Turks
The main part of the population of modern Turkey are ethnic Turks belonging to the Turkic ethnic group peoples. The Turkish nation began to take shape in the 11th-13th centuries, when people living in the territory Central Asia and Iran, Turkic pastoral tribes (mainly Turkmens and Oguzes), under the onslaught of the Seljuks and Mongols, were forced to move to Asia Minor. Some of the Turks (Pechenegs, Uzes) came to Anatolia from the Balkans. As a result of the mixing of Turkic tribes with a heterogeneous local population (Greeks, Armenians, Georgians, Kurds, Arabs), the ethnic basis of the modern Turkish nation was formed. In the process of Turkish expansion into Europe and the Balkans, the Turks experienced some influence from the Albanian, Romanian and numerous southern Slavic peoples. Period final formation Turkish people are usually attributed to the 15th century.
The Turks are an ethno-linguistic community that took shape on the territory of the steppes of Northern China, in the 1st millennium BC. e. The Turks were engaged in nomadic cattle breeding, and in the territories where it was impossible to engage in it - in agriculture. Modern Turkic-speaking peoples should not be understood as direct ethnic relatives of the ancient Turks. Many Turkic-speaking ethnic groups, today called Turks, were formed as a result of the centuries-old influence of Turkic culture and the Turkic language on other peoples and ethnic groups of Eurasia.
Turkic-speaking peoples are among the most numerous peoples the globe. Most of them have long lived in Asia and Europe. They also live on the American and Australian continents. The Turks make up 90% of the inhabitants of modern Turkey, and on the territory of the former USSR there are about 50 million of them, that is, they constitute the second largest group of the population after the Slavic peoples.
In antiquity and in the Middle Ages, there were many Turkic state formations: Scythian, Sarmatian, Hunnic, Bulgar, Alanian, Khazar, Western and Eastern Turkic, Avar and Uyghur Khaganates, etc. "Of these, only Turkey has retained its statehood to date. 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. As part of Russian Federation Bashkortostan, Tatarstan, Sakha (Yakutia) gained statehood. Tuvans, Khakasses, Altaians, Chuvashs have their own statehood in the form of autonomous republics within the Russian Federation.
The sovereign republics include Karachays (Karachay-Cherkessia), Balkars (Kabardino-Balkaria), Kumyks (Dagestan). The Karakalpaks have their own republic within Uzbekistan, and the Nakhichevan Azerbaijanis within Azerbaijan. Sovereign statehood within Moldova was proclaimed by the Gagauz.
So far, the statehood of the Crimean Tatars has not been restored, the Nogais, Meskhetian Turks, Shors, Chulyms, Siberian Tatars, Karaites, Trukhmens and some other Turkic peoples do not have statehood.
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, 80,000 Kyrgyz, and 15,000 Uzbeks live in China (Moskalev, 1992, p. 162). 18 thousand Tuvans live 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, Turkmen - 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 "- 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 Karachays, Balkars.) There is a Turkic-speaking population in the USA, Hungary, Germany, France, Great Britain, Italy, Australia and some other countries.
Turkic-speaking peoples from ancient times had a significant impact on the course of world history made a significant contribution to the development of world civilization. However true story Turkic peoples has not yet been written. Much remains unclear in 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 kind of sources - historical, linguistic, archaeological, ethnographic or anthropological - may be more or less significant for solving the problem. ethnogenesis of this people. However, none of them can claim a fundamentally leading role. Each of them needs to be rechecked by data from other sources, and each of them in any particular case may turn out to be devoid of real ethnogenetic content. S.A. Arutyunov emphasizes: “No source can be decisive and advantageous over others, in different occasions different sources may be predominant, but in any case, the reliability of the conclusions depends primarily on the possibility of their mutual cross-checking.
