Turks - four million, Bulgaria has 800,000 Turks, and Britain has half a million. A million Turks live in the Netherlands and Austria. In Belgium - 200,000 Turks, in Greece - 120,000, in Switzerland - 100,000, in Macedonia - 78,000, in Denmark - 60,000, in Romania - up to 80,000, in Italy - 21,000. There are 500,000 Turks in the USA . Only 105,058 Turks live in Russia.
The fact that the Turks are our close neighbors (from the Sochi beaches to their Black Sea
compatriots of Russians (in the distant past to some extent...), many, perhaps,
surprise. Meanwhile, this is so.
From the Urals to the Yellow River
According to their language and ethnic origins, the Turks belong to the Turkic-speaking world - to
Turkic branch of Altai language family, which was formed in the vast
Central Asia in the 3rd–1st millennium BC. Migration of Turkic-speaking tribes from Sayan-Altai
and the Baikal region began in last centuries BC. – first centuries AD First - in
different areas Siberia, in the middle of the 1st millennium AD. - to Central Asia. In the 5th–6th centuries
news about them appears in Chinese, Iranian, Armenian, Byzantine
chronicles.
From the middle of the 6th century, a significant part of the then world had to reckon with
powerful Turkic Khaganate - a state that controlled
endless expanses of steppes and semi-deserts from the Urals and the Caspian Sea in the west to the river.
Yellow River in the east. At the beginning of the 7th century this state entity collapsed
to Western Turkic Khaganate(Central Asia before 740) and Eastern Turkic
Khaganate (Central and East Asia until 745).
The settlement of Central Asia by the Turks continued in subsequent centuries. "Country
Turks", "Turkestan" began to be called a huge region in the Middle and Central
Asia. In the 8th century, most of it was included in the Arab Caliphate. The Arab
there were chroniclers for all Turkic tribes common name– Turk (plural –
atrak); The Byzantines called them Turks, the Iranians called them Torci.
The Turks of Central Asia relatively easily and quickly accepted new religion, which
The Arabs brought Islam. However, already in the 9th century they rebelled against the caliphate,
having created his own state, which was headed by the leader of one of the groups of Turkic tribes
- Oghuz - Khan Oguz. Since the end of the 10th century, the Oghuz people have been strengthening in the state
centrifugal tendencies; in its southern regions the Seljuk clan led the tribes,
rebelled against the power of the Oghuz khans.
In the middle of the 11th century, new Turkic people moved from Central Asia to Central Asia.
tribes - Kipchaks (Polovtsians). Under their pressure, part of the Oghuzs goes to the south of the Middle
Asia and Iran, they recognize the power of the Seljuk family. Soon the southern regions of the Middle
Asia began to be called Turkmenistan (“country of the Turkmens”): this meant the emergence
on the ethnopolitical map of the region there is a new people - the Turkmens.
The Turkmens of the 11th century were already thoroughly familiar with the Iranian peoples (Sakis,
Alans, Sogdians, Khorezmians); they have learned a lot from their culture, in vocabulary
Turkmens, many Iranian words appeared. In the second half of the 11th century, some
Turkmen and Oghuz tribes moved to Transcaucasia, where, with their active
participation, a new ethnic group began to form, which much later would be called
Azerbaijanis. Some of them, led by leaders from the Seljuk clan, went further to
the country that the Greeks called Anatolia (Greek Anatole, lit. - “east”,
"sunrise") - to Asia Minor.
Anatolia, aka Turkmenistan
The Turks who moved to Asia Minor are collectively called Seljuks - by name
clan of their leaders. The Seljuks by this time had created a huge power, in
which included the southern regions of Central Asia, the lands of modern Azerbaijan,
Iran, Iraq, Syria. From the 60s of the 11th century they began to conquer Anatolia.
In 1065 Armenia was subjugated; in 1071 crushing defeat
suffered Byzantine army led by Emperor Romanus Diogenes. Seljuks
became masters of most of Asia Minor.
One of the Seljuk branches began to rule in the Rumsky region it created in Anatolia.
sultanate (“Rum” is an Arabized form of the word “Roma”, “Rome”): they saw themselves -
neither more nor less - as if they were the successors of the Roman emperors. Invasion in 1243
into Anatolia, the Mongol hordes made the prosperous Rum Sultanate a tributary of the new 
conquerors. In 1307 it was liquidated as a state.
