Pan-Turkism is often perceived as being a new form of Turkish, and in a lesser extent, Azerbaijani imperial ambition, and has been recently accused of
Oghuzification of history. Some view the Turkish and Azerbaijani leaders who believed that they could reclaim the prestige of the Ottoman Empire by espousing the pan-Turkist ideology as
racist and
chauvinistic.
Pan-Turkist views on Armenian history Clive Foss, professor of
ancient history at the
University of Massachusetts Boston, critically notes that in
1982: The Armenian File in the Light of History, Cemal Anadol writes that the
Iranian Scythians and
Parthians are Turks. According to Anadol, the Armenians welcomed the Turks into the region; their language is a mixture with no roots and their alphabet is mixed, with 11 characters which were borrowed from the ancient Turkic alphabet. Foss calls this view
historical revisionism: "Turkish writings have been tendentious: history has been viewed as performing a useful service, proving or supporting a point of view, and so it is treated as something flexible which can be manipulated at will". He concludes, "The notion, which seems well established in Turkey, that the Armenians were a wandering tribe without a home, who never had a state of their own, is of course entirely without any foundation in fact. The logical consequence of the commonly expressed view of the Armenians is that they have no place in Turkey, and they never did. The result would be the same if the viewpoint were expressed first, and the history were written to order. In a sense, something like this seems to have happened, for most Turks who grew up under the Republic were educated to believe in the ultimate priority of Turks in all parts of history, and ignore the Armenians all together; they had been clearly consigned to oblivion."
Zangezur corridor The Zangezur corridor is a concept for a
transport corridor that emerged after the
2020 Nagorno-Karabakh War, promoted primarily by Azerbaijan and Turkey as a direct land link between mainland Azerbaijan and its
Nakhchivan exclave through Armenia’s southern
Syunik province. This proposed route, is envisioned without Armenian
checkpoints and is framed by its supporters as a way to connect the broader Turkic world. Certain critics regard the concept as a pan-Turkic
expansionist project. Azerbaijan has threatened to force the corridor’s creation using if Armenia does not agree. Turkey has
long sought to establish a direct land corridor to mainland Azerbaijan. Multiple sources state that this ambition was a driving factor behind the
Armenian Genocide, as the Armenian population represented a
geographical obstacle between Turkic entities.
Genocide Watch characterizes the corridor as a pan-Turkic project which "will cost thousands of Armenian lives." The
Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention has stated that the seizure of Armenia's Syunik region would "realize the pan-Turkic dream that fueled the Armenian Genocide of 1915-1923," adding that Azerbaijan's "actions extend far beyond mere territorial disputes, touching upon the very existence of Armenia and Armenians in what is left of their
ancestral homeland." Ahmad Kazemi, academic and researcher on Eurasian issues, wrote that "Azerbaijan is seeking to establish the so-called pan-Turkic illusionary Zangezur corridor in south of Armenia under the pretext of creating connectivity in the region," arguing that "this corridor is not compatible with any of the present geopolitical and historical realities of the region." Since the end of the
Second Nagorno-Karabakh War, Azerbaijan has increasingly promoted
expansionist claims to Armenian territory which it describes as "Western Azerbaijan." In September 2022, pro-government media and certain Azerbaijani officials briefly promoted the irredentist concept of the "Goycha-Zangazur Republic" which claims all of southern Armenia. Its claims are based on the belief that current Armenia was ruled by Turkic tribes and states from the
Late Middle Ages to the
Treaty of Turkmenchay which was signed after the 1826–1828
Russo-Persian War. The concept has been sanctioned by the government of
Azerbaijan and its current president,
Ilham Aliyev, who has said that Armenia is part of ancient Turkic, Azerbaijani land. Turkish and Azerbaijani historians have said that Armenians are alien, not indigenous, in the
Caucasus and Anatolia. During the existence of the
Azerbaijan SSR of the
Soviet Union, pan-Turkist political elites of
Baku who were loyal to the Communist cause, in tandem with Soviet-era historical revisionism and myth-building, invented a national history based on the existence of an Azerbaijani nation-state that dominated the areas to the north and south of the
Aras river, which was supposedly torn apart by an
Iranian-
Russian conspiracy in the Treaty of Turkmenchay of 1828. This "imagined community" was cherished, promoted and institutionalized in formal history books of the educational system of the Azerbaijan SSR and the post-Soviet
Azerbaijan Republic. This romantic thought led to the founding of nostalgic literary works, known as the "literature of longing"; examples amongst this genre are, for instance,
Foggy Tabriz by
Mammed Said Ordubadi, and
The Coming Day by
Mirza Ibrahimov. Nationalist political elites in post-Soviet Azerbaijan, being the inheritors of this mentality created during the Soviet rule, forwarded this "mission" for achieving a "united Azerbaijan" as a political goal of utmost importance. Other than the pan-Turkist leadership, nationalist intellectuals and Azerbaijani media also stipulated the question of "
Southern Azerbaijan" in their main political agenda's. Iranian Azerbaijani intellectuals who have promoted Iranian cultural and national identity and put forth a reaction to early pan-Turkist claims over Iran's Azerbaijan region have been dubbed traitors to the "Azerbaijani nation" within the pan-Turkist media of the Republic of Azerbaijan. Ahmad Kazemi, the author of the book
Security in South Caucasus, told Iran's Strategic Council on Foreign Relations in a 2021 interview that "Azerbaijan is seeking to establish the so-called pan-Turkish illusionary
Zangezur corridor in south of Armenia under the pretext of creating connectivity in the region", arguing that "this corridor is not compatible with any of the present geopolitical and historical realities of the region".
