Ahmet Demirhan: Shaman and Tengri is a Western fiction of Turkish History

Ahmet Demirhan Shaman and Tengri is a Western fiction of Turkish History

–Recently published Shaman and Tengri: A Critique of “Steppe Historiography”, whichwas recently published, I think we should first talk about Turcology. Because this bookis in a way a continuation of The Course of Turkiat from the Ottoman Empire to theRepublic and the Range of Orientalism. What is Turcology and how should weunderstand its relationship with Orientalism?

The history of Turcology is actually a history that has not been studied much. When did it start, how did it start, why did it start? There is a simple equation behind the fact that it has not been studied much except for some exceptional works: Turkiat is seen as a spontaneousextension of modern nationalism. That is to say, whether nationalism entered the OttomanEmpire in the late Ottoman period as a reflection of the European movements, or during thedisintegration of the Ottoman Empire, as various “nations”, most recently Muslims, discovered their own ethnic capabilities, or especially as a result of the influence of intellectuals emigrating from Russia, it is seen as the development of an already inherentdevelopment as a scientific field. If Turkish nationalism develops, then Turkic studies willnecessarily follow. But this is a problematic equation. First of all, it equates Turcology withTurkishness. However, Turkishness does not always fit into the mold of Turcology; thehistory of Turkishness is much richer, much broader and much older than the few centuries of Turcology. In this sense, Turcology is also called “the science of Turkishness” in theTurcology community in Türkiye, which is a very incorrect usage. Just as Sinology, whichemerged as a field along with Turcology, cannot be called “the science of Chineseness”, Hindology cannot be called “the science of Indianness”, and Hellenistic studies, which are a little older than these fields, cannot be called “the science of Hellenism (or Greekness)”, Turcology cannot be called “the science of Turkishness”. In fact, another aspect of this misuseemerges here: Some practices that started with the influence of Turcology or the spread of philological studies, for example, which also influenced Turcology, cannot be callednationalism. Of course, there may be a nationalist feeling or sentiment in these; however, forexample, the Turkish History Thesis or the Sun-Language Theory is not fundamentally a nationalist thesis. On the contrary, it requires first examining how the development of philology in Europe progressed, since it compresses nationalism into a framework of thoughtthat became dominant in European thought at the time of the emergence of philology. Of course, there are also debates that aim to almost radically change the existing historiographyin the Ottoman Empire within the framework of claims such as “why do we negativelyevaluate Genghis Khan in our history, when he is also a part of our past”; however, the issueshould first be sought elsewhere, in philology: To put it in the framework of Ernest Renan, who drew boundaries for Christianity, and within this framework, the framework withinwhich Christianity should remain in Europe, since in our country, for some reason, it has beensqueezed into the debates on Islam and science; philology, to put it crudely, tries to do tolanguages or grammar what Kant tried to do with the critique of reason. Just as the critique of reason consists of drawing an objective limit to reason and examining what can be knownthrough reason, philology draws a limit to a grammar and examines what it can ultimatelyexpress. However, the problem with philology is this: In Kant’s critique of reason, even an alien living on Mars, if it is a rational being, obeys the limits of reason; whereas in philology, the critical boundary is drawn within the framework of Aryanism, and then other lines such as Semitism and Turanism are created on the border of Aryanism. Of course, there is a background to this: What was the language of Eden, what is natural language (if there is sucha thing), what is the origin of language, and so on. But the real impetus comes with the rise of Protestantism. When Protestantism took the advantage of interpreting not only the Bible but also the world in general through certain methods now called hermeneutics, Catholicsresponded by trying to do what Protestantism did without becoming Protestantized. Renan is actually a part of this in philology, and he is someone who has taken important steps toAryanize Christianity from its so-called Semitic roots. Look at what he wrote about the life of Jesus Christ, it is as if Jesus Christ rises like a Greek statue and is supposedly detached fromhis Semitic roots. Behind Turcology, there is a philology that seeks to classify not only whatbelongs to them but also what is outside of them through these philological efforts, and thereis a field of Orientalism that develops accordingly, and it is this framework that determinesthe antecedents of Turcology, not nationalism or Turkishness. If a rough dating is made, Turcology in pre-Ottoman Türkiye went through certain stages: It had a novice phase in thehands of names like Ziya Gökalp (which I carefully emphasize I am using academically), andit endeavored to both reproduce and control the knowledge produced about the ancient Turks, mostly through the French. In the early years of the Republic, there was not much Turcology; instead, there were endeavors such as the Turkish History Thesis or the Sun-Language Theory, which both imitated and rivaled the philological framework established in Europe within the framework of Aryanism and which subjected the nations of the world to a hierarchical classification. After the 1930s, Turcology became increasingly institutionalizedand tried to find a path for itself, especially with the establishment of the DTCF. However, despite their differences, there was also a period when Turcology started to becomeautonomous from Orientalism through names such as Zeki Velidi Togan, İbrahim Kafesoğluand Osman Turan, and this trend was interrupted by the 1960 coup d’état; Turcology wasreduced to an ideological framework and began to be equated with Turkishness. Today, Turkiat is stuck in an etymological framework rather than a philological one, and has beenreduced to a branch of literature faculties dealing with literary studies. However, a historiography produced within its framework has gained serious momentum. However, Turcology is a field that has developed in the range of Orientalism since its emergence, andfor this reason, it is always useful to look critically and cautiously at the material produced bythis field. However, there is usually a response to this from Turcology: If it wasn’t for thework of Orientalists, we would still not be able to read the Orkhon Inscriptions today. However, the reading of the Orkhon Inscriptions is a technical issue. Today, let’s say in an excavation in any region of Türkiye or Turkestan, if a document is unearthed in a hithertounknown script, will we turn to Orientalists to read it, or will we try to read it ourselves bystudying the technique of the work, let’s say how an unknown script can be read, themathematics of the work, deciphering systems, etc.? The reading of the Orkhon Inscriptionsor the existence of ancient documents or information does not give Orientalists an advantage; but if you are not curious about language in general, you cannot read the Orkhon Inscriptions.