But the Mongols did not stay long in Asia Minor, ethnic processes in the region their
the impact was minimal. Much higher value had a relocation to this
region in the 13th century, many tribes, Turkic and
non-Turkic, from Central Asia and Iran. IN end of XIII century to Eastern Anatolia
large Turkmen tribes of the Kara-Koyunlu and Ak-Koyunlu migrated from Central Asia,
and Marco Polo already calls the whole of Anatolia “Turkmenistan”.
The love and skill of handling horses has been cultivated among the Turks from time immemorial.
centuries.
Photo by Reuters
Presumably the total number of nomadic Turks who moved to this
region in the 11th century, was 0.5–0.7 million people; in the XII–XIII centuries there were already
more than 1 million. In these settlers, little remains of the ancient Turks - and in their
culture, and appearance; The language has also changed a lot. Over many centuries of communication and
mixing with different peoples they have changed a lot, these nomadic Turks.
They came to a region that was a natural bridge between Asia and Europe,
through which in different time hundreds of tribes and peoples passed by, stopping - who
not for long, some for centuries – and leaving their various “traces” in culture,
languages, in anthropological types of the population of Asia Minor.
This was the land where they were born and developed ancient civilizations. IV thousand to
AD the hieroglyphic writing of the Hutts who lived here is dated; III thousand to
AD – cuneiform texts of the Hittites. In the 2nd millennium BC. Hittite state
competed with Egypt and Assyria, the most powerful powers of that time.
In the 1st millennium BC. on the territory of Asia Minor there existed such famous in history
states like Phrygia, Lydia and others. These lands were conquered by the armies of the Persians and
Macedonians; after the collapse of the empire of Alexander the Great, different regions of Anatolia
became part of the Hellenistic states. Greek culture and language (Koine,
colloquial variant) spread widely throughout Asia Minor along with
Greek colonists. But two centuries of Persian rule (546–333 BC)
AD) left a strong imprint on all spheres of life of the population of the region.
In the 3rd century BC. The Galatian Celts created their independent state here,
which some winds brought from Europe to Central Anatolia. Their capital
became the city of Ankyra (translated as “anchor”), present-day Ankara. They are six hundred years old
spoke their Celtic language until they were finally assimilated
Anatolian Greeks.
Since ancient times, ethnic groups who spoke Caucasian languages lived in the eastern regions of the peninsula.
languages, Hayasa - the ancestors of the Armenians, Urartians, Iranian-speaking Medes and Persians, later -
Armenians, Kurds, from the 5th century – various Turkic groups(Bulgars, Suvars, Avars,
Khazars, etc.).
At the turn of the era, the western and central regions of Asia Minor were annexed to
Roman Empire. At the end of the 4th century AD. the eastern part of the empire separated from
western. The year 395 is considered the beginning of the existence of the Eastern Roman Empire (from
capital Constantinople), which historians would later call Byzantine
empire, Byzantium - after the name of the ancient city of Byzantium on the European coast
Bosphorus, on the site of which Constantinople was founded in 324–330.
By the time of the mass migration, conquest and development of Anatolia by the Turkic
tribes lived here: Greeks, Armenians, Kurds, Laz, Arabs, Assyrians and others
peoples are experienced farmers and cattle breeders, in coastal areas - skilled
fishermen and sailors who spoke different languages, Christians and Muslims.
All of them - as well as men and women from many other nations - Albanians, Hungarians,
Moldovans, Romanians, South Slavs, Africans, people from the Western Caucasus -
participated in subsequent centuries in ethnogenetic processes, during which
The Turkish ethnic group was formed and established (by the middle of the 16th century).
Several beyliks (principalities) arose on the territory of the Rum Sultanate. In 1299
year, the ruler of one of them, Bey Osman, declared his beylik independent. IN
In the 20–30s of the 14th century, it developed here military-feudal state, which according to
the name of the founder of the dynasty began to be called Ottoman Sultanate. May 29, 1453
Constantinople was captured by the Ottoman army led by Sultan Mehmed II.
It was named Istanbul (from late XVIII century came into use
its European and Russian name is Istanbul), declared the capital 
Ottoman power. The history of Byzantium is over.
In the second half of the 15th century, the Ottoman state already included the entire territory of Malaya
Asia. TO mid-17th century century it became a huge multi-ethnic empire, in which
included large regions in Asia, Europe and Africa. In the subsequent period
national liberation movements in countries subject to Istanbul and unsuccessful
wars Ottoman rulers gradually reduced the size of the empire.
