Republic of Turkey or... Republic of Anatolia?

[poiuytrewq0987]

Turks today have very little original Turkic inputs. In a way, Oghuz Turks were Anatolian-washed (the original term being white-washed) by Anatolian peoples. They who were largely unaffiliated until the Oghuzs when they started to align with a group of conquerors, a first after many conquerors came to pass.

Modern Anatolians are a mixture of various migrants who came to the region in the past and of original Anatolian peoples like Hitties.

I believe the collapse of the Hittie Empire was a major life-changing event for many Anatolians. It gave way for various conquerors like Persians and Macedonians to easily shift control of the region to one other and force down several failed Persianizations, Hellenizations, Romanizations on the people.

If the Hittie Empire didn't collapse, a strong modern Anatolian identity indigenous to the region might have emerged.

But alas, that didn't happen, instead, a foreign Muslim Turkish largely the result of the Golden Horde conquered the region and for some reason a lot of Anatolians liked them and converted to their cause and religion. It was there, that single decision by Anatolians, made the forging of modern Turkish identity by likes of Ataturk inevitable.

Now, my question, as stated in the thread title, is... should Turks remain true to their identity their possible predecessors from far back adopted and further solidified by Ataturk or try to return to a more older, indigenous identity of the Hitties that could have emerged had the Hittie Empire avoided collapse?

[Padre Organtino]

Erm, actually they have nothing to do with Hittites and more with Pontic Greeks, Armenians, Georgians, Lazs and etc. That age old identity was long gone even before Turkish invaders came.

[poiuytrewq0987]

Erm, actually they have nothing to do with Hittites and more with Pontic Greeks, Armenians, Georgians, Lazs and etc. That age old identity was long gone even before Turkish invaders came.

I never said they were direct descendants of Hitties but it's logical to believe that the bulk of Anatolian peoples descended from the people who lived under that empire (an empire which was indigenous to the region). They remained unaffiliated mostly and only identified with Greek, Armenian and Roman empires because they came and conquered them. But it is clear that none of Anatolians felt true to their conquerors until the Turks came and they finally began to support an empire that conquered them en masse.

[Eva]

Those are artificial attempts to somehow integrate Turks into the region.

No Hittite speaker ever became Turkish speaker.
The transition was not directly from some ancient Anatolian language into Turkish. They first became Armenian or Greek and only then, after the Turkish invasion did many of them Forcefully become muslim and speak Turkish.

[Padre Organtino]

I never said they were direct descendants of Hitties but it's logical to believe that the bulk of Anatolian peoples descended from the people who lived under that empire (an empire which was indigenous to the region). They remained unaffiliated mostly and only identified with Greek, Armenian and Roman empires because they came and conquered them. But it is clear that none of Anatolians felt true to their conquerors until the Turks came and they finally began to support an empire that conquered them en masse.

By the time Turks came such identity did not exist and I dare to say that Georgian/Armenians were there next to Hittites practically from the start of the time. So if anything Turks can rediscover their Balkan/Caucasus identities but Hitites and the like are just history and nothing more.

[Ar-Man]

This is one of their funny theories, when they claim that Summerians spoke turkish :D

[orangepulp]

Now, my question, as stated in the thread title, is... should Turks remain true to their identity their possible predecessors from far back adopted and further solidified by Ataturk or try to return to a more older, indigenous identity of the Hitties that could have emerged had the Hittie Empire avoided collapse?

First of all we do have Turkic roots even if minor. Second we must look at other aspects other than genetics such as language and culture. We speak a Turkic language and we do have some Turkic culture along with native culture.

Before the Turkic conquest, the natives of Asia Minor identified as Romans and spoke a Roman language though the natives were not Greek. Now that the conquerors were Turks the natives intermingled and identified as Turks. The ruling class dominates.

[Peyrol]

First of all we do have Turkic roots even if minor. Second we must look at other aspects other than genetics such as language and culture. We speak a Turkic language and we do have some Turkic culture along with native culture.

Before the Turkic conquest, the natives of Asia Minor identified as Romans and spoke a Roman language though the natives were not Greek. Now that the conquerors were Turks the natives intermingled and identified as Turks. The ruling class dominates.

Latin never had a deep penetration in ancient Anatolia, infact no-one romance language has developed in the region after Western Empire collapse...most diffused languages were greek koinè, ancient armenian and probabily also a bit of ancient persian.

[Nairi]

Latin never had a deep penetration in ancient Anatolia, infact no-one romance language has developed in the region after Western Empire collapse...most diffused languages were greek koinè, ancient armenian and probabily also a bit of ancient persian.

It's an infamous Turkish way, all Armenian churches also are presented to tourists as Roman/Byzantine.

