Turan (in ) is the ancient Iranian name for the Eastern nomads. In modern discourse, it is primarily an ideological term designating Turkic, Mongolic and Finno-Ugric languages and people more or less indiscriminately, implying a common ancestry and common culture of the various ethnicities in question.

Turan in Iranian literature

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Avesta

In the hymns of the Avesta, the adjective Tūrya is attached to various enemies of Zoroastrism like Fraŋrasyan (Shahnameh: Afrāsīāb). The word occurs only once in the Gathas, but 20 times in the later parts of the Avesta. Apparently there is no ethnic difference between the Tūrya and the Ārya in the Avesta, both having Iranian names and being related genealogically.

Linguists normally derive the word from the Indo-Iranian root *tūra- "strong, quick". The similarity between the words Tūrya and Türk is considered accidental by most scholars, and it is doubtful whether Tūrya was applied regularly to Turkic people before the late Sassanid period. However, this is contested by the adherents of the Pan-Turkists and their controversial Turanian theory (see below).

Shahnameh

In the Middle Persian epic Shahnameh, the term Tūrān ("land of the Tūrya" like Ērān, Īrān = "land of the Ārya") refers to the inhabitants of eastern-Iranian border, referring to the Kushan Empire, pointing to a time when those areas where inhabited by mostly Iranian nomadic tribes such as Scythians.

According to the foundation myth given in the Shahnameh, King Firēdūn (= Avestan Θraētaona) had three sons, Salm, Tūr and Ēraj, among whom he divided the world: Asia Minor was given to Salm, Kushan (including India) to Tūr and Iran to Ēraj. The older brothers killed the younger brother, but he was revenged by his grand-son, and the Iranians became the rulers of the world. However, the war continued for generations.

Turan in modern literature

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Geography

Since early 20th century, the word Turan was borrowed by the western languages as a general word for Central Asia. Accordingly, the phrase Turan Plain or Turan Depression is a geographical term referring to a part of Central Asia.

Linguistics

The term Turanian was formerly used by European (especially German, Hungarian and Slovak) ethnologists, linguists and Romantics to designate populations speaking Uralic or Altaic languages (and the languages themselves).

Even though the linguistic usage of the word Turanian is hardly accepted in the scholarly community anymore, it is still rather vivid outside of the academia, especially in the internet. Thus, there is a wide-spread popular theory, which one may call the Turanian theory, that ascribes a common origin to the Turkic, Mongolic, Ugric and Sumerian languages and people, normally including the extinct Scythian, Sarmatian and Median languages as well (which are traditionally classed with the Iranian language group). The proponents of the Turanian theory are rather sceptical of the methodology of traditional comparative linguistics, which they describe as "Indo-European-centric".

Ideology

In European discourse, the words Turan and Turanian designate a certain mentality, i.e. the nomadic contrast of the urbanized agricultural civilizations. This usage is probably in accordance with the Zoroastrian concept of the Tūrya, which is not primarily a linguistic or ethnic designation, but rather a name of the infidels that oppose the civilization based on the preaching of Zoroaster.

Combined with physical anthropology, the concept of the Turanian mentality has a clear racist potential. Thus, the scholar J.W. Clackson described the Turanid or Turanian race in the following words ("The Iran and Turan", Anthropological Review 6:22 (1868), p. 286):

"The Turanian is the impersonation of material power. he is the merely muscular man at his maximum of collective development. He is not inherently a savage, but he is radically a barbarian. He does not live from hand to mouth, like a beast, but neither has he in full measure the moral and intellectual endowments of the true man. He can labour and he can accumulate, but he cannot think and aspire like a Caucasian. Of the two grand elements of superior human life, he is more deficient in the sentiments than in the faculties. And of the latter, he is better provided with those which conduce to the acquisition of knowledge than the origination of ideas."

Politics

In the declining days of the Ottoman Empire, the word Turanian was adopted by some Turkish nationalists to express a pan-Turkic ideology, also called Turanism. Presently, Turanism forms an important aspect of the ideology of the Turkish Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), whose members are also known as Grey Wolves.

In recent times, the word Turanian is sometimes used to express a pan-Altaic nationalism (theoretically including Manchurians and Mongols in addition to Turks - and potentially Japanese and Koreans), though no political organization seems to have adopted such an ambitious platform.

Fiction

The name "Turan" also appears in the fictional geography of the Conan the Barbarian novels.

See also

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• Aniran

External links

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• Iranians and Turanians in the Avesta
• Der Schatten von Turan (a history of the Turan ideology - in German)
• Hunmagyar.org (a representative of the controversial Turanian theory)

Iranian culture

Turan (Landschaft) | توران | Touran | Turán | Turan