The ancestors of modern Turks - the nomadic Oghuz tribes - first penetrated 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 to 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 the name of Osman, became known as the Ottoman. Later it turned into the Ottoman Empire, and the tribes inhabiting this state began to be called the Ottoman Turks. Osman himself was the son of the leader of the Oguz tribe Ertogul. Thus, the first state of the Ottoman Turks was the state of the Oghuz. Who are the Oguzes? The Oghuz tribal union arose at the beginning of the 7th century in Central Asia. The predominant position in the union was occupied by the Uighurs. In the 10th century, the Oguzes, pressed by the Kirghiz, moved to the territory of Xinjiang. In the 10th century, in the lower reaches of the Syr Darya, the Oghuz state was created 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 Oguzes, together with the Seljuks, moved to Europe. Unfortunately, nothing is known about the state system of the Oghuz, 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 public administration was built according to 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 East Coast Sea of Marmara and entrenched on the island of Galliopoli. Murad I (1359-1389), who already bore the title of Sultan, conquered all of Eastern Thrace, including Andrianopol, where he moved the capital of Turkey (1365), and also eliminated the independence of some of the 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 halted the advance of the Turks into Europe. Under Murad II (1421-1451), the Turks resumed their offensive against 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 Ottoman Empire. Mehmed II eliminated the remnants of independent Serbia, conquered Bosnia, the main part of Greece, Moldova, 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. Turkey became the largest military power of that time. The Ottoman Empire did not have an internal ethnic unity, and, nevertheless, the formation of the Turkish nation ended in the 15th century. What did this young nation have behind them? The experience of the Oguz state and Islam. Together with Islam, the Turks perceive Muslim law, which differs from Roman law just as significantly as the difference between the Turks and Europeans was. Long before the arrival of the Turks in Europe, the only legal code in the Arab Caliphate was the Koran. However, the legal subjugation of the more developed peoples forced the caliphate to face significant difficulties. In the VIl-th century, a list of advice and commandments of Mohammed appears, which is supplemented over time and soon reaches several dozen volumes. The set of these laws, together with the Koran, constituted the so-called sunna, or "righteous path." These laws constituted the essence of the law of the vast Arab Caliphate. However, the conquerors gradually got acquainted 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 school of law. He was a Persian by origin and managed to create a legal direction that flexibly combined strict Muslim principles and vital needs. In these laws, Christians and Jews were given the right to use their traditional laws.
It seemed that the Arab Caliphate went on the path of becoming legal 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 presence of a huge gap between legal and real rights. The power of Mahomet was theocratic in nature and carried in itself both the divine and political beginning. However, according to the precepts of Mohammed, the new caliph was either to be elected on general meeting, or be appointed before death by the previous caliph. But in reality, the power of the caliph was always inherited. According to legal law, the Mohammedan community, especially the community of the capital, had the right to remove the caliph for unworthy behavior, for mental disability, or for loss of sight and hearing. But in fact, the power of the caliph was absolute, and the whole country was considered his property. Laws were broken in the opposite direction. According to the 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 could not govern a district or city. In fact, the caliph, at his own discretion, appointed non-Muslims to the highest public positions. Thus, if the Europeans, during the transition from the harmonic era to the heroic one, replaced God with Roman Law, then, having spent their harmonic period in Central Asia, the future Mohammedans in the heroic era turned law, together with religion, into a toy of the ruler of the Caliphate, who was both a legislator and an executor , and a judge.
We saw 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 breeds unbridled luxury 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 find out the reasons for the economic backwardness of the Ottoman Empire, which has survived to this day, despite a series 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 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 laws, but, on the contrary, they 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 did not fall under European influence.He believes that under European influence, the economy was liberalized, the right to own land, freedom of trade and a number of other measures were legalized, and all this ruined the empire.In other words, according to this author, the Turkish empire was ruined precisely as a result of penetration of European principles.
As stated earlier, hallmarks European culture were the right, self-restraint, the development of the sciences and respect for the individual. In contrast, in Islamic law, we saw the unlimited power of the ruler, which puts no value on the individual and gives rise to unbridled luxury. A society devoted to faith and passions almost completely neglects the sciences, and therefore leads a primitive economy.
The history of the settlement of Asia Minor by the Turks dates back to aggressive campaigns Seljuk Turks. The Seljuks were one of the branches of the Oghuz Turks who lived until the 10th century in the steppes of Central Asia. A number of scientists believe that the Oguzes were formed in the steppes of the Aral Sea region as a result of the mixing of the Turkuts (tribes of the Turkic Khaganate) with the Sarmatian and Ugric peoples.