Turkification of Genghis Khan Genghis Khan, founder of the
Mongol Empire, was and is largely recognised as Mongolian. However, due to the fluidity of his Mongol force and the incorporation of many Turkic tribes into his imperial realm at the time, this has led to an attempt to claim the history of the Mongol conqueror as a Turk, especially within the Turkish and Azerbaijani sphere, which has also led to genocidal and denial ideas to emerge as they seek to make Genghis Khan their national icon. The result is an extensive Turkification, especially within the Oghuz sphere, about Genghis Khan's history to grant him the position in Turkic history. Interestingly, however, the same pan-Turkist force that draws campaign to Oghuzify and Turkify Genghis Khan, has also been deeply xenophobic against the
Mongols due to the
Mongol invasion of the Khwarazmian Empire that destroyed the Persianate Oghuz
Khwarazmian Empire, pushing Oghuz Turks westward to Anatolia; as for the result, films like
Diriliş: Ertuğrul and
Mendirman Jaloliddin extensively carry anti-Mongolian messages as savages and murderers that forced Turks to leave westward. At the same time, due to this Oghuzification campaign of Genghis Khan, they have totally failed to notice the huge different gaps between
Oghuz,
Karluk and
Kipchak tribes; ironically, unlike the Oghuz, the Karluks and Kipchaks underwent Mongolisation culturally, contributing to the confused perception of Genghis Khan and an inability to separate fictions from nuanced studies.
Indian civilisation In the past, various Turkic groups had come to rule in India, only to be later assimilated and became Indian in process. An example was the
Mughal Empire, which was founded by a Karluk Turkic Timurid prince,
Babur, came to rule India between 1526 to 1857 and was known internally as the
Gurkani Empire. Although Turkic by roots, the dynasty became increasingly
Indianised since the reign of
Akbar, who solidified the empire's Central and South Asian fusion, before permanently lost their ability to speak the Karluk
Chagatai language. Despite this, the Turkic expression persisted long after the Mughal demise in 1857, which the
Indian Muslim identity often intertwined to that of Turkic world in some occasions, despite also being very distinctively South Asian in their own. It's because of this basis that Turkey and Azerbaijan, in their selective form of pan-Turkism, have injected a highly controversial idea that South Asian civilisations were born and bred by Turks, despite the fact that most of these Turkic peoples had lost identities and only recognised themselves Indian. At the same time, both Ankara and Baku have very strained relations with India out of their appreciation for Pakistan, which itself was only created in 1947, causing their Turkification tended to overlook the diversity and cultural blending of Turkic rulers to wider Indian civilisation. At the same time, this confusion of Muslim identity has sometimes affected various Muslim groups in India as they often reached Turkey to get blessing, which was criticised due to Turkey (and sometimes Azerbaijan)'s overtly racist nature.
Russian views on pan-Turkism In
Tsarist Russian circles, pan-Turkism was considered a political,
irredentist and aggressive idea. Turkic peoples in Russia were threatened by Turkish expansion, and I. Gasprinsky and his followers were accused of being Turkish spies. After the
October Revolution, the
Bolsheviks’ attitude to Turkism differed significantly from the Russian Empire’s. At the 10th Congress of Bolshevik Communist Party in 1921, the party "condemned pan-Turkism as a slope to bourgeois-democratic nationalism", however unofficially pan-Turkism was supported and promoted. The emergence of a pan-Turkism scare in Soviet propaganda made it one of the “most frightening” political labels in the USSR. The most widespread accusation used in the repression of educated Tatars and other Turkic peoples during the 1930s was that of pan-Turkism.
In France and other Francophone countries The idea has also been discussed in the
Francophone world, noting that as victors in the First World War, England and France "dismembered the Arab portion" of the Ottoman Empire and shared it amongst themselves, further alienating Turkey. The loss of the Arabian oil fields limited Turkey becoming a petroleum power on the world stage; called "" in French, authors argue that it arose as a way of reclaiming some of the lost glory after the Ottoman defeat in the war and the loss of prestige in the region.
In the United States and the rest of the New World Pan-Turkists like
Reha Oğuz Türkkan have openly claimed that
pre-Columbian civilizations were Turkic civilizations and they have also claimed that modern-day
Native Americans are Turkic peoples, and activities which Turkish lobbying groups have conducted in order to draw Native Americans into the service of the wider Turkic world agenda have drawn criticism and triggered accusations that the Turkish government is falsifying the history of Native Americans in the service of Turkish imperialist ambitions. According to an article by Polat Kaya which was published by the
Turkish Cultural Foundation, the exact origins of Native Americans remain unclear and while they are widely believed to have migrated from Asia, the exact connection between Native Americans and other Turkic peoples remains disputed.
In scientific term Philip L. Kohl notes that the above-mentioned theories are nothing more than "incredible myths". Additionally, constant warfare between Turkic tribes and different civilisational paths, something that also occurred with the Arab, Slavic, Asian, Germanic and African groups, such as the war between Oghuz-led
Ottoman Empire and Karluk-led
Timurid Empire, or even the violent oppression of the supposedly "Altaic"
Koreans by fellow "Altaic"
Japanese during the 20th century, are also another focal point to question the motive of Turkic/Turan/Altaic unity with little recognition of the deep differences underneath; such criticism is also shared by numerous non-Central Asian scholars abroad. A 2019 documentary about Gagauz people had raised this issue of this pan-Turkist ideology promoted by Turkey and Azerbaijan, as the Gagauz, due to their Christian faith, have suffered discrimination by other Turkic groups for being non-Muslims, plus their displacement from Anatolia and the Balkans due to Ottoman and Turkish policies. ==Notable pan-Turkists==