You will have a method that is specific to Turkish, that is appropriate to its language, itsgrammar, its grammar, and even its ability, so that, for example, mythology will be seentransparently within that method; it will not look like a paste. Unfortunately, this logic of pasting is more in vogue in our country and this actually makes it difficult to position thematerial of Turkic studies. I have therefore taken a somewhat simplistic route and focused on historiography.

In this case, how do we classify the materials produced by Turkic studies? As materialsproduced from an Indo-European and Aryan center?

It seems necessary to me to make some other classifications in this regard. For example, whatshould we understand when we talk about Turkish mythology? Before modernity, there werelegends, fairy tales, stories, and even epics, but there was no such field as mythology and itsspecific analytical tools and instruments. In fact, it was the same in the West, even though it had a mythological perception of religion and even philosophy. Therefore, many issues thatexist today as Turkish mythology are not actually mythological. In order for it to be mythological, a research method that is valid in other fields today must be applied to thoseissues. For example, if you don’t have a system in anthropology that investigates how kinshiprelations are formed, you cannot present an issue as mythology, no matter how ancient it is. Or if you don’t have a methodology like, let’s say, structuralism, which is unique to linguisticsand which is still unique today in terms of investigating the meaning of not only language but also the meaning of the sign, the sign, the letter, the letter, the sound, the signifier, etc. inlanguage, and which also affects other fields, such as psychoanalysis, since we are talkingabout structuralism, you cannot have a mythology, no matter how hard you try. However, Türkiyat is actually playing a trick on us by pretending that it exists. However, I don’tunderstand what Türkiyat understands when we talk about language in general, not just a spoken language like Turkish, German, English, Persian or Arabic. Turkish is a language, but the language itself is not Turkish. If the study of Turkish, even with its various dialects ordialects, is limited to the study of Turkish only, this narrows Turkish. Unfortunately, such a narrowing exists today. On the other hand, studying language in general through Turkishexpands Turkish and paves the way for its comparison with other languages like itself with itsown appropriate structure. But we cannot attribute this only to the course of Turcology in an Orientalist range. I don’t mean to say that we should do to Turkish what the structuralists did. This would mean, for one thing, applying a method contrary to the structure of Turkish toTurkish or imitating a method specific to another language in Turkish; it would mean actingas an agency of structuralism in Türkiye. You will have a method that is unique to Turkish, that is suitable for its sarf, grammar, grammar, and even its entire capability, so that, forexample, mythology will be seen transparently within that method; it will not look like a paste. Unfortunately, this logic of pasting is more in vogue in our country and this actuallymakes it difficult to position the material of Turkic studies. For this reason, I chose a somewhat simpler way and focused on historiography. Historiography at least made it easierfor me to draw a certain framework. And through historiography, it became easier for me toclassify the material produced by Turkic studies. In short, there may be a Eurocentric aspecteven in the most unimportant places; but for this, one must first turn to a critique of Eurocentrism. It is not a matter of bringing up tales of the past as mythology; maybe after thatwe can talk about mythology.

Then let’s get a little more specific: Shaman, Tengri, steppe, nomadism, Central Asia,…Through historiography, including anthropology, ethnography and even theology, you areinvestigating where these concepts fit. What do these concepts mean? A kind of history of barbarism?

