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Abstract
This article discusses the political origins, present-day significance, and implications of the intellectual movement known as “Eurasianism” in Turkey, a movement with Euroskeptic, anti-American, Russophile, neo-nationalist, secularist, and authoritarian tendencies, and including among its ranks socialists, nationalists, Kemalists, and Maoists. Since the turn of the twenty-first century, Eurasianism emerged as a major intellectual movement in Turkey, competing against Pan-Islamism, Pan-Turkism, and Westernism. Aspiration for a pro-Russian orientation in foreign policy, and a socialist–nationalist, Left-Kemalist government at home are the international and domestic faces of Turkish Eurasianism, which distinguish this movement from others. These orientations and their origins are situated within the history of intellectual movements in Turkey, going back to the Kadro and Yön movements in the 1930s and the 1960s, respectively. Similarities and actual links between Russian and Turkish Eurasianism are also discussed.
Acknowledgments
A previous version of this article was presented at the Association for the Study of Nationalities convention at Columbia University in New York in April 17, 2010. I thank an anonymous referee and the editor of Turkish Studies, Paul Kubicek, for their time, consideration, and thoughtful comments, which improved the quality of this manuscript.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes on Contributor
Şener Aktürk is an Assistant Professor of International Relations at Koç University, Istanbul. He received his BA and MA from the University of Chicago, and his PhD from the University of California, Berkeley. His book, Regimes of Ethnicity and Nationhood in Germany, Russia, and Turkey (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2012) received the 2013 Joseph Rothschild Book Prize in nationalism and ethnic studies. He published articles on ethnic politics in Turkey, Russia, and Germany, Turkish–Russian relations, politics of history, European supra-nationalism, and NATO enlargement.
ORCID
Şener Aktürk http://orcid.org/0000-0002-5897-6714
Notes
1 The most politically effective Maoist group is the Workers’ Party, which is discussed in greater detail under the section titled “Russian Connection Reaffirmed and Myths of Origins Reconfigured” in this article.
2 Shlapentokh, “Alexander Dugin's Views on the Middle East,” 251.
3 Akçura, Üç Tarz-ı Siyaset.
4 Huntington, “The Clash of Civilizations,” 42.
5 Ibid., 42.
6 Aktürk, “Counter-Hegemonic Visions and Reconciliation Through the Past,” 207–238.
7 For example, Bilgin, “Only Strong States Can Survive in Turkey's Geography’,” 740–756; Akçalı and Perinçek, “Kemalist Eurasianism,” 550–569.
8 Laruelle, Russian Eurasianism, 188–201; Chaudet, Parmentier, Pelopidas, When Empire Meets Nationalism, 142.
9 Laruelle, Russian Eurasianism.
10 Left-Kemalism is a common terminology applied to any socialist and anti-Western versions of Kemalism. See Alpkaya, “Bir 20. Yüzyıl Akımı: Sol Kemalizm,” and also, Aydın, “‘Millî Demokratik Devrim’ den ‘Ulusal Sol’ a Türk solunda özgücü eğilim.”
11 Bilgin, “Only Strong States Can Survive in Turkey's Geography.”
12 İlhan, Sultan Galiyef; Kakınç, Sultan Galiyev ve Milli Komünizm; Kakınç, Destansı Kuramcı Sultangaliyev; Doğu Perinçek, Avrasya Seçeneği; Duman, Doğu Batı Meselesi ve Sultan Galiyev; Bozdağ, Atatürk’ün Avrasya Devleti; Sertel, Şu Değişen Dünya: Türkiye-Avrasya; Cihangir, Sultan Galiyev Davası; Erdem, Sultan Galiyev: Bütün Eserleri; Kaymak, Sultan Galiyev; Avar, Avrasyalı Olmak; Mehmet Perinçek, Avrasyacılık; Reyhan, Doğunun Büyük Devrimcileri: Mollanur Vahidov ve Sultan Galiyev; İlhan, Türklerin Jeopolitiği ve Avrasyacılık; Emengil, Türkiye Devrimi'nin Yol Haritası ve Avrasya Rotası.
13 See the previous footnote for their books.
14 See the books of Duman, İlhan, Kakınç, Cihangir, Kaymak, and Reyhan in the previous note.
15 Among others, Şükrü Sina Gürel (DSP-Democratic Left Party), Şükrü Elekdağ and Ali Topuz (CHP-Republican People Party), Nüzhet Kandemir (DYP-True Path Party), Ümit Özdağ (MHP-Nationalist Movement Party), Mümtaz Soysal (BCP-Independent Republican Party), participated in Eurasianist conferences and events in the past. These are relatively prominent politicians within their parties. Both Soysal and Gürel served as Minister of Foreign Affairs in the past, and the latter also as Deputy Prime Minister. Özdağ’s membership in the MHP was revoked since he unsuccessfully tried to run against the leader of MHP, Devlet Bahçeli, but he was readmitted and became a member of the parliament from MHP in the 2011 elections. Both Elekdağ and Kandemir served as Turkey's ambassadors to the USA, probably the most important Turkish diplomatic post. In 2007, DYP renamed itself DP (Democratic Party).