[Γέλως]

Before the Turkic conquest, the natives of Asia Minor identified as Romans and spoke a Roman language though the natives were not Greek.
By Late Antiquity, the Greeks referred to themselves as Rhomaioi (Greek: Ῥωμαῖοι) or Romioi (Greek: Ρωμιοί), i.e. "Romans", since after AD 212 virtually all Greeks were Roman citizens.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Names_of_the_Greeks

Linguistically, Byzantine or medieval Greek is situated between the Hellenistic (Koine) and modern phases of the language. Since as early as the Hellenistic era, Greek had been the lingua franca of the educated elites of the Eastern Mediterranean, spoken natively in the southern Balkans, the Greek islands, Asia Minor and the ancient and Hellenistic Greek colonies of Western Asia and Northern Africa
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byzantine_Greeks#Language

[Nairi]

They remained unaffiliated mostly and only identified with Greek, Armenian and Roman empires because they came and conquered them. But it is clear that none of Anatolians felt true to their conquerors until the Turks came and they finally began to support an empire that conquered them en masse.

Armenians didn't come and didn't conquer anyone, there is no such historical record whatsoever. But instead Armenian Kingdoms of Aratta,Armani and Hayasa are mentioned in Hittite, Sumerian and Akkadian inscreptions. Genetic results also show Armenians are indigenous to Armenian Highland which includes Western Armenia/Eastern Turkey.


ALU INSERTION POLYMORPHISMS IN POPULATIONS
OF THE SOUTH CAUCASUS

"Armenians are a separate ethnic group,
which originated from Neolithic tribes of the Armenian Uplands"

Litvinov S*, Kutuev I, Yunusbayev B, Khusainova R, Valiev R,
Khusnutdinova E




^ Anne Elizabeth Redgate, The Armenians, Wiley-Blackwell, 2000 ISBN 9780631220374, p. 24.

The name Hayk' is from the earliest record identified with Armenians from Sumerian inscriptions around 2700 BC, in which the Armenians are referred to as the sons of Haya, after the regional god of the Armenian Highlands.

...

There was a Bronze Age tribe of the Armens (Armans, Armani; Armenian: Արմեններ Armenner, Առամեններ Aṙamenner), either identical to or forming a subset of the Hayasa-Azzi.[11][12] In this case, Armenia would be an ethnonym rather than a toponym

# ^ Elisabeth Bauer. Armenia: Past and Present (1981), p. 49
....

Hittite inscriptions deciphered in the 1920s by the Swiss scholar Emil Forrer testify to the existence of a mountain country,
the HAYasa, lying around the Lake of Van/Armenian Highland.

The suffix sa of Hayasa corresponds to the stan, derivative of Hayasatan (Armenia). Greeks knew about this country (Hayasa) and their writers wrote about Armenians or hayers.
....

"The Armenians are a nation and an ethnic group originating from the Caucasus and eastern Anatolia, where a large concentration of this community has remained, especially in Armenia."
--Banoei, Chaleshtori, Sanati, Shariati, Houshmand,Majidizadeh, Soltani & Golalipour (2007) Variation of DAT1 VNTR Alleles and Genotypes Among Old Ethnic Groups in Mesopotamia to the Oxus Region.

....

University of Tartu Faculty of biology and geography Institute of molecular and cell biology Department of evolutionary biology Urmas Roostalu M Sc. Rva-Liis Loogvali Prof Dr. Richard Villems Tartu 2004

"In our study the ancestry of the Armenians was traced back to different parts of Armenia, Georgia, Azerbaijan and Turkey, illustrating the fact that historic Armenia was a much larger territory than that of the present Republic of Armenia".

[Nairi]

we do have some Turkic culture along with native culture.



Yes, you do and that mysterious "native" culture has its name which you are distorting, it is called Armenian and Greek.

But it is vise versa, you do have some native Armenian and Greek cultural elements (and not culture!) but mostly your culture,traditions,mentality,religion, language,etc. is visible Turkish and very far from ours which stayed as native as it was at the dawn of civilization.

[Nairi]

By the time Turks came such identity did not exist and I dare to say that Georgian/Armenians were there next to Hittites practically from the start of the time. So if anything Turks can rediscover their Balkan/Caucasus identities but Hitites and the like are just history and nothing more.

Talking about antiquity it is not right to put Armenians and Georgians next to each other since Armenian Kingdoms of Aratta,Armani and Hayasa (whose names we carry up to now and which were mentioned in Hittite, Sumerian and Akakdian insciptions) existed long before proto-Georgian Kingdoms Colchis and Iberia appeared. Moreover Colchis is also can be considered as proto-Armenian since today's Armenians also come from them according to Armenian DNA Project. (but mainly from Armani/Hayasa). Georgian identity only emerged after Colchis and Iberia were united by Armenian Bagratid.By then Armenian identity had been fully formed long ago.

[Joe McCarthy]

Now, my question, as stated in the thread title, is... should Turks remain true to their identity their possible predecessors from far back adopted and further solidified by Ataturk or try to return to a more older, indigenous identity of the Hitties that could have emerged had the Hittie Empire avoided collapse?

I'm unsure what you mean here but Ataturk did put a lot of effort into emphasizing Anatolia's pre-Turkish past in an attermpt to craft a non-Ottoman identity. It's instructive though that the Turkish imprint was so powerful that even he didn't try to uproot it.

The answer here is that despite the actual minimal Turkish genetic imprint on the 'Turks', they can't be de-Turkified. There's too much history there. Indeed, even the attempt to minimize Islam's effect on them has proven largely ineffective in the long run.