Even to call it barbarism would be optimistic. There are several tragi-comic scenes ofShamanand Tengri. There is the example of Asena, which was mistaken for a feminine name due tothe mistake of the Frenchman Joseph de Guignes, who quoted the relevant tale from theChinese dynastic annals as Tarih-i Umumisi (History of the Huns, Turks, Mongols and OtherWestern Tatars ) in a work that Ziya Gökalp insisted to be translated, when in fact it shouldhave been a male name, or the German-Russian Orientalist Radloff’s Asena, which today is thought to be an ancient myth, But when he claims to have gotten all his information aboutthe contemporary fable of Ulgen and Erlik from a shaman, he actually got it from a Russian missionary, who in turn got it from a local missionary magazine. One of these tragi-comicscenes concerns Dostoevsky’s sudden burst into tears while reading Hegel’s Philosophy of History in Siberia, where he was exiled. This is a scene fictionalized by the Hungarianphilosopher László F. Földényi. Why does Dostoevsky cry in Siberia? Because, despite all thepain and suffering he endured and witnessed, Hegel did not even put Siberia on the marginsof history, but outside of it, and did not show an inch of sensitivity to its pain and suffering. Siberia is ahistorical in Western historiography, and with a sentence of Shaman and Tengri, which is not actually mine, which can be found in Togan, for example, and most recently in Osman Karatay, but which I only reproduced in accordance with the context, a sentence that I expressed as paradoxically looking for a beginning in the East in order to include the historyof Turks in a Western historiography, Turkish history in Turcology starts from the East, fromaround Siberia. This means to dehistoricize oneself by one’s own hand. No matter how muchone tries to write a history of the steppe, it is ahistorical and only enters history as it permeates areas that are on the edge of or within history. Anthropology prepares the groundfor it, ethnography provides the reason, and religious studies weaves a cosmography of itsown. The former excludes it from its own story, the latter justifies why it is outside this story, and the latter heterodoxizes it in the most general sense with a zoomorphic conception of theuniverse.

In this case, what are the turning points of the nomadic-steppe-based Turkish historyconstruction in the context of the relationship between ethnic formation and politicalformation, ethnonym and polytonym?

The dehistoricization of the geography called steppe today actually affects the existence of theentities constructed on that geography. Perhaps it is more accurate to say this: Transitionpoints from ahistoricity to history are first invented. As we move from Central Asia to Eurasiaor from under the Caspian Sea to the Persian-Byzantine civilization, turning points begin toemerge. On the other hand, China, even though it already has a civilization, is an abstract, unconcretized front. Therefore, an influence from there is considered to be possible only byapplying the same abstractness to the steppe. Thus, the steppe is conceived not as a place thatdoes not have any organization, not even a tribe, and therefore, in the classical definition of anthropology, not as a place where a nucleus grows and flourishes, or where the same nucleussprouts again in a new place, but in a different kind of way, as in the transition from theGreeks to Rome, but as a place that can be dispersed at any moment and recovered at anymoment. Of course, the most important issue here is that ethnonyms and polysonyms areoften constructed in relation to the external boundaries that define the steppe. In other words, without a core or nucleus of its own, ethnonyms and polytonyms are shaped by influences andreactions, leaving only geography as the actor. The phrase “geography is destiny”, which is often quoted today and attributed both to Ibn Khaldun and Tanpınar, may have its first pointof origin and its most historically backward point in the steppe. The steppe determineseverything; but in its own unique way. Therefore, in this unique place, there is no ethnicelement in the first place; there is nothing but a scattered and wandering “herd”, that specificconcept of Freud’s anthropology based on psychoanalysis. Until a brave man emerges. As thatbrave man gathers the crowds around him around a certain purpose, a political organizationemerges first. In other words, there is a process here that is the opposite of Indo-European orAryan historiography. The Aryans have tribes because they are sedentary and their habitat already exists, but not in the steppe. In Aryans, political organization comes after the tribe, that is, after ethnic formation. Whereas in the steppe, there is a political organization formedaround a leader first. So this is the fiction. Then, when this political organization disintegrates, a disorganized herd state continues until a new valiant, new leader emerges and gathers thescattered “herd”. However, since political organizations form a kind of hierarchy, those in thathierarchy start to form ethnonyms with the names they receive according to their place in thehierarchy. In other words, it is assumed that there is no ethnonym coming from the root, fromthe core in the steppe. This already conceptually embodies a nomadism in which polonymsand ethnonyms wander from place to place without nomadism as a way of life. The steppe is nomadic first as a concept, not as a way of life. However, as we move towards civilized areas, let’s say Eurasian tribes or Anatolia, ethnonyms start to stabilize. For example, Pechenegs, Cumans, Bulgarians, or down below, Oghuzs and so on. Before that, these are just variable, floating, nomadic names that can be seen in different forms in different places and do not include a lineage. Oghuz, for example, can be conceived both in the Caspian tribes and in thevery East, almost to the Pacific borders, in the Siberian tribes. To put it briefly, the steppe is a geo-political design in which a “tribal” unit, which is the specific concept of a Western anthropology, is searched for but never found; and since it cannot be found, it is designedfloatingly within its own unique ethnography. The steppe is a fictional concept invented toahistoricize the Turks and to design them not within history, not even on the edge of it, but outside it. In this fiction, it is the Aryans who make history. Therefore, ancient Turkishhistory can no longer be written without displacing this fiction.