16 Trubetzkoy, The Legacy of Genghis Khan, 161–231.
17 Ibid., 161, 162, 163, and 165, respectively.
18 Kazakh president Nursultan Nazarbayev is very fond of Gumilev's Eurasianism and a university named after Lev Gumilev was established in Kazakhstan.
19 Shnirelman and Panarin. "Lev Gumilev,” 1–18.
20 Kipp, “Aleksandr Dugin and the Ideology of National Revival,” 91–125.
21 Dugin, Osnovy geopolitiki: geopoliticheskoe budushchee Rossii.
22 Dugin, Rus Jeopolitiği.
23 Dunlop, “Russia's New—and Frightening—“Ism”.”
24 Yerasimos, Kurtuluş Savaşı'nda Türk-Sovyet İlişkileri, 1917–1923; Aslan, Mustafa Kemal-M. Frunze Görüşmeleri. For revisionist accounts of the Turkish War of Liberation, which challenge the role that Mustafa Kemal Ataturk played in it, see Aktürk, “Politics of History in Turkey.”
25 Mustafa Suphi, the chairman of the Turkish Communist Party, was mysteriously murdered in the Black Sea, allegedly with the support of Turkish authorities. According to Carr, with the murder of Mustafa Suphi, “[f]or the first, though not for the last, time it was demonstrated that governments could deal drastically with their national communist parties without forfeiting the goodwill of the Soviet Government, if that were earned on other grounds.” Carr, The Bolshevik Revolution, 1917–1923, 301.
26 Türkeş, “A Patriotic Leftist Development-Strategy Proposal in Turkey in the 1930s: The Case of the Kadro (Cadre) Movement,” 91–114.
27 See, Alpkaya, “Sol Kemalizm” and Aydın, ““Millî Demokratik Devrim” den “Ulusal Sol” a Türk solunda özgücü eğilim.”
28 Aydemir, İnkılap ve Kadro.
29 Gunder Frank, Capitalism and Underdevelopment in Latin America; Immanuel Wallerstein, The Modern World-System I.
30 Kösebalaban, “Globalization and the Crisis of Authoritarian Modernization in Turkey,” 77–97.
31 Alpkaya, “Bir 20. Yüzyıl Akımı: Sol Kemalizm,” 479.
32 See Akçalı and Perinçek, “Kemalist Eurasianism.”
33 Somay, “Türkiye Solunun Kemalizmle İmtihanı,” 647–660.
34 Aktürk, “Incompatible Visions of supra-nationalism.”
35 Özdemir, Yön Hareketi.
36 Cemal, Kimse Kızmasın Kendimi Yazdım.
37 See note 35 above.
38 For an example of such developmentalism, see Aytür, Kalkınma yarışı ve Türkiye.
39 Gerschenkron, Economic Backwardness in Historical Perspective.
40 Selçuk, Ziverbey Köşkü.
41 Such as, Kartallar Yüksek Uçar (1983) and Yarın Artık Bugündür (1987).
42 Trotsky, The Revolution Betrayed.
43 İlhan, Aydınlar Savaşı [War of Intellectuals], 25–28, article entitled, “İnönücülük Hortluyor mu?” is a good example of this line of argument among many others in this book. Also see İlhan, Hangi Batı?.
44 İlhan, Aydınlar Savaşı.
45 Atatürk died in 1938.
46 İlhan, Ulusal Kültür Savaşı [The War of National Culture].
47 E.g., “Kautsky'nin İntikamı [The Revenge of Kautsky],” February 18, 1990; and “Menşeviklerin Dönüşü [The Return of the Mensheviks]”, March 25, 1990; republished in İlhan, Sosyalizm Asıl Şimdi, 175–180.
48 For an example of İlhan's support for Gorbachev battle against “ossified [Soviet] bureaucracy,” see Aydınlar Savaşı, 197–199.
49 Bennigsen, Muslim National Communism in the Soviet Union; Rodinson, Marxism and the Muslim World.
50 İlhan, Sosyalizm Asıl Şimdi.
51 White, Islamist Mobilization in Turkey.
52 For “assertive secularism,” Kuru, Secularism and State Policies toward Religion.
53 Tuğal, Passive Revolution.
54 Aktürk, “Counter-Hegemonic Visions and Reconciliation Through the Past.”
55 Perinçek, 28 Şubat ve Ordu.
56 For this reason, Eurasianist Doğu Perinçek and the Workers Party received disproportionate and entirely negative coverage in the leading conservative and Islamic newspapers.