In the 10th century, part of the Oguz tribes moved southeast of the Aral Sea region and became vassals of the local Samanid and Karakhanid dynasties. But gradually the Oghuz Turks, taking advantage of the weakening of local states, created their own state formations - the state of the Ghaznavids in Afghanistan and the state of the Seljukids in Turkmenistan. The latter became the epicenter of the further expansion of the Oghuz Turks, also called Seljuks, to the west - to Iran, Iraq and further to Asia Minor.
The great migration of the Seljuk Turks to the west began in the 11th century. It was then that the Seljuks, led by Togrul-bek, moved to Iran. In 1055 they captured Baghdad. Under the successor of Togrul-bek, Alp-Arslan, the lands of modern Armenia were conquered, and then the Byzantine troops were defeated in the battle of Manzikert. In the period from 1071 to 1081. almost all of Asia Minor was conquered. The Oguz tribes settled in the Middle East, giving rise not only to the Turks themselves, but also to many modern Turkic peoples of Iraq, Syria and Iran. Initially, the Turkic tribes continued to engage in their usual nomadic pastoralism, but they gradually mixed with the autochthonous peoples living in Asia Minor.
Among them, a special place was occupied by the Greeks - a people who played a key role in Mediterranean history. The colonization of Asia Minor by the Greeks began in the 9th century. BC e., and in the era of Hellenism, the Greeks and Hellenized native peoples made up the majority of the population of all the coastal regions of Asia Minor, as well as its western territories. By the 11th century, when the Seljuks invaded Asia Minor, the Greeks inhabited at least half of the territory of modern Turkey. The most numerous Greek population was concentrated in the west of Asia Minor - the coast of the Aegean Sea, in the north - on the Black Sea coast, in the south - on the Mediterranean coast up to Cilicia. In addition, an impressive Greek population lived in the central regions of Asia Minor. The Greeks professed Eastern Christianity and were the main pillar of the Byzantine Empire.
Perhaps the second most important people of Asia Minor after the Greeks before the conquest of the region by the Turks were the Armenians. The Armenian population prevailed in the eastern and southern regions of Asia Minor - on the territory of Western Armenia, Lesser Armenia and Cilicia, from the shores of the Mediterranean Sea to the southwestern Caucasus and from the borders with Iran to Cappadocia. AT political history Armenians also played a huge role in the Byzantine Empire, there were many noble families of Armenian origin. From 867 to 1056, the Macedonian dynasty ruled in Byzantium, which was of Armenian origin and is also called by some historians the Armenian dynasty.
The third large group of peoples of Asia Minor by the X-XI centuries. were Iranian-speaking tribes inhabiting the central and eastern regions. These were the ancestors of modern Kurds and their kindred peoples. A significant part of the Kurdish tribes also led a semi-nomadic and nomadic lifestyle in the mountainous regions on the border of modern Turkey and Iran.
In addition to the Greeks, Armenians and Kurds, Georgian peoples also lived in Asia Minor - in the northeast, Assyrians - in the southeast, numerous Jewish population- in major cities Byzantine Empire, Balkan peoples - in the western regions of Asia Minor.
The Seljuk Turks who invaded Asia Minor initially retained their characteristic nomadic peoples tribal division. To the west, the Seljuks advanced in the usual manner. The tribes that were part of the right flank (Buzuk) occupied more northern territories, and the tribes of the left flank (Uchuk) occupied more southern territories of Asia Minor. It is worth noting that along with the Seljuks, farmers who joined the Turks also came to Asia Minor, who also settled on the lands of Asia Minor, creating their settlements and gradually becoming Turkicized surrounded by Seljuk tribes. The settlers occupied predominantly flat territories in Central Anatolia and only then moved west to the Aegean coast. Since most of the Turks occupied the steppe lands, the mountainous regions of Anatolia largely retained the autochthonous Armenian, Kurdish and Assyrian population.
According to some reports, from 30% to 50% of the population of modern Turkey, considered ethnic Turks, are actually Islamized and Turkicized representatives of autochthonous peoples. Moreover, the figure of 30% is voiced even by nationalist Turkish historians, while Russian and European researchers believe that the percentage of autochthons in the population of modern Turkey is much higher.