While the ancient geography of Europe struck a balance between the normal and theabnormal, the mental and the imaginary, the rational and the irrational, the early ancestorsof humanity in other lands filled the realms above and below ground with strange andfreakish beings, or “spirits”. Shamanism is just one of the things on the other side of the linethat separates the normal from the abnormal, the natural from the supernatural, the mentalfrom the imaginary, even the artistic from the quackery and so on.

What is Shamanism? In the context of the relationship between theology and anthropology, is the Central Asian Siberian/ Altai-Mongol-Turkic historiography in the Western imagination an imaginary ethnographic appropriation based on Indo-Europeancivilization? How are names such as shamanism, shamanism, animism, Tengri, asenacontextualized in this context?

In Türkiye, strangely, similar to the lack of interest in the general definition and history of language, as if language itself begins and ends with Turkish, shamanism has been perceivedas if it were the most authentic part of Turkish history. This is, of course, again influenced bythe steppe historiography. And this is manifested as follows: Since it is assumed that the mostauthentic inhabitants of a culture are those who live in the most secluded and least interactivelands, it is thought that it is groups such as the Yakuts, who live on the shores of Siberia, in the foothills of Altai, etc., who still maintain an ancient Turkic culture dating back toprehistoric times. In the early periods of Turkic studies, not only kinship terms but also themost ancient way of life were tried to be extracted from them. This is where it became clearthat shamanism was an authentic part of this culture. But this is only the beginning of thestory. Afterwards, other evidences were tried to be found. The article “kam” in Kashgarli orwhat is said about a group called “Samaniye” in Buruni. And then from there a whole pile of literature that really cannot be reconciled with each other. Now, even to understandanalytically what is what, you have to go through this pile and spend a lot of effort. Evenwhen you do that, you can’t get out of it. However, when we turn the table and look at how shamanism was shaped in the European mind with questions such as what shamanism is, when it emerged, why there was a need for such a category, the nature of the story changes. Leaving aside the marketing of shamanism by writers like Eliade, who has a lot to say on thesubject but can’t come up with anything analytically except a short sentence like “shamanismis a technique of ecstasy”, the new story can be summarized as follows: First, there is an anthropological fiction of shamanism. In this construct, shamanism is just a categoryalongside many other similar categories. In other words, it does not have any uniquecharacteristics of its own; it has the same structure as other similar categories, such as witchesor those who believe that they transform into werewolves and fight against evil “spirits”. What is the main feature of this structure? There is a search for the “beyond” of thecorporeality of culture. Anthropology considers this as the first attempt to divide the singleplane in which the first ancestors of humanity lived, the corporeal plane, into various layers. In other words, it judges that there was such a change in the mental structure of the firstancestors of mankind that they began to construct different planes from the corporeal plane, such as the above-ground and underground realms. This is actually the story of all shamanicnarratives based on cave paintings. It is said that the first ancestors of mankind managed todivide the earth, which is a corporeal plane, into above and below ground with the picturesthey drew in the caves, and in doing so, they attributed different spheres of existence to thesedifferent realms. But the story of anthropology does not end there. While certain geographies, most notably the ancient geography of Europe, have experienced this distinction in a line of intellectual development and have maintained a balance between the normal and theabnormal, the mental and the imaginary, the rational and the irrational, the first ancestors of humanity in other lands have filled the underground and above-ground realms withcompletely strange and freakish beings, moreover with “spirits”. Shamanism is just one of thethings on the other side of the line that separates the normal from the abnormal, the naturalfrom the supernatural, the mental from the imaginary, the rational from the irrational, even theartistic from the quackery and so on. The way in which it came to be a form of evaluation in its own right is seen first of all in the Russian effort to present themselves as an Enlightenment nation, to rehabilitate the various peoples under their rule. Thus, the course of anthropology now moves from the invention of shamanism to its ethnographic discovery. There are many theories about the origin of the word “shaman” and sometimes there are evenfunny etymological inferences. However, the formation of the word begins with the gradualspread of the word “shaman” from Russian into German. Thus, an ethnographic figure of theshaman was born, primarily at the hands of the Russians, who wanted to keep their nationalpride alive, and German Orientalism, which