57 Perinçek, Karen Fogg'un E-Postalları.
58 See note 53 above.
59 See note 55 above.
60 Ibid.
61 “Andıç” [Warning] is the name given to this affair in Turkey. Çandar, “Andıç ve İki Şarjör Kurşun,” Birand, “Andıç bir daha tekrarlanır mı?”
62 For example, see “Military Meddling in Turkey,” New York Times, Editorial, June 14, 1997.
63 See the bestselling book by Vural Savaş, Militan Atatürkçülük. Savaş was the chief prosecutor (1997–2001) of the High Supreme Court of Turkey (Yargıtay, see the English language official page of this court: <http://www.yargitay.gov.tr/eng/index2.php?pgid=2>), which closed down Welfare Party.
64 Tellingly, Şükrü Sina Gürel was not in the cabinet for most of the 57th government (1999–2002), except for the last four months (July–November 2002), when the pro-EU faction led by İsmail Cem resigned from the governing party, DSP, and the balance within the shrinking DSP shifted in favor of the Euroskeptics.
65 See the manifesto of opponents of Turkey's EU membership process, Cumhuriyet, June 6, 2002.
66 Aydınlar Ocağı [Intellectual Hearths], perhaps the most important nationalist-conservative organization during the Cold War, and 49 like-minded nationalist organizations, signed a manifesto against Turkey's EU membership. On February 6, 2002, Mustafa Erkal, president of Aydınlar Ocağı, declared that Christian missionaries aided by the EU are trying to convert Anatolia into a non-Muslim space.
67 Ortadoğu, December 3, 2001:
Economic crisis [of 2001] allowed for an unarmed Crusade … When economy declines, [Christian] missionary activity begins. They concentrate on women and the youth who appear most vulnerable. Missionaries are interested in our Kurdish citizens in particular … Everyday 3 to 5 people on average apply to the churches in Istanbul in order to convert to Christianity … The purpose of pirate churches is to Christianize Istanbul first and then the rest of Turkey … They built a Protestant church in the town of Sur in Diyarbakir. Not only that there are no Protestants in Diyarbakir, but there was an Assyrian church across the newly built Protestant one.
68 All major Turkish newspapers, including Hürriyet, Radikal, Yeni Şafak, and Zaman, March 9, 2002.
69 Aktürk, “Turkish-Russian Relations after the Cold War (1992–2002),” 337–364.
70 Please note that as this article was in the production process, İşçi Partisi changed its name to Vatan Partisi (Homeland Party) in its extraordinary party congress convened in Ankara in February 15, 2015.
71 Aras, Atatürk’ün Dış Politikası; Borak (ed.), Atatürk’ün Resmi Yayınlara Girmemiş Söylev Demeç Yazışma ve Söyleşileri; Kazancyan, Bolşevik-Kemalist-İttihatçı İlişkileri; Perinçek, 28 Şubat ve Ordu; and, Kemalist Devrim I; Mehmet Perinçek, Atatürk’ün Sovyetlerle Görüşmeleri.
72 Perinçek, Lenin Stalin Maonun Türkiye Yazıları.
73 “Miloseviç’ten Perinçek'e Mektup,” Hürriyet, March 12, 2002.
74 “İşçi Partisi'nden Saddam'la İşbirliği Protokolü,” Hürriyet, January 29, 2003.
75 Perinçek, Avrasya Seçeneği.
76 Articles by Doğu Perinçek and Mehmet Bedri Gültekin, chairman and deputy chairman of İP, can be found on the Turkish language links of the International Eurasianist Movement website at <http://www.evrazia.info>. E.g., Perinçek's “Avrasya Büyük Vatanımız!” at <http://evrazia.info/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=2168> (accessed March 30, 2010).
77 See, for example, the 2007 national election results, when İP received 127,220 votes. http://secim2007.ntvmsnbc.com/ (accessed on March 17, 2014).
78 Circulation data of all daily Turkish newspapers available at http://www.medyatava.com/tiraj (accessed on March 17, 2014). For the last weeks available at that time, on average Aydınlık sold 53,006 copies daily in the week of March 3–10 and 55,485 in the week of February 24–March 2.
