Pan-Turkism

Despite the emergence of a national consciousness among the Turks living in the Ottoman Empire and the Turkic peoples of the Caucasus, Central Asia, and Iran, and a strong focus on their common origins, no intellectual or politician openly promoted unification of the Turkic groups until 1904. In an essay published in 1881 Gaspirali İsmail (Isma'il Bey Gasprinskii) debated the reasons for the decadence of the great "Turco-Tatar nation scattered in Asia and parts of Europe." He argued that "Turks, Turcomans, Mongols, Tatars, Uzbeks, and Yakuts [were] all from the same family." He advocated similar theses in his journal Tercüman, published in Bakhchesaray in the Crimea. The importation of this influential newspaper was occasionally banned by the Ottoman authorities. Nevertheless, it was widely read by Ottoman intellectuals and strongly influenced them.

In 1903 a Young Turk journal called Türk started publication in Cairo. This journal promoted a more developed Turkish nationalism and devoted its efforts toward "the moral and material progress of the Turkish world." In it Yusuf Akçura, a Young Turk intellectual and a former military officer of Tatar origin, published an essay entitled "Üç Tarz-i Siyaset" (Three kinds of policy). He asserted that there were three alternatives before the Ottoman administration—Pan-Ottomanism, Pan-Islamism, and Pan-Turkism—and that the best choice would be "to pursue a Turkish nationalism based on race." This essay, which first appeared in 1904, might be considered the first clear-cut intellectual formulation of the Pan-Turkist idea. Following the Russian Revolution of 1905, Gaspirali started using the motto "Unity in Language, Thought, and Work" under the masthead of his journal Tercüman. He presented his aim as an attempt to create a united front of Turks living under tsarist rule. He maintained that such unity would enable the Turks to defend their rights better. There is no doubt, however, that in reality he intended more than uniting Turks living in Russia. The Russian Revolution of 1905 and the increased cultural activities of the Turkic peoples under tsarist rule made the Ottoman press in the empire and in exile pay more attention to these groups and to relations between them and the Ottoman Empire. Many Turkic journals, mostly published by Azerbaijani and Tatar intellectuals, promoted closer cultural relations among Turkic peoples.

Another organization that developed an interest in such ideas was the Ottoman Committee of Union and Progress. Following its reorganization in 1905–1906, this committee established ties with Turkic intellectuals and provided finance to help some of them publish their journals. The committee supported the creation of a "Turkish Union in the regions from the Adriatic Sea to the Chinese Sea" and promised to extend a helping hand to these Turkic groups once it had toppled the regime of Sultan Abdülhamīd II. Strident letters sent from Azerbaijani and Tatar organizations to this committee reveal that such an idea was also popular among the intellectuals of these peoples.