Throughout its existence, the Ottoman Empire has been grinding and dissolving the most different peoples. Some of them managed to preserve their ethnic identity, but most of the assimilated representatives of the numerous ethnic groups of the empire finally mixed with each other and became the foundation of the modern Turkish nation. In addition to the Greek, Armenian, Assyrian, Kurdish population of Anatolia, the Slavic and Caucasian peoples, as well as Albanians, were very numerous groups that took part in the ethnogenesis of modern Turks. When the Ottoman Empire extended its power to the Balkan Peninsula, vast lands inhabited by Slavic peoples, most of whom professed Orthodoxy, came under its control. Some of the Balkan Slavs - Bulgarians, Serbs, Macedonians - chose to convert to Islam in order to improve their social and economic situation. Entire groups of Islamized Slavs formed, such as the Bosnian Muslims in Bosnia and Herzegovina or the Pomaks in Bulgaria. However, many Slavs who converted to Islam simply melted into the Turkish nation. Very often, the Turkic nobility took Slavic girls as wives and concubines, who then gave birth to Turks. The Slavs made up a significant part of the Janissary army. In addition, many Slavs in individually converted to Islam and transferred to the service of the Ottoman Empire.
The presence of Caucasian peoples in Anatolia increased significantly after Caucasian war when many thousands of representatives of the Adyghe-Circassian, Nakh-Dagestan and Turkic peoples North Caucasus moved to the Ottoman Empire, not wanting to live in Russian citizenship. Thus, numerous Circassian, Abkhazian, Chechen, Dagestan communities were formed in Turkey, which merged into the Turkish nation. Some groups of Muhajirs, as the settlers from the North Caucasus were called, have retained their ethnic identity up to the present time, others have almost completely disappeared into the Turkic environment, especially if they themselves originally spoke Turkic languages (Kumyks, Karachays and Balkars, Nogais, Tatars). 
In full force, the warlike Ubykhs, one of the Adyghe tribes, were resettled in the Ottoman Empire. In the century and a half that have passed since the Caucasian War, the Ubykhs have completely dissolved in the Turkish environment, and the Ubykh language ceased to exist after the death of the last speaker, Tevfik Esench, who died in 1992 at the age of 88. Many prominent statesmen and military figures of both the Ottoman Empire and modern Turkey were of Caucasian origin. For example, Marshal Berzeg Mehmet Zeki Pasha was an Ubykh by nationality, and Abuk Ahmedpasha, one of the military ministers of the Ottoman Empire, was a Kabardian.
During the XIX - early XX centuries. Ottoman sultans gradually resettled in Asia Minor numerous groups of the Muslim and Turkic population from the outskirts of the empire, especially from regions dominated by the Christian population. For example, already in the second half of the 19th century, a centralized migration of Muslim Greeks from Crete and some other islands to Lebanon and Syria began - the sultan was worried about the safety of Muslims living surrounded by Christian Greeks. If in Syria and Lebanon such groups retained their own identity due to large cultural differences from the local population, then in Turkey itself they rapidly dissolved among the Turkic population, also merging into the single Turkish nation.
After the declaration of independence of Greece, Bulgaria, Serbia, Romania, and especially after the First World War and the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, the expulsion of the Turkic and Muslim population from the countries of the Balkan Peninsula began. The so-called. population exchanges, the main criterion of which was religious affiliation. Christians were evicted from Asia Minor to the Balkans, and Muslims from the Balkan Christian states to Asia Minor. Not only very numerous Balkan Turks were forced to move to Turkey, but also groups of the Slavic and Greek population who professed Islam. The largest was the Greek-Turkish population exchange in 1921, as a result of which Muslim Greeks from Cyprus, Crete, Epirus, Macedonia and other islands and regions moved to Turkey. The same way there was also a resettlement of Turks and Islamized Bulgarians - Pomaks from Bulgaria to Turkey. The communities of Greek and Bulgarian Muslims in Turkey assimilated rather quickly, which was facilitated by the great cultural affinity between the Pomaks, Muslim Greeks and Turks, the existence of a centuries-old common history and cultural ties.