79 Prior to the 2009 local elections, several dozen well-known artists, journalists, and academics publicly declared their intention to vote for the İP. Among them were, Ferhan Şensoy, Tarık Akan, Pelin Batu, Esin Avşar, Oktay Akbal, Banu Avar, Professor Kemal Alemdaroğlu (former President of Istanbul University, the largest and oldest university in Turkey), İbrahim Balaban, Muzaffer Alyol, Demirtaş Ceyhun, Professor Yalçın Küçük, Ekrem Kahraman, Bertan Onaran, Ümit Zileli, Tuncer Cücenoğlu, Muharrem Pire, Nedim Saban, Abdülkadir Günyaz, lawyers Kürşat Karacabey, Ünsal Aktaş, and Turhan İçli. See <http://www.ip.org.tr/lib/pages/haberdetayburo.asp?goster=haberdetay&idhaber=1655> (accessed March 17, 2014).
80 Eruygur, “Bölge ülkelerinin çıkarlarıyla yeni dünya düzeninin deliklerini bağdaştıralım,” available online at <http://evrazia.info/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=2165> (accessed March 30, 2010).
81 See Kuru, “Globalization and Diversification of Islamic Movements,” 253–274. BTP is discussed in detail in pp. 266–268.
82 BCP, <http://www.bcp.org.tr>, MHP, <http://www.mhp.org.tr>, GP, <http://www.gencpartiliyiz.com> and <http://www.gencturkgucu.org>, BTP, <http://www.btp.org.tr>.
83 To get an idea of the left–right polarization that pitted socialist militants against the nationalist militants of the MHP, see Uğur Çınar, “When Defense Becomes Offense.”
84 Red Apple (Kızıl Elma) is the ultimate goal in Turkish nationalism, which originally referred to the establishment of Turan, a Turkic state stretching from the Adriatic Sea to Western China.
85 Atalay, Kızıl Elma Koalisyonu.
86 “Kızıl Elma Koalisyonu” (headline), Radikal, August 3, 2003; also see, Berkan, “‘Kızıl Elma’ Koalisyonu,” Radikal, August 4, 2003.
87 See note 11 above.
88 Personal Communication with Attila İlhan, Gümüşsuyu, Istanbul, Summer 2000.
89 Bulut, Türkçü-Devrimci Diyaloğu; Manisalı, Attila İlhan'la 1000 Saat; also by Manisalı, Sessiz Devrim.
90 “DSP'de Cem-Derviş komplosuna karşı Şükrü Sina Gürel güçleniyor” (cover story), Aydınlık, No.779 June 2002.
91 Çınar, “The militarization of Secular Opposition in Turkey,” 109–123.
92 “Darbe Günlükleri” [Coup Diaries], Nokta, March 29–April 4, 2007; “‘Darbe günlükleri’ belgelendi,” NTVMSNBC, March 26, 2008, available <http://www.ntvmsnbc.com/news/440513.asp> (accessed on January 31, 2014).
93 “Three Killed at Bible Publishing Firm,” Der Spiegel Online.
94 For the connection between Eurasianism and the Ergenekon trial, see, Çandar, “Avrasyacılık, ulusalcılık ve Ergenekon'a dair.”
95 “Ergenekon Case: Trial of the Century Starts Today,” Today's Zaman.
96 Tavernise and Arsu, “86 on Trial in Turkish Coup Case;” Arsu, “86 Charged in Turkey Coup Plot.”
97 “Ergenekon Tutuklularına Destek Mitinginde Lenin Pankartı Açtılar,” Zaman.
98 “Ergenekon'da Rus Bağlantısı,” Vatan.
99 Davutoğlu, Stratejik Derinlik.
100 Ibid., 580 (Index). “Russia” appears in more than a hundred pages of Davutoğlu's book, much of which deals with the mutual enmity and warfare between Russia and the Ottoman Empire.
101 Ibid., 239–240.
102 “Eurasianism lacks deep historical and theoretical roots in Turkey and cannot really compete with ‘Neo-Ottomanism,’ according to Igor Torbakov's description of the current ideological atmosphere in Turkey,” writes Marlène Laruelle in her “Russo-Turkish Rapprochement Through the Idea of Eurasia: Alexander Dugin's Networks in Turkey.” Laruelle is referring to Torbakov's “Making Sense of the Current Phase of Turkish-Russian Relations,” 19.
103 Moreover, many leading Eurasianists arrested as part of the Ergenekon trial were released in March 2014, as the final substantive revisions of this article were completed.
104 Grzymala-Busse and Ines, “Great Expectations: The EU and Domestic Political Competition in East Central Europe,” 64–73.
105 Paul Taggart, “A touchstone of dissent: Euroscepticism in contemporary Western European party systems,” 363–388.
106 Ingram, “Alexander Dugin,” 1029–1051.
107 Shlapentokh, “Eurasianism,” 129–151.
108 Kotkin's “Mongol Commonwealth?” is also a commendable contribution in a comparative direction.
109 Kerr, “The New Eurasianism,” 977–988.