Protracted feudalism, almost complete absence any internal
socio-economic development led to the fact that in the 19th century it found itself in
semi-colonial dependence on England and France. The process of agony of the “sick”
man of Europe,” as the Ottoman state was called in the 19th – early 20th centuries,
ended after its defeat in the First World War, where it competed 
side of the Austro-German alliance.
The winners of this war - the Entente countries - not only put an end to the empire,
having taken over many of the countries under her control, but also tried to deprive
Turks independence, dismember their territory. These plans were thwarted
national liberation struggle Turkish people(1918–1923), which
headed by the young general Mustafa Kemal (who later took the name 
Ataturk).
During this struggle, the country experienced national revolution. Was liquidated
feudal-theocratic monarchy (sultanate and caliphate abolished). 29th of October
1923, the Republic of Turkey was proclaimed (whose capital was replaced by Istanbul
became Ankara). These events marked not only the appearance on the world
political scene of the new state, but also joining the community of modern
peoples of a new nation - Turkish, a people called Turks.
What should we call you now?
Until the 20s of the 20th century, the Turks did not have a single generally accepted self-name.
The formation of the Turkish ethnic group began in the 14th century in that part of Asia Minor, where
lived the Osmanli tribe (named after the tribal leader, Bey Osman). Subsequently –
very gradually - this tribal ethnonym spread to all Turkic-speaking
subjects of the Ottoman state, without, however, becoming their national
self-name.
IN European countries they were called Ottomans, Ottomans (in France), Ottoman
Turks or Ottoman Turks (in Russia until the 1930s). In the Ottoman
power, the ethnonym “Osmanli” was used by only a small part to identify themselves
population - representatives of the feudal class, separate groups townspeople
Often both of them, like many village residents, called themselves
Muslims (confessional name instead of ethnic name).
Along with this, among the bulk of the population, that is, village residents,
The ancient ethnonym “Turk” was firmly in use. In Turkish, the words "Turk" (in the sense
“a person belonging to the Turkic-speaking community”) and “Turk” (a representative
Turkish people) are designated in the same letter: turk; equally and
This word is pronounced in both meanings. Since this ethnonym word was called
themselves predominantly peasants, in the mouths of people from the social elite of the Ottoman
society, the word Turk/Turk acquired a derogatory meaning and became synonymous
plebeian, man.
Only after the Kemalist revolution did the common self-name of the Turkish people become
ethnonym Turks. More precisely, the official ethnonym became the word “Turks” (“Turkler”), and
to clarify that we're talking about specifically about the Turks, they began to use the phrase
“Turkish Turks”, “Turks of Turkey” (“Turkish Turklers”).
AND Turkish language relatively recently became the national language of all
Turkish people. IN Ottoman period The Turks had three languages. Was Ottoman
(“osmanlija”) – official and literary language with writing based on
Arabic-Persian graphics, with a predominance of Arabic and Persian words in the vocabulary.
There was Turkish (Turkic) - the spoken language of the peasantry and urban poor. AND
was Arabic - the language of religion, the language of Islamic education and scholarship.
Only in the second half of the 19th – early 20th centuries did Turkish nationalists (“new
Ottomans"), and then the Young Turks began to make efforts to make a national
Turkish language (Türkçe) is the national language of all Turks. But the real turning point is
this most important sphere of national life occurred in the 1920s–1930s, after
Kemalist revolution.
In 1928, a law was passed to replace the Turkish script Arabic alphabet
(which has been used since the 13th century) Latin. This made it much easier to learn
literacy for both children and adults. With active and comprehensive support
of the Turkic state quite quickly from a common language became the language of all
people - both state and literary.
In the twentieth century, many words from Western European languages entered the Turkish language, from
international vocabulary.
Southern Caucasians
Centuries-old and very complicated story the formation of the Turkish ethnic group affected
naturally, and in the variety of physical types of Turks. To the older generation of Russians
the name of Nazim Hikmet (1902–1963), a famous Turkish poet and
public figure. In the late 1950s, I, then a student at the history department of Moscow State University
named after M.V. Lomonosov, I happened to see him in the writer’s bookstore on Kuznetsky
Mostu: it was tall, fair-haired, light-eyed man. Which genes
peoples appeared in it: Hittites, Celts, Slavs? Not so rare among Turks
men and women of Northern European appearance. But of course for most people
Of this multi-million people, a different appearance is characteristic: they are brunettes,
dark-skinned, dark-eyed, often with very dark skin of the face and body.