Almost simultaneously with the population exchanges, numerous groups began to arrive in Turkey. new wave Muhajirs - this time from the territory of the former Russian Empire. Establishment Soviet power was very ambiguously perceived by the Muslim population of the Caucasus, Crimea and Central Asia. Many Crimean Tatars, representatives of the Caucasian peoples, the peoples of Central Asia preferred to move to Turkey. Immigrants from China also appeared - ethnic Uighurs, Kazakhs, Kyrgyz. These groups also partly merged into the Turkish nation, partly retained their own ethnic identity, which, however, is increasingly "eroded" in the conditions of living among ethnic Turks.
Modern Turkish legislation considers all who are born of a Turkish father or Turkish mother to be Turks, thus extending the concept of "Turk" to the offspring of mixed marriages.
The main part of the population of 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 living in Central Asia and Iran (mainly Turkmens and Oguzes), under the onslaught of the Seljuks and Mongols, were forced to move to Asia Minor. Some of the Turks (Pechenegs, Uzes) came to Anatolia from the Balkans. As a result of the mixing of Turkic tribes with a heterogeneous local population (Greeks, Armenians, Georgians, Kurds, Arabs), the ethnic basis of the modern Turkish nation was formed. In the process of Turkish expansion into Europe and the Balkans, the Turks experienced some influence from the Albanian, Romanian and numerous South Slavic peoples. The period of the final formation of the Turkish nation is usually attributed to the 15th century.
The Tyumrks are an ethno-linguistic community that took shape on the territory of the steppes of Northern China in the 1st millennium BC. The Turks were engaged in nomadic cattle breeding, and in the territories where it was impossible to engage in it - in agriculture. Modern Turkic-speaking peoples should not be understood as direct ethnic relatives of the ancient Turks. Many Turkic-speaking ethnic groups, today called Turks, were formed as a result of the centuries-old influence of Turkic culture and the Turkic language on other peoples and ethnic groups of Eurasia.
Turkic-speaking peoples are among the most numerous peoples of the globe. Most of them have long lived in Asia and Europe. They also live on the American and Australian continents. The Turks make up 90% of the inhabitants of modern Turkey, and there are about 50 million of them in the territory of the former USSR, i.e. they constitute the second largest group of the population after the Slavic peoples.
In antiquity and in the Middle Ages, there were many Turkic state formations: Scythian, Sarmatian, Hunnic, Bulgar, Alanian, Khazar, Western and Eastern Turkic, Avar and Uyghur Khaganates, etc.” Of these, only Turkey has retained its statehood to date. In 1991-1992 on the territory of the former USSR, the Turkic union republics became independent states and members of the UN. These are Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan. As part of the Russian Federation, Bashkortostan, Tatarstan, Sakha (Yakutia) gained statehood. Tuvans, Khakasses, Altaians, Chuvashs have their own statehood in the form of autonomous republics within the Russian Federation.
The sovereign republics include Karachays (Karachay-Cherkessia), Balkars (Kabardino-Balkaria), Kumyks (Dagestan). The Karakalpaks have their own republic within Uzbekistan, and the Nakhichevan Azerbaijanis within Azerbaijan. Sovereign statehood within Moldova was proclaimed by the Gagauz.
So far, the statehood of the Crimean Tatars has not been restored, the Nogais, Meskhetian Turks, Shors, Chulyms, Siberian Tatars, Karaites, Trukhmens and some other Turkic peoples do not have statehood.
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, 80,000 Kyrgyz, and 15,000 Uzbeks live in China (Moskalev, 1992, p. 162). 18 thousand Tuvans live 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, Turkmen - 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 "- 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 Karachays, Balkars.) There is a Turkic-speaking population in the USA, Hungary, Germany, France, Great Britain, Italy, Australia and some other countries.
