Turan

From Freepedia

The term Turan refers to the bulk of Eurasian landmass including the Siberian steppes, Central Asia including the Turkic republics, Mongolia, the Caucasus and other regions where historical Turkic, Hunnic, and Mongolic powers held sway.

The constructed historical name was revived by European (German, Hungarian and Slovak) ethnologists, linguists and Romantics to designate the vast Eurasian area belonging to populations speaking Uralic or Altaic languages. This area is often broadened into including Korea and Japan, whose languages are thought to share fundamental common features with Ural-Altaic languages. The label Turanian languages was adoped to characterise this large group. Linguists no longer consider it to be a valid language group.

Turan was a name originally used by the indigenous Iranian people of Central Asia. up until the 9th century the Turks were few and spread apart in Central Asia. The region was primarily inhabited by Iranian speaking Sakas (nomads) and settled/commercial Iranian speaking Sogdians and Khwarezmians. Also, Turan is a term used first in the Zoroastrian Gathas to refer to the non-settled, nomadic, Iranian peoples; that lived, and often fought, with the Iranian speaking farmers and pastrolist of the region. The Gathas specifically states that the Turanians were Aryan (meaning proto-Iranian) in speach and worshiped the old Aryan gods. The Gathas also states that the Turanians were eventually converted to Zoroastrianism, and adopted a settled lifestyle. Neither of these do the Turks have. Not only are they not Iranian in speach, but, aside from one tribe of the Pecheng Turks, the Turks were never Zoroastrian.

Image

An idyllic image of the historical nomad Eurasian hordes and Shamanist/Tengri worship have been, and still are, exploited by certain groups from Hungary to Turkey to Japan to galvanize a "Pan-Turanic" sentiment. Sometimes Pan-Turanism is used synonymously with the more popular Pan-Turkist movements, which in many ways exemplifies the symbolisms and dynamics of the Pan-Turanist culture.

Perhaps the most original image of a 'Turanian' are the Mongols. Despite Christian and Buddhist missionaries attempting to spread their faiths amongst neighbouring Turkic tribes, they had no impact on the Mongols. they were Shamanists, retaining an ancient belief in the sanctity of natural events and objects. Rivers, springs, thunder, fire, sun, wind, rain, snow - such things were invested with significance, identified as the domains of spirits, while the supreme power, Blue Heaven, Kök Tenger, watched over events below with remote benevolence. This ancient faith was both common and unique to all Turanian peoples, the Turks, Mongols and other related tribes. It is perhaps this mystical aura combined with legendry and revolutionising combat techniques and a knack for initiating booming trade which the people of this land harnessed so effectively that gives the term 'Turan' a solid, firm, proud and inspiring image throughout all of Eurasia, Turkey the Turkic republics through to Mongolia, Korea and Japan.

Geography

The vast land of Turan has a huge variety of climates and landscapes ranging from towering Siberian peaks to rolling green Tuvan valleys to the sands of the Turkmen deserts, but all are under the 'Mavi Gökler' or blue skies that symbolise the Turkic or Turanian spirit.