Scientists note the amazing similarity of carved thousands of years ago on stone
slabs in different areas of Anatolia of the ancient inhabitants of the region and persons
modern Turks: “How children resemble portraits of their fathers.” About this
Russian anthropologist A.V. Eliseev wrote about portrait resemblance at the end of the 19th century.
Yes, that happens. This suggests that Turks are, to some extent, genetically -
successors of the population of Asia Minor, who lived there long before the arrival of the Turkic
tribes Many descendants of the ancient inhabitants of Anatolia were assimilated
emerging Turkish ethnic group, were incorporated into it, became
by the Turks.
To be as general as possible, the basis of the anthropological type of Turks is
the Near Asian version of the Balkan-Caucasian race as part of the large Caucasoid race
race. Famous Russian anthropologist and ethnologist, professor Nikolai Cheboksarov
distinguished among the Turks the Mediterranean-Balkan and Western Asian groups of the southern
Caucasians.
The Mongoloid features that the Central Asian Turks had are almost
were absent from those Oguzes and Turkmens who migrated in the first centuries of the 2nd millennium
to Asia Minor; later with intensive mixing with the local population of the region
they completely disappeared. This is a fairly typical situation: when interacting
settlers-conquerors and the indigenous population in the emerging new
ethnic community combines the alien language and the dominant one physical type
indigenous people.
Ethnogenesis of the Turks - difficult process linguistic assimilation of indigenous people and
alien acculturation. Gradually, by the 15th century, the Turks in Anatolia switched to
mostly to new forms of farming (agriculture, pasture and transhumance
cattle breeding), to a new, sedentary way of life. Your homeland, from generation to
generation more and more, they realized this country - Anadolu, as it sounds in Turkic
name of Anatolia. They adopted a variety of
elements of their material and spiritual culture. This brought the Turks and indigenous people closer together
residents, they got used to each other. A curious touch: a well-known symbol
Turkish state - a crescent with a star - borrowed by the Ottomans from
Byzantines: this was the coat of arms of Constantinople before the city was captured by the Ottomans.
A natural continuation of the rapprochement was ethnic mixing. The Turks willingly took
to marry girls, women from any nation - Greeks, Circassians, Armenians,
Slavic women who, when they found themselves in Turkish families, quickly became Turkish. Children from such
marriages were already completely Turks - both in language and culture. Sultans and nobles
had harems in which girls from the most different countries and peoples. Their
the children naturally became real Turks/Turks.
The army and officials in the Ottoman Empire were formed mainly from
foreign slaves, who, completely dependent on the Sultan, became more
Turks than the Turks themselves. In the 14th century, the first infantry corps appeared,
formed from Christian prisoners of war converted to Islam. These parts have become
to be called “new army”, in Turkish “yeni cheri”; that's how the word appeared
"Janissaries". Some of them were able to get to the very top high positions V
state. The largest Ottoman architect Sinan was Greek by birth
(1489–1588), eminent cartographer and navigator Piri Reis (d. 1554); Hungarian
Ibrahim Müteferrika became the first Turkish printer; Serbian Mehmed Sokollu
(Sokolović) was the Grand Vizier who ruled the empire from 1568 to 1579.
Similar examples can be multiplied.
In Altai and Khakassia, in Tuva and southern Yakutia, in Kyrgyzstan and Northern Mongolia
(on the Orkhon River) archaeologists discovered ancient Turkic inscriptions (on steles, boulders,
household items) dating back to the period of the late 7th–11th centuries. This is brief
messages about the events of their history. What may be especially important -
for the first time the word was heard in them - the ethnonym “Turk” in the author’s performance. Literal
the script they used was a variant of the Aramaic alphabet,
borrowed by the Turks from the Central Asian Iranian-speaking people of Sogdians. "From
ancient darkness, in the world graveyard, / Only Letters sound” (Ivan Bunin).
Mausoleum of Ataturk in Ankara
A number of media reports that there was a real commotion in Turkey due to the launch of a family tree verification system. Because many modern Turks have discovered Slavic, Kurdish, Circassian, Armenian, Greek and Jewish roots.