Turkic-speaking peoples from ancient times had a significant impact on the course of world history, made a significant contribution to the development of world civilization. However, the true history of the Turkic peoples has not yet been written. Much remains unclear in 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 kind of sources - historical, linguistic, archaeological, ethnographic or anthropological - may be more or less significant for solving the problem. ethnogenesis of this people. However, none of them can claim a fundamentally leading role. Each of them needs to be rechecked by data from other sources, and each of them in any particular case may turn out to be devoid of real ethnogenetic content. S.A. Arutyunov emphasizes: “No source can be decisive and advantageous over others, in different cases different sources may prevail, but in any case, the reliability of the conclusions depends primarily on the possibility of their mutual cross-checking”
The ancestors of modern Turks - the nomadic Oghuz tribes - first penetrated 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 of the Mongol invasion of 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 the name of Osman, became known as the Ottoman. Later it turned into the Ottoman Empire, and the tribes inhabiting this state began to be called the Ottoman Turks. Osman himself was the son of the leader of the Oguz tribe Ertogul. Thus, the first state of the Ottoman Turks was the state of the Oghuz. Who are the Oguzes? The Oghuz tribal union arose at the beginning of the 7th century in Central Asia. The predominant position in the union was occupied by the Uighurs. In the 10th century, the Oguzes, pressed by the Kirghiz, moved to the territory of Xinjiang. In the 10th century, in the lower reaches of the Syr Darya, the Oghuz state was created 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 Oguzes, together with the Seljuks, moved to Europe. Unfortunately, nothing is known about the state structure of the Oghuz, 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 entrenched himself on the Galliopoli Island. Murad I (1359-1389), who already bore the title of Sultan, conquered all of Eastern Thrace, including Andrianopol, where he moved the capital of Turkey (1365), and also eliminated the independence of some of the 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 halted the advance of the Turks into Europe. Under Murad II (1421-1451), the Turks resumed their offensive against 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. Turkey became the largest military power of that time. The Ottoman Empire did not have an internal ethnic unity, and, nevertheless, the formation of the Turkish nation ended in the 15th century. What did this young nation have behind them? The experience of the Oguz state and Islam. Together with Islam, the Turks perceive Muslim law, which differs from Roman law just as significantly as the difference between the Turks and Europeans was. Long before the arrival of the Turks in Europe, the only legal code in the Arab Caliphate was the Koran. However, the legal subjugation of the more developed peoples forced the caliphate to face significant difficulties. In the VIl-th century, a list of advice and commandments of Mohammed appears, which is supplemented over time and soon reaches several dozen volumes. The set of these laws, together with the Koran, constituted the so-called sunna, or "righteous path." These laws constituted the essence of the law of the vast Arab Caliphate. However, the conquerors gradually got acquainted 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 school of law. He was a Persian by origin and managed to create a legal direction that flexibly combined strict Muslim principles and vital needs. In these laws, Christians and Jews were given the right to use their traditional laws.
It seemed that the Arab Caliphate had taken the path of establishing a legal 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 presence of a huge gap between legal and real rights. The power of Mahomet was theocratic in nature and carried in itself both the divine and the political principle. However, according to the precepts of Mohammed, the new caliph had to either be elected at a general meeting, or appointed before his death by the previous caliph. But in reality, the power of the caliph was always inherited. According to legal law, the Mohammedan community, especially the community of the capital, had the right to remove the caliph for unworthy behavior, for mental disability, or for loss of sight and hearing. But in fact, the power of the caliph was absolute, and the whole country was considered his property. Laws were broken in the opposite direction. According to the 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 could not govern a district or city. In fact, the caliph, at his own discretion, appointed non-Muslims to the highest public positions. Thus, if the Europeans, during the transition from the harmonic era to the heroic one, replaced God with Roman Law, then, having spent their harmonic period in Central Asia, the future Mohammedans in the heroic era turned law, together with religion, into a toy of the ruler of the Caliphate, who was both a legislator and an executor , and a judge.
We saw 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 breeds unbridled luxury 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 find out the reasons for the economic backwardness of the Ottoman Empire, which has survived to this day, despite a series 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 modern historical science. Turkish authors, first of all, try to prove that Turkish history has its own specific features that 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, the economy was liberalized, the right to own land, freedom of trade and a number of other measures were legalized, and all this ruined the empire. In other words, according to this author, the Turkish empire was ruined precisely as a result of the penetration of European principles into it.