was the basis of Russian Orientalism. Moreover, it began to be considered as a remnant of an ancient culture that the Russians, who wereengaged in a struggle for dominance with the Chinese in Asia, nurtured in order tosubordinate the local population to themselves against the Buddhist and Confucian tendenciesinherent in Chinese culture. In other words, while Russian Orientalism presents itself as freeof shamanism or similar quackery against Western Europe, it also has a double tendency tonurture shamanism against the Chinese mentality. In fact, this issue of nationalist pride can also be seen, for example, in the strategies employed by Romanians and Hungarians in Central Europe to incorporate themselves into a European historiography. While theRomanians kept shamanism away from their own ancient culture within the framework of a historiography tied to Mediterranean civilization, the Hungarians, on the contrary, for thesame reason, tried to connect shamanism to their own cultural past in order to be included in a European historiography but not to break away from a nationalist past. In our case, thisnationalist historiographical fervor lies behind the understanding that shamanism was an extension of the ancient national culture when it first began to be identified in Turkic studies. To summarize, the story of the anthropological line of shamanism consists of an effort todistinguish a distinct and originally Western formation from a non-Western one, while thestory of its ethnographic discovery consists of an attempt to identify its own culture in orderto be included in the same Western historiography. The problem is that at the meeting point of these two lines, the question of corporeality and beyond, things get complicated. Theanthropological line, which starts shamanism from cave drawings, reserves the normal foritself and claims that its views on the “soul”, for example, shape the normal. However, it is difficult to understand what is called “spirit” in the ethnographic line. Animism can be seen as a key concept in this sense; however, the meaning of animism as attributing life to theinanimate is a sophistry produced through secondary literature and has the bizarre name of “spiritism”. In the West, however, the real name of “spiritism” is “spiritualism” and there aremany currents on this subject, both public and private, closed and esoteric. Behind the termanimism, first coined by the British anthropologist E. B. Tylor and later transformed by Freud and others, lies an understanding of psyche. Psukhe corresponds to “soul” for us, that is, an understanding of the soul that can be conceived as beyond corporeality. For this reason, boththe invention of shamanism and the main trigger for its ethnographic discovery are related tothis “nafs”, which is confused with “soul”, and while the Westerner did not have muchdifficulty in translating it as “mind” to his own Greek and Latin world in terms of mentality, Batılı olmayanlar için animizmin saftatacı karşılığının yaygınlaşmaya başlamasıyla, sanki cadılardan tutun da bir takım kılık değiştirmelere uğrayarak, en çok da hayvan biçimine bürünerek birtakım yolculuklara çıktığı iddia edenlerde “nefs” acayip bir biçimde zoomorfikbir biçim alır. The fact that this point is not understood by those who study shamanic literaturein Türkiye, such as Ahmet Yaşar Ocak, who has not analytically understood what shamanismis, has led to bizarre claims being made. While one of the ancients, Abdülkadir İnan, forexample, admitted later that he had taken everything he said about shamanism from Russian Orientalists and that he had made a mistake in doing so, those who still describe shamanismas a journey to the realm of certain “spirits” by means of certain “spirits” are doing nothingbut superstition in the name of science. Because in this case, the first question to be asked is what is the “spirit” or the psyche or soul that is confused with it? I am sure the ancients had a clearer understanding of this than those who talk about “spirits” in shamanism.

You have an observation to the following effect: “The Indo-European hypothesis – theAryan civilization – works like an origin. The Altaic theory requires a beginning that is sought but not found. In the Torah, the origin is before the fall to the earth. The place of origin is on the side of the gods. To speak of origin is to sing a song of the birth of a god(theogeni). But the historical beginning is after the fall, it is vulgar. And barbaric”. This is like the theological definition of the racist supremacist ideology of Indo-European orAryan-based Western colonialism. The steppe-nomadic history and religiography attributedto the Turks seems to construct an origin story for groups that begin history from outsidehistory in the face of their own origins. Perceiving and criticizing the construction of pre-Islamic Turkish identity in this context is the most striking emphasis of your book. How can Kemalism’s attempt to reconstruct Turkishness, which is tried to be placed in the position of the founding ideology of the Republic, be interpreted within this framework? In particular, what is the place of Kemalist Turk(çü)lism, which started with Ziya Gökalp and progressedwith Mahmut Esat Bozkurt, in Eurocentric origin stories? With which definition andmission did self-colonization put ‘Turkishness‘ at the center?