[HamshenaHay]

I think it is about time the Turks started to dig into their own past in order to re-discover their ancestral identity. Or at least elaborate its loss and the circumstances surrounding it. I do believe it would help bridge some major ethnic conflicts in the region. I think the campaign of forced assimilation by the Kamalist regime has been very destructive for the multi-ethnic Turkish society. In contrast to what the author of this thread claims, most people of Anatolia did not assimilate to the Turkish identity by their free will. This matter is actually very personal to me as my people the Hamshentsi (or Turkish Hemşinli or Hamshenis) became victims of such identity switch resulted from elaborate assimilation campaigns. Their Armenian roots have been purposely hidden from them and together with general disdain for Armenians made their wish for return to ethnic identity very undesirable. As a consequence many Hemsin in Turkey believe today that they are a separate nation simply called the Hemşinli. I know from first hand that other ethnic groups in Turkey have suffered a similar faith. For instance the Kurds for a long time have been ( as I understand) referred to as “Mountain Turks”. Their identity, as the identity of my people, denied. I think it’s a major cultural offence. Below is an abstract from an interesting article on the matter.

"This article examines the implementation of the Turkish state ideology as a tool for persuading and assimilating the Kurds and other ethnic and linguistic groups. Existing studies emphasize that the Kurds were subjected to a systematic forced assimilation campaign by the new Kemalist state. This paper stresses that the formation of Turkey after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire is the root to understanding the ideological foundation of the Turkish state’s denial of the Kurds, their history, language and even their existence. This has huge implications for Turkey’s claims to secular democracy, its regional stature and aspirations to join the European Union."

http://www.londonmet.ac.uk/fms/MRSite/acad/dass/ISJ%20Journal/V3N2/05_Mountain%20Turks_Sagnic.pdf

I believe this issue should not be taken lightly, as the forceful Turkification serves as a veil of deception covering most ancient and beautiful cultures of the region.

It is also worthy to note that for the Christian Armenians the prosecutions might actually have aided the process of retaining the original identity. Because the Armenians where excluded from the main “Turkish” group and put in the “other” group , not belonging to Muslims, they remained simply as “Armenians” with all the following consequences. This hypothesis is again supported by the fact that the Muslim Armenians (many of which belong to my people the Hemsin) actually did had to assimilate eventually losing touch with their Armenian roots.

Therefore personally I would welcome such Turkish attempts at rediscovery of ancestral roots. I think there is enough room for diversity and tolerance in modern Turkey to respect the differences of ethnicity. Most of the people of Turkey have ancient roots in the region and denying them of their history is a major cultural offence in my eyes.

[poiuytrewq0987]

I always thought that Ataturk's mausoleum was their way of trying to revive/emulate Hittie architecutre even though it looks somewhat Persian.

http://www.ataturktoday.com/Resim/Anitkabir.jpg

[Mosov]

Turkish identity is an artificial construct that was mostly formed by Ataturk. In all, Turks are the result of assimilation (much of them forced) of the native populations of the region (Kurds, Greeks, Armenians, etc). Forced rapes was another source of Turks coming into being. Culturally in Turks, you have cultural elements of different people's being brought into this artificial identity. In the end, it was a few thousand barbaric Turkic hordes who came to the region that gave rise to this identity. I guess the thing most directly connecting them to those hordes is their Altaic language.

[HamshenaHay]

I always thought that Ataturk's mausoleum was their way of trying to revive/emulate Hittie architecutre even though it looks somewhat Persian.

http://www.ataturktoday.com/Resim/Anitkabir.jpg

Yes it is very ironic.

[Romanion]

What we call Turks today did not call themselves that before the creation of modern Turkey, they just refered to themselves as muslims. Looking at Ottoman census lists them as such. The word "Turk" only refered to the Sultans really beacuse the original Turks were always in the ruling class not the peasentry.

What Attaturk did is take the modern nationalistic ideas that were already found in the balkans and applied it to the muslims; all muslims were now "Turks". This imprint was fairly well received by the majority with the notable exception of hte Kurds, who the turks originally callled "mountain Turks".

[пустиняк]

Kurdistan sounds the best

[Romanion]

Kurdistan sounds the best

Yes, and I'm 100% for the creation of a Kurdistan in the region, but not at this moment, maybe in a decade when the population raises to around 1/3 of Turkey, they will be able to get a bigger chunk :D

[Albion]

Turkish identity is an artificial construct that was mostly formed by Ataturk. In all, Turks are the result of assimilation (much of them forced) of the native populations of the region (Kurds, Greeks, Armenians, etc). Forced rapes was another source of Turks coming into being. Culturally in Turks, you have cultural elements of different people's being brought into this artificial identity. In the end, it was a few thousand barbaric Turkic hordes who came to the region that gave rise to this identity. I guess the thing most directly connecting them to those hordes is their Altaic language.

Turkey - Ottoman Empire in miniature.

[safinator]

Republic of Anatolia would be more appropriate if we take genetics in account but IRL that's not a factor obviously.

[wvwvw]

We never use the word Anatolia in Greece, but Asia Minor