As stated earlier, the hallmarks of European culture were law, self-restraint, the development of the sciences, and respect for the individual. In contrast, in Islamic law, we saw the unlimited power of the ruler, which puts no value on the individual and gives rise to unbridled luxury. A society devoted to faith and passions almost completely neglects the sciences, and therefore leads a primitive economy.
Meskhetian Turks are one of the most ancient nationalities. According to some researchers, their appearance dates back to the reign of Queen Tamara.
However, in the past few decades, this people has occupied a very ambiguous place in the political and geographical arena. This is due to the fact that at present the ethnicity of the Meskhetian Turks has not been precisely established. However, they themselves cannot come to a common point of view regarding their identification. Consider the most interesting information about the origin, history and state of the art this ancient people.
Appearance of the Meskhetian Turks
The Meskhetian Turks, whose origin dates back to the 11th century, appeared as a nationality at a time when there was a mass settlement of the Transcaucasus and Asia Minor by the Turks. In the regions bordering with Georgia, a special ethnic group gradually formed. In the area of the Meskheti Range, mass migrations took place, especially associated with the arrival of the Mongols in the 13th-14th centuries.
Which significantly increased the number of Turks in these territories. Especially when you consider that Meskhetia was much less protected from enemy attacks from the south. All these factors influenced the assimilation of local residents by the Ottoman Turks.
History 16th-19th centuries
In 1555, the territory of Meskheti was annexed to the Ottoman Empire. Thus, she was strongly influenced by the Turkish ethnos and culture. Mass assimilation of local residents began. This concerned both culture and religion (voluntary conversion to Islam was especially encouraged), and language (colloquial Turkish became interethnic in mixed territories).
Further, as the story goes, the Turks (by the way, the Meskhetians, by the way, as well as the inhabitants of other subordinate areas, were called that way, concretizing this ethnonym with the name of a particular area, in this case, Meskhetia) safely maintained their dominion in these areas until 1826. Then the region was occupied Russian troops, and three years later, most of its areas officially went to the Russian Empire.
It should be noted that at that time the population of the city of Akhaltsikhe alone exceeded fifty thousand people. And then it began to decrease rapidly. At the end of the 19th century, mass persecutions of the Turks began. They were organized by armed Armenian militants. Then the leaders of the local Turks rallied and organized everything in their power to maintain peace and order in the region.
Meskhetian Turks in the 20th century
With the formation of the Georgian SSR, the lands where the Meskhetian Turks lived officially became part of it. When the Great Patriotic War began, almost all adult men were called to the battlefields. Of the forty thousand, more than twenty-eight fell in those years.
And already in 1944, the first wave of large-scale eviction of Meskhetian Turks from their native places began. More than a hundred thousand people were sent to Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan. The Meskhetian Turks, whose photos of that period clearly and picturesquely demonstrate all the horrors and deprivations of the terrible years for them, were settled in different regions and territories without the right to change permanent place residence. Many years later, they were given back the opportunity to move freely around the country, while they were forbidden to return to their homeland. However, the majority decided to stay in their homes. Since then, for this people, the time of wandering begins, which, according to by and large, has not ended even now.
In the summer of 1989, after interethnic clashes and unrest in Fergana, many of the Meskhetian Turks were forced to emigrate. Most of them went to Azerbaijan, where they were provided with state assistance.
A significant number of representatives of this people moved to Turkey. However, many of them were not satisfied with the conditions that the government offered them, which planned to resettle them in poor regions.
The current state of the people
At present, the issue of repatriation and identification of Meskhetian Turks is becoming more and more acute. Almost twenty years ago Georgia undertook to accept them to their historical homeland. But no real steps have been taken to achieve this goal. The insufficiently decisive position of the government and the unfriendly attitude towards the repatriates of the local population have led to the fact that now about one thousand representatives of the people live in Georgia.
Some Meskhetian Turks went to America under a large-scale state program. In total, more than sixty cities were covered. But for now, the program has been suspended.
Thus, the Meskhetian Turks remain an ethnic group that is still looking for its lost homeland.
