Central Asia Reader: The Rediscovery of History

The Rediscovery of History

H.B. Paksoy

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781315485034
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Ciencias sociales
• Subtopic: Estudios étnicos

An anthology, translated from original languages and annotated, which documents the rediscovery of history and aims to establish foundations for current political action and cultural revival in the Turkic regions of the former Soviet Union.

1
Rediscovery of History

Ayaz Malikov

The Question of the Turk

The Way Out of the Crisis

Editor's Introduction

Ayaz Malikov, the author of this article published in the newspaper Azerbaijan¹ in March 1990, here suggests that promises made to the nationalities since 1917 should be kept and fulfilled by the Soviet state. Failing that, the nationalities ought not be barred from pursuing their realization. As in the past, some were quick to see in this cultural demand a political menace, the old bogeyman "pan-Turkism," which was conjured up not in the Turk domains but in Europe during the balance-of-power struggles of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The literature on this issue is nascent but documents the works and motives of the "creator" of this notion and the methods of its propagation into the Turk lands.² "The entire English-speaking world," said one Azerbaijan Turk scholar, "forms a cultural whole and is not regarded as a threat to the rest of the world merely on the basis of that cultural unity. When Turks in Azerbaijan look to Dede Korkut or the Orkhon stelae, this is no different from Americans reading Shakespeare."

Notes

1. Published since October 1989 under the editorship of Sabir Rustemhanli, the newspaper had a reported circulation of 200,000. Editorial Board: Ziya Buniatov, Bahtiyar Vahabzade, Bayram Bayramov, Kasim Kasimzade, Ahmet Elbrus (Assistant Editor), Aliyar Seferli, Ismail Shihli, Yasar Aliev, Nadir Jabbarov, Rustem Behrudi, Jumsut Nuriyev, Feride Memedova, Firudin Jelilov, Firudin Abbasov, Elmira Akhundova, Sherif Kerimli. Reportedly, the members of the editorial board were replaced after the spring 1993 "reversal" that returned Haydar Aliyev to power,

2. See Edward Ingram, The Beginnings of the Great Game in Asia 1828—1834 (Oxford, 1979); idem, Commitment to Empire: Prophecies of the Great Game in Asia 1797—1800 (Oxford, 1981); idem, In Defense of British India: Great Britain in the Middle East 1775—1842 (London, 1984). Although the original players in the "great game" were Britain and Russia, Germany joined later in the century and the French were not disinterested.

The Question of the Turk: the Way Out of the Crisis

We, of the more than thirty Turk nationalities of the country, at this critical juncture of our history, must all look into the past and the present in order to find a path to our future. We must, of course, understand that no one will do this for us; or if they do, it will only produce, as we have seen in the past, the results which we now reap.

We Turks traversed a long historical path, from the states of the ancient khans of the Ordos, of the Altai and Sayan, and to the present time. Behind us are more than 2,000 years of political history, full of attainments, loss, and tragedy. More than once along this path we have faced the threat of disappearance, but our forebears always found the strength and the confidence in themselves and the hope to return with renewed strength to the world arena as active members of the world community of nations—with our own face and with our own goals. We must realize that we stand at one such critical moment in our history.

In the recent historical past, at the beginning of the twentieth century, Tatars freely read books, journals, and newspapers published in Azerbaijan; and Tatar newspapers and books proliferated throughout Central Asia, Caucasia, and Siberia. And now, when the French-speaking peoples launch a satellite to guarantee TV programs for France, the French of Canada, and the rest of the world, and when in 1992 the Turkish Republic plans to launch a satellite for telecommunications in its native language for three million Turks abroad, we inexorably remain behind the rest of the world.

Designating our path to development, we must proceed from the reality of the existing world and of our position. The total number of members of Turk groups and nationalities of the country is now close to 50 million—that is, equal to the population of France—an average of 2.5 million people for each Turk nation. The smallest groups, such as the Khakass, the Nogai, and the Balkar, number about 70 thousand; among the largest, the Kazakhs, the Azerbaijanis, and the Tatars number seven to nine million each. The Uzbeks are close to 20 million. Other Turks live in China, Mongolia, Afghanistan, Iran, the Turkish Republic, Syria, and Iraq.

We must work out our own strategy of development. Our first step should be the publication in our languages of all the basic world classics. But some nations, especially those few in number who do not have the status of a union republic, do not have the means to resolve this issue, and it is necessary to recognize this. What can be done? It is necessary, in my view, to create a single bank of translations of world literature in Turk languages. Every translation from any language of the world into one of the Turk languages would be placed in this bank and then it would be easy to make the shift to any other Turk dialect. Besides this, it is necessary as quickly as possible to publish all ancient Turk literature in Runic and in Brahmin and in all other alphabets used at any time by all ancient Turks. Our children do not even know that before the Arabic alphabet we had our own system of writing. All the ancient Turk legacy of our people must be published as quickly as possible. The cultural organization for coordinating such activity could be the Oriental Institute of the Academy of Sciences of the Azerbaijan SSR. It could unite all the forces of our peoples [and] intellectuals in the fastest resolution of this issue. Publication could be cooperative. This guarantees the ability to cooperate and reduces bureaucratic red tape. The publication of the ancient Turk heritage for the small Turk peoples could be undertaken by the larger ones: the Azerbaijanis have the power to guarantee a material basis for publications in Balkar and Karachay; the Kazakhs could publish in Altaian and Khakass; the Tatars, in Nogay. The other peoples have the means themselves to publish this literature. Azerbaijan or Turkmenistan could help the Gagauz, since the language of the Gagauz is Oghuz.

