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rfmcdonaldJournalist Hugh Pope's Sons of the Conquerors: The Rise of the Turkic World (New York: Overlook Duckworth, 2005) is an engaging study of the Turkic world in the era of post-Soviet Pan-Turkism . Drawing upon almost two decades of experience in Turkey, the Caucasus, and Central Asia, Pope explores the frequently overlooked phenomenon of the emergence of a Turkic world comprising almost 150 million people.
The author's thesis is that the Turkic peoples of the world, united by their related languages, their shared nomadic histories, and by their recent relatively successful modernization, form a single community, a group of related nations with a surprising number of characteristics in common, ranging from similar languages and popular musics to shared attitudes towards development and state power. Only recently, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, has a Turkic community begun to form. With a prosperous capitalist Turkey at its core, the five independent Turkic states in the former Soviet world (Azerbaijan in the Caucasus, and in Central Asia Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan) as new recruits, and the growth through immigration and ethnic reidentification of multiple overlapping Turkic diasporas throughout the world, the new Turkic world is on the verge of becoming a major power in the world.
Pope is right to note this emergent trend. Throughout his treks in Central Asia, his visits with Melungeons who claim Turkish ancestry, his delicate chats in the tense Uyghur-populated Chinese region of Xinjiang, his first-hand studies of Turkish immigrant communities in Germany and the Netherlands, and his interviews with members of Turkey's growing bourgeoisies and working classes, the reader does get the sense that a Turkic community is indeed forming. Speakers of Turkic languages can be found everywhere, as far east as Yakutia in northwestern Siberia and as far west as the former Yugoslavia. A broader diaspora is forming as a result of mass emigration, with communities of Turks growing up in western Europe, Russia, and the United States. Further, it is quite true that Turkey is an power of note for thousands of kilometres around, combined population and economic growth making it a well-grounded regional power with a solid economy, an interesting popular culture, and an attractive model for modernizing states. Why mightn't a Turkic community, of nations if not of states, form?
The main reason, as Pope acknowledges to his credit, is that the Turkic community is to date mainly an imagined community. It's quite true that Turkish investment in the Turkic successor states to the Soviet Union has surged, Azerbaijan has moved with Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan to adopt Latin script for its national language, and that Turkish interest in a potential Turkic hinterland stretching into China and Russia and Iran has surged proportionately to the likelihood of Turkish rejection by the European Union. Apart from these nominal signs of interest, there's no sustained movement. Many are the people interviewed by Pope--Uyghur refugees in Istanbul, hostile Tajiks in Samarkand, shamans in Russia's Altay, community activists in Germany--who suggest that a Turkic community is forming, but few are the people who point to actual benefits. Simply put, the Turkic bonds that Pope identifies aren't the only transnational bonds uniting these peoples--a shared experience of Soviet rule and Russification, for instance, unites the Turkic peoples of the former Soviet Union as it separates then from Turkey--while many of the traits identified by Pope as common to Turkic societies like corrupt and ineffective states seem to be more products of "failed" development than of ancestral ethnic origin. Underlying similarities exist and will likely grow, as Turkey becomes a steadily greater influence on its cognate peoples. Turkey just isn't powerful enough to create such a seachange.
Sons of the Conquerors is worth reading for its refreshing comparativistic examination of the Turkic peoples of Eurasia and beyond. I'll be the first to praise Pope for his foresight if, in fact, a Turkic community does form. In the meantime, the informed reader should be skeptical as to his thesis' likelihood of every being realized save in part.
The author's thesis is that the Turkic peoples of the world, united by their related languages, their shared nomadic histories, and by their recent relatively successful modernization, form a single community, a group of related nations with a surprising number of characteristics in common, ranging from similar languages and popular musics to shared attitudes towards development and state power. Only recently, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, has a Turkic community begun to form. With a prosperous capitalist Turkey at its core, the five independent Turkic states in the former Soviet world (Azerbaijan in the Caucasus, and in Central Asia Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan) as new recruits, and the growth through immigration and ethnic reidentification of multiple overlapping Turkic diasporas throughout the world, the new Turkic world is on the verge of becoming a major power in the world.
Pope is right to note this emergent trend. Throughout his treks in Central Asia, his visits with Melungeons who claim Turkish ancestry, his delicate chats in the tense Uyghur-populated Chinese region of Xinjiang, his first-hand studies of Turkish immigrant communities in Germany and the Netherlands, and his interviews with members of Turkey's growing bourgeoisies and working classes, the reader does get the sense that a Turkic community is indeed forming. Speakers of Turkic languages can be found everywhere, as far east as Yakutia in northwestern Siberia and as far west as the former Yugoslavia. A broader diaspora is forming as a result of mass emigration, with communities of Turks growing up in western Europe, Russia, and the United States. Further, it is quite true that Turkey is an power of note for thousands of kilometres around, combined population and economic growth making it a well-grounded regional power with a solid economy, an interesting popular culture, and an attractive model for modernizing states. Why mightn't a Turkic community, of nations if not of states, form?
The main reason, as Pope acknowledges to his credit, is that the Turkic community is to date mainly an imagined community. It's quite true that Turkish investment in the Turkic successor states to the Soviet Union has surged, Azerbaijan has moved with Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan to adopt Latin script for its national language, and that Turkish interest in a potential Turkic hinterland stretching into China and Russia and Iran has surged proportionately to the likelihood of Turkish rejection by the European Union. Apart from these nominal signs of interest, there's no sustained movement. Many are the people interviewed by Pope--Uyghur refugees in Istanbul, hostile Tajiks in Samarkand, shamans in Russia's Altay, community activists in Germany--who suggest that a Turkic community is forming, but few are the people who point to actual benefits. Simply put, the Turkic bonds that Pope identifies aren't the only transnational bonds uniting these peoples--a shared experience of Soviet rule and Russification, for instance, unites the Turkic peoples of the former Soviet Union as it separates then from Turkey--while many of the traits identified by Pope as common to Turkic societies like corrupt and ineffective states seem to be more products of "failed" development than of ancestral ethnic origin. Underlying similarities exist and will likely grow, as Turkey becomes a steadily greater influence on its cognate peoples. Turkey just isn't powerful enough to create such a seachange.
Sons of the Conquerors is worth reading for its refreshing comparativistic examination of the Turkic peoples of Eurasia and beyond. I'll be the first to praise Pope for his foresight if, in fact, a Turkic community does form. In the meantime, the informed reader should be skeptical as to his thesis' likelihood of every being realized save in part.