I think that both the Tanzimat intellectuals and the early Republican intellectuals weresensitive to the story that the West marketed itself in certain respects. For this reason, ourhistory of the last few centuries, which has been told through narratives such as modernization, Westernization, secularization, which is now being reproduced to the pointthat it is so repetitive that it has become tiresome, even in versions that seem to be differentunder names such as Worshipping the Turk or the Turkishness Covenant, under the effortsthat codify Kemalism as a civil religion, tells the same thing, needs to be retold. I have tried toretell our recent history while examining the relationship between Orientalism and Turcology, and I have tried to write a history by examining different criteria, for example, developmentsin museology or photography, attitudes towards archaeological findings. We also have a tradition, a tradition that tells about Westernization through novels or poetry. However, studies that do what I did through Turcology through theater or music are much moresuccessful in examining the history of modernization. They can put forward much moreremarkable theses. Why? They can go back much further and find different key points of comparison. Theater can easily be compared to miniature art and music to classical music. Inthis respect, we need to pay attention to this: We need to find areas where we can see theTanzimat intellectuals and the intellectuals of the first period of the Republic being againsthow the West markets its superiority. In this sense, we should also periodize nationalism. Forexample, the nationalism that began in the last period of the Ottoman Empire and thenationalism envisioned in the first years of the Republic are very different from Kemalist nationalism. First of all, we need to define what Kemalism is. In my opinion, Kemalism is not an ideology that started right at the beginning of the Republic, or even in the 1930s. Ziya Gökalp is not a Kemalist, but Niyazi Berkes‘ Ziya Gökalp is. But Berkes‘ Gökalp is a productof a period when Kemalism as an ideology found a base. I think the real Kemalism gained itsideological formation after the 1960 coup. A little bit of Baathism, a little bit of thirdworldism, symbols becoming overly meaningful, and so on. You will say that there was noKemalism before that; you will say, what are we going to do with all these things, from theway various reforms were presented to the practices that were so harsh that they suffocatedthe nation, to the glorification of Turkishness? Of course, the developments that formed theideological core of Kemalism took place in those periods, but it was after the 60 coup d’étatthat this core sprouted and found ground. I would like to remind you that the coup d’état of 1960 was also a date when the efforts of Turcology to autonomize itself were interrupted. Türkiye did not define itself as a third world country until the 1960 coup. After the coup, letalone third worldization in the social, economic or political spheres, third worldism emergeseven in poetry, Cemal Süreya can write an article called “poetry in third world countries”. The intellectuals of the late Ottoman period and the early years of the Republic mostly tried tofrustrate the West’s attempts to take civilization into its own hands by opposing the equationof civilization with the West, a tendency that can be observed throughout the world. It is not always successful, but there is such a tendency. This sentiment and the efforts formodernization are being both prolonged and interrupted by a number of theses and theories, such as the Turkish History Thesis or the Sun-Language Theory, which emulate Aryanismand are put forward as a rival to it. It is being sustained because Europe or the West in general, apart from its material power, has a mentality as bad as the content of our history orlanguage thesis; skull measurements and the like are widespread, and there is not only a racism in the West that brought Nazism to power. It surprises us to hear that in America thereis a law called the “one drop law”, which categorizes those with even a single drop of indigenous or black blood as indigenous or black, and that this law was in effect until theClinton era. Why? Because the West is now seen as an abstract cosmopolitanism, especiallyas the efforts to commonize civilization have failed and the third world has become morethird worldized. “It is the land of principles, legislation and law. There can be no wrongthere” is a strange perception. However, there has always been a strong correlation betweenthe rise of the new right and radical racism in the West. From this point of view, with thirdworldization, you begin to accept that you are now behind, that what you need to achieve can be realized not only through modernization but also through the principles of abstractcosmopolitanism. In fact, this is where Turkishness undergoes a more serious fracture, otherwise the nationalism of the late Ottoman intellectuals or the early years of the Republicstill exists, although of course there has been a transformation in the definition of “nation”. We should not get too hung up on caricature claims or caricature characters like Mahmut Esad Bozkurt in the early years of the Republic. The real transformation took place, let’s say, whenthe statue of the Hittite Sun was erected in Sıhhiye Square or when it became the emblem of Ankara University. The Ankara Municipality’s efforts to change the emblem, which still has a mosque, back to the Hittite Sun should be read in this light, and if Kemalism is to be sought, it should be sought here. On the other hand, the growing prominence of pre-Islamic Turkishhistory did not start with the much-mentioned Turkification efforts of the Republic. It startswith the aforementioned discussions on the incorporation of Genghis Khan or the Mongols in general into the historical narrative. To summarize, of course, the influence of a Eurocentricnarrative begins to make itself felt during the fading periods of the Ottoman Empire and theearly years of the Republic; but the real break comes after the coup d’état of 1970. It is symptomatic that the period after the 60 coup d’état was also a time when debates on “order” were raging in Türkiye and the choice of feudalism or the Asian Mode of Production wasbeing tried to be applied to history. In a sense, these are both a reaction to the abstractcosmopolitanization and third worldization and a search for a new place for Türkiye. Otherwise, the place of Türkiye before 60 was the league of nations and the demand was forequality. To tie in with the sentence you quoted, one thing that abstract cosmopolitanismconceals is that the West considers itself the closest place to the originary and this is linked totheology. Europe has always been ecclesiastic, not only as a unity, but also as a philosophical“idea” from Kant to Husserl to Heidegger and now Derrida, whether through Catholicismwith its institutionalized and hierarchical structure, or through the Protestant churches withtheir dispersed and non-hierarchical structure. This claims to retain the knowledge of theorigin, while the others are left with the beginning, for which they constantly offer youlegislation. Prof. Şener Aktürk has a point: We should no longer be a country of study, but a country of work. While the studied country is the country on which research and studies arealways carried out, the country that is dug up to its very core, the working country means thecountry that is the center of these studies. We should be able to study other countries, especially Europe and the West in general, with a critical eye. There is no point in still beingstuck on the letter revolution, because if you have a Eurocentric understanding of “letter”, ifyou perceive writing and drawing as logocentric, it doesn’t matter whether your letter startswith elif or alpha. That logocentrism must first be criticized. The autonomization of Turcology was essential for this, but it was interrupted. Only if Turcology can turn into a critique of Eurocentrism, not only will it become autonomous, but it will also be able to findmore useful answers to such questions as what is European, what has the West done, and soon, as well as a definition of Turkishness that is free from Orientalism. Let me say more: Thisspecialization of Turcology and its return to a critique of Eurocentrism will not only relieveTurkishness, but also Kurdishness, Armenianness, and Greekness, if we limit ourselves to theethnic names around us.