Less than two weeks ago, a new function was launched on Turkey’s public services portal, with the help of which citizens of the country can restore their family tree by entering their first name, last name and date of birth into the system, writes the Sputnik resource, created by the largest Russian news agency RIA News.
In reality, many Turks already knew that their ancestors were representatives of other ethnic communities. So, in Turkey, many people can admit to you that his grandfather was a Circassian, Albanian or Georgian. At the same time, your interlocutor himself will be completely convinced that he is a full-fledged Turk.
A striking example of such Turkish identity is Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who by origin is a Turkish Muslim Georgian, known as Laz. So, he told the whole country about what his father answered to his question about who they were by nationality - Turks or Laz?
Since the time of the Ottoman Sultanate, the Turks have assimilated a huge number of representatives of various peoples - Arabs, Kurds, Slavs, Greeks, Georgians, Armenians, Circassians, Albanians. Thus, representatives of all these peoples could become influential commanders or viziers in the sultanate, subject to conversion to Islam and the Turkic language.
The mothers of many Ottoman sultans were Georgians and Circassians. A large number of The Muslim leaders and scholars of Turkey revered by today's Turks were not Turkish in origin. Thus, the rapid assimilation and Turkification of hundreds of thousands of representatives of other nations allowed the Ottomans to build their sultanate, and Kemal Atatürk to build the Turkish Republic.
Therefore, the Turkification of the huge ethnic masses of other peoples drawn into the orbit of the Ottomans and the Turkish nation has historically been powerful tool building and strengthening Turkish society and state. That is why questions of the ethnic origin of a particular family were quite natural topics in Turkish society.
But only at the family or close level interpersonal communication. Moreover, if you consider that the majority of modern Turks, who once had non-Turkic ancestors, have completely forgotten about this and confidently consider themselves pure Turks. Moreover, at the state level, raising topics of different ethnic origins of Turkish citizens was considered dangerous.
Officially, since the founding of the Turkish Republic by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, all citizens of the country were considered only Turks. And it was precisely this kind of aggressive assimilation policy that the Iranian-speaking Kurds resisted for many decades, whom Ankara also stubbornly continued to call “mountain Turks.”
It is for this reason that the ethnic roots of Turkish citizens were an issue national security. This is why the population register has until now been a closed book, and its details were considered a state secret. This is stated in an article by Robert Fisk on the pages of the Independent.
This article describes the reasons for the violent reaction of Turkish citizens to the discovery of databases about their genealogical origin. Some Turks, who have always boasted of their "pure" Turkish ancestry, were shocked to learn that they actually have different ethnic and religious roots.
Moreover, the Turks’ reaction to the sudden and unexpected opening of the database was so violent that the electronic system failed within a few hours. Some public figures and journalists opposed the opening of registers, noting that the situation could have unpredictable social consequences.
In 2004, the editor of the Armenian newspaper Agos, Hrant Dink, wrote that Turkey's first female pilot, Sabiha Gokcen, had Armenian roots. This and his other articles became the reason for an investigation against him by the Turkish Ministry of Justice. In 2007 he was killed. Dink's story shows why the topic of origins remains a sensitive issue to this day.
Confidentiality of data that identifies ethnic origin citizens of Turkey is considered a national security problem. Because the Turkish authorities are convinced that a single Turkish identity is the foundation of the Turkish national state. And promoting the theme of the multinational nature of Turkish society threatens the country with inevitable collapse.
At the same time, Greek media reported that many Turkish citizens, who suddenly discovered their Greek roots, began to apply to the Greek consulates to obtain citizenship. Perhaps also because it opens up for them “the path to Europe.” Because EU countries are now rapidly granting citizenship, as they claim, to representatives of ethnic minorities “oppressed in the Muslim world.”
The bulk of the population modern Turkey are ethnic Turks belonging to the Turkic ethnic group of peoples. The Turkish nation began to take shape in the 11th-13th centuries, when the Turkic pastoral tribes (mainly Turkmens and Oguzes) living in Central Asia and Iran were forced to move to Asia Minor under the pressure of the Seljuks and Mongols. Some of the Turks (Pechenegs, Uzes) came to Anatolia from the Balkans. As a result of the mixing of Turkic tribes with a diverse local population (Greeks, Armenians, Georgians, Kurds, Arabs), the ethnic basis of the modern Turkish nation was formed. During the process of Turkish expansion into Europe and the Balkans, the Turks experienced some influence from Albanian, Romanian and numerous southern Slavic peoples. The period of the final formation of the Turkish people is usually attributed to the 15th century.
