Pan-Turkism

The Young Turk Revolution of 1908 brought the Committee of Union and Progress to power in the Ottoman Empire. Many Turkic intellectuals participated in its policy-making bodies along with Turkist intellectuals. The committee supported the establishment of various organizations such as the Türk Ocaği (Turkish Hearth) (established in 1912), and it published journals such as Türk Yurdu (Turkish homeland) promoting cultural or political Pan-Turkism and Pan-Turanism. It should be remembered, however, that despite their Turkist and Pan-Turkist proclivities, the leadership of the Committee of Union and Progress viewed these ideologies as tools with which to save the Ottoman Empire and employed them alongside the rival ideologies of Ottomanism and Pan-Islamism. The Ottoman entry into World War I against Russia gave a considerable edge to Pan-Turkism and a free hand to the Committee of Union and Progress leaders in propagating it. The leading ideologues of Pan-Turkism and Pan-Turanism, such us Moiz Cohen (Tekin Alp), Ziya Gökalp, and Ömer Seyfeddin, further entertained the idea of a future Turanian state including all Turkic peoples. Ottoman war propaganda made much use of this idea. Despite this fact, the accomplishment of that goal had been envisioned by its major promoters as a gradual and long-drawn-out development. Even in 1918 Ziya Gökalp likened the accomplishment of this distant ideal to reaching a pure communist society. During the war, Ottoman agents worked in the Caucasus and Central Asia and were aided by the German government in their efforts to spread Pan-Turkist sentiments. In the final phases of the war, new governments promoting Pan-Turkism were set up in the Caucasus through Ottoman military incursions. Even after the war, the Young Turk leaders in exile made efforts aimed at arousing Pan-Turkish sentiment in an area stretching from the Caucasus to Central Asia and Afghanistan. During this period between 1918 and 1922, Pan-Turkish ideas were put to a test on the ground; however, the Soviet victories and the establishment of the Turkish Republic reduced Pan-Turkist activities to the publication of a few journals by various Turkic expatriate groups in France, Germany, Poland, and Romania.