How is pre-Islamic Turkish history used today? What is the role of the steppehistoriography that you draw attention to? Does steppe historiography work as a kind of self-colonization tool?

First of all, let me state this: Self-colonization, or its analogues such as self-colonialism, self-orientalism or “orientalism in situ”, is actually about abstract universality. Since the West has detached itself from its own history, and even rendered invisible the main arteries, let alonethe caverns, capillaries and capillaries of its own concrete history, and presented itself as theultimate principle of what is called the world, history, society and culture, it is not veryaccurate to call every effort to position oneself against the West a form of self-colonization orself-orientalism. Moreover, it displaces what is called colonization or orientalism. Colonization is the property of the West, Orientalism belongs to the West. There are no otherforms of these; if there were, the West would have incorporated it into its own legislation, forexample Türkiye could have easily become a member of the European Union. But –fortunately, in my opinion – it can’t; I don’t think it can under any circumstances. We aretalking about a union with a questionable future. From this point of view, it is essential to link what pre-Islamic Turkish history or the steppe historiography, including the Islamic period, has to do with Orientalism, but it is also essential to evaluate separately what this has produced in today’s picture, such as neo-shamanism. Steppe historiography, for example, bears the fruits of many of the scientific investments of German Orientalism and its extension, Russian Orientalism. Moreover, Russian colonization, and subsequently Soviet colonization, owes much to these scientific investments. However, it is not always correct to see the otherside as passive. For example, in this sense, the Jadidism movement needs to be well studied. The history of Azerbaijan needs to be well researched, the history of the whole Turkestangeography needs to be well researched, away from the hamas. In fact, I repeat: Türkiye‘shistory of the last three centuries needs to be rewritten. Let me generalize even more: Weneed to get out of the old molds and look again at the history of Egypt, Syria and Iraq. Moreover, neither Orientalism nor colonization has ever remained static; it has been able toadjust itself to the developments in world politics very easily because new points of resistancehave emerged. In other words, there is no passive structure. The most prominent example of this is China’s approach to the alphabet revolution. A Chinese writer calls the course of thedebates over the alphabet in the late nineteenth century, just like in the Ottoman Empire, “alphabet universalism”. In the late nineteenth century, the Chinese also put the alphabetchange on the agenda, especially in the context of the emergence of national literarymovements after the collapse of the old global literary structures. Moreover, the Chinesewriting system is not like Ottoman Turkish. There was, and still is, no alphabet in China; there are only calligraphic figures and they are written and read. In addition, in terms of spoken language, let’s say the north and the south cannot sit down and talk to each other, but they can write and read the same figures. It is a strange system. People whose spokenlanguage is not the same can easily communicate in writing, but they cannot communicatewhen they talk. In such a structure, during the modernization period in China, the change of the alphabet came to the agenda and remained on the agenda for many years. Of course, modernization is also taking place in this system, and missionaries have also contributed tothis modernization. Now, for example, there is a common modern system, but there is still noalphabet in China. In short, the Chinese have been debating for many years whether to adoptthe alphabet or not. Until when? Until the Non-Aligned Movement emerged. Why? Becausethe writing system in many of the countries in the Non-Aligned Movement is different fromthe Western writing system. In order to appeal to them, the Chinese decided not to switch tothe alphabet, even though they