Language and culture
In the process of assimilation of the population naturally there was also a mixture of languages, with Turkish becoming dominant. He played the role of an interethnic one, while Georgian was gradually being replaced. And today the Meskhetians communicate with each other in one of the dialects of the Turkish language. However, many linguists declare a special dialect, which is supported by some Turkic scholars. It should be noted that the vast majority of the population (according to various sources, up to 85 percent) is fluent in Russian.
The deportation had a negative impact on the general state of traditional culture. A significant part of it has been lost. However, religion, folklore and high ethnic self-consciousness remain significant consolidating factors.
Problems of identification
According to some scholars investigating this issue, many peoples took part in the ethnogenesis of the Meskhetian Turks. Perhaps that is why their identification is still the subject of numerous discussions and scientific disputes today. However, the majority of the Meskhetians themselves adhere to the pro-Turkish version of their origin. The same position is supported by the most active social organization"Watan". Interestingly, its leaders note that Azerbaijan turned out to be the most friendly to the people.
Meskhetians in the world
As mentioned above, over the past decades, the Meskhetian Turks have settled all over the world. Today their total number is about half a million people. At the same time, the largest groups live in Kazakhstan and Turkey. A significant number of them found refuge in Azerbaijan, the United States and Kyrgyzstan. Small groups live in Ukraine, Georgia and some other countries.
The Meskhetian Turks settled in Russia mainly in the Stavropol Territory. And in one of the local settlements they make up the majority of the population. In total, according to the latest data, about ninety thousand Meskhetian Turks live in Russia.
Famous representatives of the ethnic group
The Meskhetian Turks gave the world many famous personalities. Among them are eight heroes Soviet Union, two Heroes of Socialist Labor, one laureate of the Lenin Prize. Also among them are many famous athletes, in particular wrestlers and football players, eminent scientists, artists and journalists.
Like all the people, these people are scattered all over the world and represent different countries. Let's hope that in the end the Meskhetian Turks will still find a coveted home.
Even under the Seljuks, a lot of Greek Christians became renegades, and under the Osmanids, massive forced conversions, the formation of corps of Janissaries from Christian youth, polygamy, which filled the harems with Turkish beauties of various countries and races, slavery, which introduced the Ethiopian element into the houses of the Turks, finally, the custom of expelling the fetus - all this gradually reduced the Turkic element and contributed to the growth of alien elements. Therefore, among the Turks, we meet all transitions to a type with delicate, graceful facial contours, a spherical structure of the skull, a high forehead, a large facial angle, a perfectly formed nose, lush eyelashes, small lively eyes, an upturned chin, a delicate physique, black, slightly curly hair. rich in face.
Often even blond and red-haired individuals are also found among the Turks. In particular, in certain areas, Vamberi notes: the predominance of type features in the region of Ancient Armenia (starting from Kars to Malatia and the Karoj Range), although with a darker complexion and less elongated facial contours, Arabic along the northern border of Syria, and finally, a homogeneous Greek type in Northern Anatolia, of a type which, as one approaches the sea coast, becomes, however, less and less monotonous.
The Persian and Transcaucasian Turks are also of Seljuk origin, but strongly mixed with the Turks and Mongols of the Gulagukhan army who joined them in the 13th century. The tribal unity of the Ottoman Turks is based solely on the common language (Ottoman dialect of the southern Turkic dialects, according to Radlov, or Eastern Turkic, according to Vamberi), the Muslim religion and culture, and the commonality of historical traditions. In particular, the Turkish Ottomans are united by a common politically dominant class in the Turkish Empire. On the other hand, anthropologically, the Turks have almost completely lost the original features of the Turkic tribe, representing at present the most heterogeneous mixture of different racial types, depending on one or another of the peoples absorbed by them, in general, most of all approaching the types of the Caucasian tribe. The reason for this fact lies in the fact that the initial mass of the Turks who invaded Asia Minor and the Balkan Peninsula, in the later period of their existence, without receiving any new influx from among other Turkic peoples, due to incessant wars, gradually decreased in number and was forced to include the nationalities forcibly Turkified by them into their composition: Greeks, Armenians, Slavs, Arabs, Kurds, Ethiopians, and so on.