The History of Pan-Turkism

...As a history of Turkism and Pan-Turkism and their relation to the USSR...

...Colonel Hostler also regards the emergence of a unified Turkish state to be a foregone conclusion if and when the Soviet Union collapses—a basic assumption that he obviously adopts from the Pan-Turkist dream...

...However, a comprehensive political analysis of the Pan-Turkist myth and movement has yet to be written...

...Rumania, Greece, Syria, Cyprus, Egypt, etc...

...Colonel Hostler does not show how Pan-Turkist theories place undue stress on ethno-racial affinities, linguistic similarities and religious ties between Turkish peoples while brazenly disregarding major historical and cultural divergences...

...Kazim Kars Bekir should be Kazim Kara Bekir, and Menduh Seiket is actually Memduh Sevket...

...Colonel Hostler also fails to indicate that Pan-Turkism—although ostensibly a nationalistic movement— has registered scant popular support among Turks...

...The sweeping theory that the Turkish Republic is fundamentally Pan-Turkist simply should not be taken for granted...

...Section Two discusses the evolution of Turkism during the disintegration of the Ottoman Empire and shows how it came to constitute the foundation of the homogeneous Turkish Republic...

...Turkey seems to be at once aware of the advantages of a unified Turkish state or confederacy and wary of the possible impracticability of such an idea...

...Careful study would reveal an attitude of duality, both in Government policy as well as among citizens of Turkey, with respect to the movement...

...Since the largest body of Turkish peoples is under Soviet domination, such Turkish ideas are ineluctably related to the internal and external political affairs of the USSR...

...Afghanistan, Sinkiang, Bulgaria...

...For an inordinately long time, modern historiography has neglected to explore the myth and establish the reality of Turkism...

...For all its comprehensive approach, it eschews analysis of the fallacies inherent in Pan-Turkist theories and intrinsic weaknesses that have so far doomed Pan-Turkism as a political movement to failure...

...A third section records the eventful history of Pan-Turkism in Tsarist Russia and in the Soviet Union, and endeavors (in rather sketchy fashion) to determine the status of Turkish minorities in the USSR...

...Pan-Islam-ism had the vision of an Islamic empire including all Moslem Turks...

...how it has seldom had any sense of action, an ability to exploit political developments, a valid perspective of international affairs...

...no doubt, paucity of data has been a deterrent to scholars...

...Mongols and Finno-Ugrian peoples...

...calarified) : a few grammatical errors ("they have a mesocephalic...

...Lack of popular backing, if analyzed as a chronic disease of Pan-Turkism, would have certainly given readers an insight into why the movement has been so ineffectual...

...Pan-Turkism (by far the most persistent of the three) aimed and still aims at the unity of Turks in all parts of the world to form a state or confederacy of states...

...In the thirty-seven years which has elapsed" instead of "have elapsed") ; redundancies ("before these occurrences there were no prior relations") ; and occasional stylistic oddities ("The Marxist content soon devours the nationalist form in the Stalinist formulation for the governing of Soviet nationalities...

...how it gullibly became involved in political maneuvers of the Ottoman Empire, Turkey, Germany, Russia and the USSR...

...Colonel Hostler's book is invaluable and should be required reading for the serious student of world affairs...

...Pan-Turanism strove for unification of Turks...

...Turkism and the Soviets makes certain assumptions that are not necessarily valid...

...Although a top-notch historical survey, Colonel Hostler's book suffers from the defect of omission...

...Whereas the bulk of previously published works and treatises on the subject was painfully polemical or downright incompetent, Turkism and the Soviets is detached, unbiased and well-organized...

...In fact, Pan-Turkism is first and foremost a movement among intellectuals, idealists, self-exiled romantics, cockeyed irredentists, aggrieved refugees, even opportunists and Utopians...

...Colonel Hostler has compiled a multitudinous amount of data, masterfully placed his material in meaningful array, and chronicled events with admirable objectivity...

...One sincerely hopes that the author will eliminate from the second edition several spelling mistakes (names: Mecip Asim should be Necip Asim...

...This reviewer searched in vain for discussions of how Pan-Turkism has lacked effective organization, active competent leadership, coherent plan and practical vision...

...Columbia University "Turkish" generically signifies the consciousness of ethnic and national solidarity among Turks who live in Anatolia (mainland of the present Republic of Turkey), in far and wide regions of the Soviet Union (from the Caucasus to Siberia and Mongolia), in Iran...

...words: tolerantly, acqure...

...The theory ignores the distinct possibility, for instance, of various Turkish groups and minorities emerging as independent, autonomous states or forming clusters rather than necessarily becoming constituents of a Turkish superstate...

...Originally submitted as a PhD dissertation at Georgetown University, it is the first and only definitive history of Turkism, presenting a remarkably thorough and accurate account of Turkish nationalism and its pan-movements...

...She certainly has misgivings about the validity of ethnic and linguistic ties, considers the cultural differences to be a potential cause for incompatibility between herself and other groups of Turkish origin, and (especially in times of strained relations with the Soviet Union) looks askance at the clangers inherent in exploiting the myth of unification...

...or brachycephalic head forms...

...The weaknesses of Pan-Turkism as a political movement also seem to have eluded the author...

...The book starts out with a close, detailed study of the Turkish peoples, attempting to establish their identity in historical, ethnological, linguistic, anthropological and (to a lesser degree) cultural terms...

...Now, a scholarly book by Colonel Charles Warren Hostler performs the prodigious task...

...Within a complex historical context, this consciousness has nurtured three major movements which sought the ultimate unity of all peoples of Turkish origin...