modernized their old system. This is an instructive experienceand a resistance to “alphabet universality”. There is a resistance not only to the alphabet but also to logocentrism. But let me reiterate this: If you believe in logocentrism, that is to say, roughly speaking, if you believe that a “sound” that comes out of your mouth has a counterpart somewhere out there as a “letter”, if you already think that the “sound” and the“letter” already exist not in you but as a sign outside – and this is very Christian – thenwhether you start your writing with an elif or an alpha, or whether you have a calligraphicsystem like in China, it’s up to you. Now you start transforming according to that externalsign, whereas the “sound” and the “letter” are within you. If you don’t make a sound, youcannot make a letter. Otherwise, “alphabet universalism” makes everyone believe that theletter and even the sound are outside. This is very Christian. If you look for the sign outside, there will be a change that will affect even the way you make music. This is a little bit what is happening with us. But this cannot be called self-colonization or self-Orientalism. Maybe thiscan be said: As I said at the beginning, in order to be included in a Western historiography, the history of the ancient Turks is paradoxically started from the very East, from the ends of the Pacific-Siberia; just like that, the beginning of the “steppe historiography”, since it codifies you as ahistorical, makes you subject to a sermon that wherever you are, you alwayscarry that first beginning with you like a nomad. Even when you become a Muslim, let’s say, that beginning is always with you and it has an effect on your Muslimness. But if you haveonly become a Muslim, for example, if you have become Slavic or Russified, you no longerneed to carry the beginning with you. There is not much trace of Turkishness in those whohave already become Slavic or Russified. Because they have forgotten, they don’t even wantto remember. Bulgarians are the best example. Therefore, everything is adjusted according toyour Islamization. Secondly, there is a perception that Turkishness has been pushed to thebackground after Islamization. But this is not the case. Şerif Mardin has an article called“Games with Names”. There he makes a distinction and evaluates how Turkishness functionswithin Islam. There is an Arabic style and a Persian style. Here in poetry, music, even in manners and behavior. In addition to this, there is a Rumi style, this style sings in Turkish andin time becomes superior to the others. Turks have developed a beautiful state and attitude bysinging Türkî. In an article evaluating İsmet Özel’s stance on the issue of Turkishness, I haveseen this in works such as Eşrefoğlu Rumi’s Müzekkin Nüfus: “Turning it into Turkic”, “dressing it in Turkic clothes” (this is the correct meaning of the expression that is animistically understood as “changing underwear”), When I was searching behindexpressions such as “to say in the form of Türkî”, “to make it Turkish”, “to wear Türkîcedîbâce”, “to wear dîbâ-yı Rûmî”, I changed the late Mehmet Akif’s expression a little andactually broke the modern timbre of it, and expressed it as follows: “He takes inspiration fromfour books / Turns his life into the Turkish form”. Here, instead of “can” we can also say “kalam”, it doesn’t matter. This is the Turkic style, and it has been with the Turks since Islamization until modern times. This style is graceful, elegant, gentle and observant; it is a style that looks at the whole world, but it is also a style that can also be agitated whennecessary. It says, “We have no hands, no waist, no tongue, but we walk around the world likemen.” This is the Turkishness I understand; otherwise, being anti or in favor of Arabism, Persianism, Romanism-Greekism, or even Frankishness is not an issue unless it is necessaryin the face of this style. Unfortunately, this style is being lost, and it has even been turned intoa style-less over-exaltation, “Oh those crazy Turks” and so on, and “steppe historiography” has a big share in this. However, Turkishness without a style is without a style, it can neitherunderstand its own state nor the state of the world.