Tyumrki - an ethno-linguistic community that took shape on the territory of the steppes Northern China, in the 1st millennium BC The Turks were engaged in nomadic cattle breeding, and in territories where it was impossible to engage in it, farming. Modern Turkic-speaking peoples should not be understood as direct ethnic relatives of the ancient Turks. Many Turkic-speaking ethnic groups, called Turks today, were formed as a result of centuries-old influence Turkic culture And Turkic language to other peoples and ethnic groups of Eurasia.
Turkic-speaking peoples are among the most numerous peoples globe. Most of them have long lived in Asia and Europe. They also live on the American and Australian continents. Turks make up 90% of the inhabitants of modern Turkey, and in the territory of the former USSR there are about 50 million of them, i.e. they constitute the second largest population group after the Slavic peoples.
In ancient times and the Middle Ages there were many Turkic state entities: Scythian, Sarmatian, Hunnic, Bulgar, Alanian, Khazar, Western and Eastern Turkic, Avar and Uyghur Khaganates, etc.” Of these, only Türkiye has retained its statehood to this day. In 1991-1992 on the territory of the former USSR Turkic union republics become independent states and members of the UN. These are Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan. Included Russian Federation Bashkortostan, Tatarstan, and Sakha (Yakutia) gained statehood. In the shape of autonomous republics Tuvans, Khakassians, Altaians, and Chuvashs have their own statehood within the Russian Federation.
The sovereign republics include Karachais (Karachay-Cherkessia), Balkars (Kabardino-Balkaria), Kumyks (Dagestan). The Karakalpaks have their own republic within Uzbekistan, and the Nakhichevan Azerbaijanis within Azerbaijan. The Gagauz people declared sovereign statehood within Moldova.
Statehood has not yet been restored Crimean Tatars, the Nogais, Meskhetian Turks, Shors, Chulyms, do not have statehood, Siberian Tatars, Karaites, Trukhmens and some other Turkic peoples.
The Turks living outside the former USSR do not have their own states, with the exception of the Turks in Turkey and the Turkish Cypriots. About 8 million Uighurs, over 1 million Kazakhs, 80 thousand Kyrgyz, 15 thousand Uzbeks live in China (Moskalev, 1992, p. 162). There are 18 thousand Tuvans living in Mongolia. A significant number of Turks live in Iran and Afghanistan, including about 10 million Azerbaijanis. The number of Uzbeks in Afghanistan reaches 1.2 million, Turkmens - 380 thousand, Kyrgyz - 25 thousand people. Several hundred thousand Turks and Gagauz live on the territory of Bulgaria, Romania, Yugoslavia, a small number of Karaites live in Lithuania and Poland. Representatives of the Turkic peoples also live in Iraq (about 100 thousand Turkmen, many Turks), Syria (30 thousand Turkmen, as well as Karachais, Balkars).Turkic-speaking populations are found in the USA, Hungary, Germany, France, Great Britain, Italy, Australia and some other countries.
Since ancient times, Turkic-speaking peoples had a significant influence on the course of world history, contributed - significant contribution in the development of world civilization. However true story Turkic peoples has not yet been written. Much remains unclear about the question of their ethnogenesis; many Turkic peoples still do not know when and on the basis of what ethnic groups they were formed.
Scientists express a number of considerations on the problem of the ethnogenesis of the Turkic peoples and draw some conclusions based on the latest historical, archaeological, linguistic, ethnographic and anthropological data.
When covering one or another issue of the problem under consideration, the authors proceeded from the fact that, depending on the era and the specific historical situation, some type of sources - historical, linguistic, archaeological, ethnographic or anthropological - may be more or less significant for solving the problem ethnogenesis of a given people. However, none of them can lay claim to a fundamentally leading role. Each of them needs to be cross-checked with data from other sources, and each of them in some way specific case may turn out to be devoid of real ethnogenetic content. S.A. Arutyunov emphasizes: “No single source can be decisive and superior to others, in different cases different sources may have predominant significance, but in any case the reliability of the conclusions depends primarily on the possibility of their mutual re-verification.”
