Turkology

History

Ethnological information on Turkic tribes for the first time was systemized by the 11th-century Turkic philologist Mahmud al-Kashgari in the Dīwān ul-Lughat it-Turk (Dictionary of Turkic language). Multi-lingual dictionaries were compiled from the late 13th century for the practical application of participants in international trade and political life: Kipchak (Cuman)-Persian-Latin-German Codex Cumanicus, Armenian-Kipchak, and Russian-Kipchak dictionaries. By the Middle Ages the Turkology was centred around Byzantine/Greek historians, ambassadors and travelers, and geographers. In the 15th-17th centuries the main subject of Turkology was the study of the Ottoman Empire and the Turkish language, and the Turkic languages of Eastern Europe and Western Asia. In 1533 a first hand-written primer appeared, and by 1612 a printed grammar by Jerome Megizer was published, followed by F. Mesgnien-Meninski's 4-volume Thesaurus Linguarum Orientalium published in 1680.

P. S. Pallas initiated a more scientific approach to Turkology with his Comparative dictionaries of all languages and dialects (1787) which included lexical materials from Tatar, Mishar, Nogai, Bashkir, and other Türkic languages. In the 19th century, Turkology was further developed by M. A. Kazembek's Grammar of the Turkish-Tatar language (1839), O. N. Betlingk Grammar of the Yakut language (1851). A major achievement was the deciphering at the end of the 19th century of the Early Middle Age Orkhon inscriptions by V. Thomsen and W. W. Radloff (1895). By the end of the 19th century, Turkology developed into a complex discipline that included linguistics, history, ethnology, archeology, arts and literature. In the 20th century the Turkology complex included physical anthropology, numismatics, genetics, ancient Turkic alphabetic scripts, typology, genesis, and etymology, onomastics and toponymy. The appearance of Türkische Bibliothek (1905–27) inaugurated specialised periodicals, followed by Mitteilungen zur Osmanischen Geschichte (1921–26). Scientific developments allowed calibrated dating, dendrochronology, metallurgy, chemistry, textile, and other specialized disciplines which contributed to the development of the Turkological studies. Deeper study of the ancient sources allowed better understanding of economical, social, mythological and cultural forces of the sedentary and nomadic societies. Linguistic studies uncovered pre-literate symbioses and mutual influences between different peoples.

Persecution in Soviet Russia

On 9 August 1944 the Central Committee VKP(b), the ruling party of the USSR, published an edict prohibiting "ancientization" of Turkic history. The edict was followed by a consecutive wave of mass arrests, imprisoning and killing of the intelligentsia, massive creation of replacement "scientists", and re-writing of history pages on an industrial scale. Combined with the concurrent wholesale deportation of indigenous populations to remote areas in Middle Asia and Siberia, the wipe-out of the science was nearly complete, and the impact of the action subsided only partially in the newly independent countries after the collapse of the USSR. In the two decades after the Bolshevik's assuming power, the tradition of Turkological studies in Russia and dependent countries was practically wiped out.

On the other hand, this edict brought unintended benefits to Turkology. One was the nearly immediate linguistic development of an alternate lexicon which replaced the nouns and adjectives containing the word "Türk" by a wealth of euphemisms: "nomads, Siberians, Paleosiberians, Middle Asians, Scythians, Altaians, Tuvians", etc. that filled scientific publications. The other was "writing into a drawer", when results of the years of fruitful work were written down for future publication. When the bonds relaxed, the publications exploded. Another was a flight of scientists from European Russia into remote areas, which brought first class scientists to many intellectually starved outlying areas of Middle Asia. Another one was connected with the statewide efforts to re-invent the history, when a wealth of Turkological facts were found in the process of search for "correct" history. And another one was a built-up of the public interest for the forbidden subjects, that resulted that no print size could satisfy the demand. L.N.Gumilev and O.Suleimenov inflamed a surge in the new generation of Turkology scholars.

With the physical culling of the scholars from the society, concurrently was also organized a total extermination of all their published and unpublished works, their books were removed from the libraries and destroyed from private collections by intimidated population, articles and publications were culled, published photographs were retouched, private photographs were destroyed, published scientific references were erased, or publications with undesired references were destroyed. Very few of the early 20th century expedition diaries, ethnographical notes, reports and drafts for publications were ever recovered.

Turkology scholars persecuted in 20th-century Soviet Russia

Related periodical publications

A selection of English-language periodicals studying Turkology