Our peoples do not know their own history. The history of the Russians is taught in schools beginning with ancient Slavs, the history of the Germans, from the ancient Germans, the history of the French, from the ancient Celts and the Gauls, In the same way, our children must begin their studies with the history of the ancient Turks. The existing textbook of the History of the USSR is a variation on the History of Russia, while the history of the other peoples serves only as background decoration against which the history of Russia is played out.

The publication of a textbook The History of the Turks should also be undertaken by the Oriental Institute in Baku. This calls for the mobilization of all the intellectual forces of the country in the field of Turcology. This textbook must be published immediately and included in the curriculum of all the schools of all Turk regions of the country.

The journal Sovetskaia Tiurkologiia must realize that it is the sole journal in the country dedicated to the study of the Turk people and has a responsibility before all the Turk peoples. At present this journal is especially for academicians. Sometimes the impression is created that if our language were to die out, it would be better for this journal—it would not be distracted from "pure art" by waves of human life. The journal Sovetskaia Tiurkologiia must address problems not only of a purely academic nature but also concerning the teaching of our languages in the various regions of the country. It should publish statistical data about our children who do not know their own language and analyze the reasons for this. The journal Sovetskaia Tiurkologiia must recognize the difference between itself and the journal Shumerologiia or Assirologiia. It has the business of dealing with living languages of living peoples with their own problems.

Unification of the alphabet is necessary and should be undertaken immediately. This must be introduced in such a way that differences in spelling of the same word in various Turk languages are completely liquidated or, in other cases, kept to a minimum. It would be even better if we all proceeded to Latinization. This is especially important considering that many Turks live abroad. Our goal must be the achievement of understanding by Tatars and other Turk readers of books and newspapers published in Baku, Tashkent, or Kazan, as it was before the [1917] revolution. Is it not strange? At the beginning of the century the intelligentsia of our peoples actively tried to see into the life of another Turkic people and into its literature by reading its literature in the original. Nowadays you cannot find one such representative of the intelligentsia. The tradition of Alimjan Ibrahimov, Uzeyir Hajibeyov, Boraganskii, Sakin Seyfiillin, and Sheyhzade Babich is completely gone.

It is necessary to expose once for all the false thesis that the knowledge of any Turk language is just the knowledge of one local language. Any Turk language opens the door to the other Turk languages; that is, every Turk language is simultaneously a local language and the language of international communication between close Turk peoples. This should be taught correctly. It is necessary to have the knowledge of this fact spread among our society in order to liquidate the traces of a policy of weakening and destruction that has been pursued for decades. As a result of this pressure we do not have sufficient numbers of Turcologists from our own people. There is not one Tatar or Bashkurt Turcologist from the younger generation. There are Turcologists from other nationalities, but not from among the Tatars or the Bashkurt. The young have been inoculated with disrespect for their own language.

It is necessary to introduce a single coordinated cultural policy and it is necessary not to be afraid of the accusation of "Pan-Turkism "! By that accusation, we will discern those who benefit and are guilty of our current deplorable condition.

When you begin to read one or another Turk literature, you will be amazed at the lack of coordination in the terminology. It is necessary to create a terminological commission with the goal of creating new terminology in all spheres of activity. All films issued by Turk-language studios should be dubbed promptly to guarantee their distribution in the republic. Goods in the field of culture are also goods and it is necessary that the terms of their sale guarantee the profitability of their production. While there is a market of seven million Azerbaijanis for the "Azerbaijanfilm" studios, there are in all 50 million Turks in the country. It is the same for books, whether artistic or in other fields of activity. Every successful book should immediately be offered for sale in all the Turk areas of the country. Why do the books of Chinggis Aytmatov and Chinggis Huseyinov not immediately come out in our languages at the same time they come out in Russian?

Of the 50 million Turk population of the country, 12 million live in republics and oblasts which have "autonomous" status. Obviously, Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, and Kyrgyzstan must use their authority and influence in the higher organs of power in the country in the defense of the interests of the other Turk peoples. Within the limits of the law, the constitution of the country, customs, and morals, we must demonstrate support for each other.

We must proceed from the idea that the Turk peoples of the country have the same rights in all areas of life as other peoples, and that deprivation or limitation of these rights is illegal and immoral and contrary to nature. In the final analysis, we must be represented also in the United Nations organization, but this is a problem for the distant future, when we have greater integration and when our stature in the world has grown. The main issue is to escape from provincialism in the perception of the world and its activities. It is necessary to understand, finally, that in the world there are no divinely ordained centers and damned provinces, that all this is the work of human hands. To perpetuate a feeling of provincialism is one of the means of braking the development of one or another nation, that is, a method of war against it.

According to the newspaper Argumenty i fakty, Soviet internal propaganda is conducted in eighty languages for 2,257 hours per week or 322 hours per day. At the same time, the Turk people of our country are deprived of the radio stations and transmission on short-wave that are allocated to them according to international and the intra-Union electronic communications agreements. These radio stations and hours are allotted for propaganda abroad. Many Turk peoples are dispersed throughout the country, but the radio stations of their republics on medium and long waves hardly reach the whole territory in the republic itself. Is this not derision? This is a waste of our peoples' means and an infringement of their rights. With our resources and our time they build radio stations and broadcast abroad in Swahili, Greek, and other languages while we Turks suffer from national and cultural underdevelopment. It follows, obviously, that resolution of the question of ending the use of the radio stations and broadcast hours for propaganda abroad and transferring them to the Turk people, who have been deprived of the means of communication throughout the whole country, is a necessary minimum. As for Tatars, Azerbaijanis, Bashkurts, and others who have gone out to the oil fields of Siberia and other places, it is necessary to protect their right to hear radio in their native language and not just Voice of America, Radio Liberty, and the BBC.

This is a narrow but very important question. It is necessary also to create an all-Union system of television in all the basic languages of the country for the whole territory of the US...