The ancestors of modern Turks - nomadic Oghuz tribes - first penetrated into Anatolia from Central Asia in the 11th century during the period of the Seljuk conquests. In the 12th century, the Iconian Sultanate was formed on the lands of Asia Minor conquered by the Seljuks. In the 13th century, under the onslaught of the Mongols, the resettlement of Turkic tribes to Anatolia intensified. However, as a result Mongol invasion In Asia Minor, the Iconian Sultanate broke up into feudal principalities, one of which was ruled by Osman Bey. In 1281-1324, he turned his possession into an independent principality, which, after Osman, became known as the Ottoman principality. Later it turned into the Ottoman Empire, and the tribes inhabiting this state began to be called Ottoman Turks. Osman himself was the son of the leader of the Oghuz tribe, Ertogul. Thus, the first state of the Ottoman Turks was the state of the Oguz. Who are the Oguzes? Tribal Union Oghuz arose at the beginning of the 7th century in Central Asia. The Uighurs occupied a predominant position in the union. In the 1st century, the Oguzes, pressed by the Kyrgyz, moved to the territory of Xinjiang. In the 10th century, an Oghuz state was created in the lower reaches of the Syr Darya with its center in Yanshkent. In the middle of the 11th century, this state was defeated by the Kipchaks who came from the east. The Oghuzs, together with the Seljuks, moved to Europe. Unfortunately, nothing is known about the state structure of the Oguz, and today it is impossible to find any connection between the state of the Oghuz and the Ottomans, but it can be assumed that the Ottoman state administration was built on the experience of the Oghuz state. Osman's son and successor Orhan Bey conquered Brusa from the Byzantines in 1326, making it his capital, then captured the eastern coast of the Sea of Marmara and established himself on the island of Galliopolis. Murad I (1359-1389), who already bore the title of Sultan, conquered all of Eastern Thrace, including Andrianople, where he moved the capital of Turkey (1365), and also eliminated the independence of some principalities of Anatolia. Under Bayezid I (1389-4402), the Turks conquered Bulgaria, Macedonia, Thessaly and approached Constantinople. Timur's invasion of Anatolia and the defeat of Bayezid's troops at the Battle of Angora (1402) temporarily stopped the advance of the Turks into Europe. Under Murad II (1421-1451), the Turks resumed their attack on Europe. Mehmed II (1451-1481) took Constantinople after a month and a half siege. The Byzantine Empire ceased to exist. Constantinople (Istanbul) became the capital of the Ottoman Empire. Mehmed II eliminated the remnants of independent Serbia, conquered Bosnia, the main part of Greece, Moldavia, the Crimean Khanate and completed the subjugation of almost all of Anatolia. Sultan Selim I (1512-1520) conquered Mosul, Syria, Palestine and Egypt, then Hungary and Algeria. Türkiye became the largest military power of the time. The Ottoman Empire did not have internal ethnic unity, and, nevertheless, in the 15th century the formation of the Turkish nation ended. What did this young nation have behind it? Experience of the Oghuz state and Islam. Together with Islam, the Turks perceive Islamic law, which is as significantly different from Roman law as the difference between the Turks and the Europeans was. Long before the appearance of the Turks in Europe, in the Arab Caliphate the only legal code was the Koran. However, the legal subjugation of more developed peoples forced the caliphate to face significant difficulties. In the 6th century, a list of Mohammed’s advice and commandments appeared, which was expanded over time and soon reached several dozen volumes. The set of these laws, together with the Koran, constituted the so-called sunnah, or “righteous path”. These laws constituted the essence of the law of the huge Arab Caliphate. However, the conquerors gradually became familiar with the laws of the conquered peoples, mainly with Roman law, and began to present these same laws in the name of Mohammed to the conquered. In the 8th century, Abu Hanifa (696-767) founded the first legal school. He was a Persian by origin and managed to create a legal direction that flexibly combined strict Muslim principles and the needs of life. These laws gave Christians and Jews the right to use their traditional laws.
It seemed that the Arab Caliphate was on the path to becoming law society. However, this did not happen. Neither the Arab Caliphate nor all subsequent medieval Muslim states created a state-approved code of laws. The main essence of Islamic law is the existence of a huge gap between legal and real rights. The power of Mohammed was theocratic in nature and carried within itself both the divine and political beginning. However, according to the precepts of Mohammed, the new caliph had to either be elected at a general meeting or appointed before death by the previous caliph. But in reality, the power of the caliph was always inherited. According to the legal law, the Mohammedan community, especially the community of the capital, had the right to remove the caliph for unworthy behavior, for mental deficiency or for loss of sight and hearing. But in fact, the power of the caliph was absolute, and the entire country was considered his property. Laws were broken in reverse side. According to legal laws, a non-Muslim had no right to participate in the government of the country. Not only did he not have the right to be at court, but he also could not rule the region or city. In fact, the Caliph used his discretion to appoint non-Muslims to the highest government positions. Thus, if the Europeans, during the transition from the harmonic era to the heroic, replaced God with Roman Law, then, having carried out their harmonic period, the future Mohammedans in the heroic era turned law, together with religion, into a toy for the ruler of the Caliphate, who was both a legislator, an executor, and a judge.
We observed something similar in the Soviet Union during Stalin's rule. This form of government is inherent in all eastern despotisms and is fundamentally different from European forms of government. This form of government gives rise to unbridled luxury of rulers with harems, slaves and violence. It gives rise to catastrophic scientific, technical and economic backwardness of the people. Today, many sociologists and economists, and primarily in Turkey itself, are trying to figure out the reasons for the economic backwardness of the Ottoman Empire, which has persisted to this day, despite a number of so-called revolutions within the country. Many Turkish authors criticize the Turkish past, but none of them dares to criticize the roots of Turkish backwardness and the regime of the Ottoman Empire. The approach of other Turkish authors to the history of the Ottoman Empire is fundamentally different from the approach of the modern historical science. Turkish authors, first of all, try to prove that Turkish history has its own specific features, which are absent in the histories of all other peoples. “Historians studying the social order of the Ottoman Empire not only did not try to compare it with general historical laws and patterns, but, on the contrary, were forced to show how Turkey and Turkish history differ from other countries and from all other histories.” The Ottoman social order was very convenient and good for the Turks, and the empire developed in its own special way until Turkey came under European influence. He believes that under European influence liberalization of the economy took place, the right to land ownership, freedom of trade and a number of other measures were legalized, and all this ruined the empire. In other words, according to this author, Turkish Empire It went bankrupt precisely as a result of the penetration of European principles into it.
As stated earlier, the distinguishing features European culture there were law, self-restraint, the development of science and respect for the individual. In contrast, in Islamic law we saw unlimited power a ruler who does not value the individual and gives rise to unbridled luxury. A society given over to faith and passions almost completely neglects the sciences, and therefore leads a primitive economy.
Turks (nation) Turks(self-name - Turk), nation, main population of Turkey. The population in Turkey is over 35 million people. (1975, assessment). They also live in Bulgaria (over 700 thousand people), Yugoslavia (about 200 thousand people), Greece (about 100 thousand people), Cyprus (about 100 thousand people), Romania, Iraq, the USSR and others speak Turkish language. By religion, the bulk of T. are Sunni Muslims. Anthropologically, most T. belongs to Mediterranean race.
Ethnically, Tajikistan was formed from two main components: Turkic nomadic pastoral tribes (mainly Oguz and Turkmen), who moved to Asia Minor from Central Asia and Iran in the 11th–13th centuries, during the Mongol and Seljuk conquests (see. Seljuks), and the local Asia Minor population. Some of the Turkic tribes penetrated into Asia Minor from the Balkans (Uzes and Pechenegs). Mixing with the local population (Greeks, Armenians, Georgians, etc.), the Turks assimilated part of it, but they themselves adopted farming skills and many cultural features from them. Arab, Kurdish, South Slavic, Romanian, Albanian and other elements also took part in the ethnogenesis of T. at different times. During the Turkish conquests of the 14th–16th centuries. T. penetrated the Balkans and Cyprus. The formation of the Turkish nation ended around the 15th century; the Turkish nation emerged in the first decades of the 20th century.
The majority of modern T. (about 65%) are employed in agriculture (farming and cattle breeding). The number of industrial workers is about 2 million people.
As part of T. there are ethnographic groups of semi-nomads: Yuryuks, Turkmens, Takhtajis, Abdals, etc. Semi-nomads, switching to sedentary life, quickly assimilate T. For the history, economy and culture of T., see Art. Türkiye.
Peoples of Western Asia, M., 1957; Eremeev D. E., Ethnogenesis of the Turks, M., 1971.
D. E. Eremeev.
Big Soviet encyclopedia. - M.: Soviet Encyclopedia. 1969-1978 .
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