Amusing Letter by Turk Historians
arch...@erols.com
Lass week a group of Bulgarian administrative-professors signed a (kind
of) memorandum to protest us (Yeni Turkiye Publication
and Research Center) of listing Danube and Volga Bulgars in the topic
plan of our project 'Turk', an international and transnational
history project aiming at preparing a general history of Turks from the
very ancient times upto the current developments. That protest
was published by BTA (Bulgarian Telegraph Agency) in news bulletin. Our
reply the the agency and to our colleagues is below:
-------------------
To BTA, Bulgarian Telegraph Agency, Sofia,
We received a copy of your news dated July 25, 2001, concerning our
publication project (The Project ▒Turk▓).
First of all, we have not yet received any letter from Bulgarian
scholars, which they refer to. Perhaps it is due nowadays to
reach us. Thus, we preferred to address you, since we cannot tell
anything to those scholars signing that letter before receiving
their appeal. Let them be sure that we will kindly respond them.
Secondly, we do not understand what is meant by ⌠the attempts to
identify the Bulgarians of Volga Bulgaria as a Turkish or
Turkic people and to present them and Danube Bulgaria as part of the
Turkish/Turkic world...■ The meaning is obvious, but
we, even Turks at all, cannot be addressed in this issue. Our colleagues
should know well that among Turkish historians
nobody, except Osman Karatay, our project coordinator, has worked
particularly on Proto-Bulgarian history. Even Prof. A.
N. Kurat, one of the pionering researchers of Eastern European
historiography, disregarded Danubian (Proto) Bulgars in his
very detailed and scholarly works about the Turks of Eastern Europe. So,
we are of the opinion that what is meant by the
above phrase on Bulgars is not the original view of Yeni Turkiye, bu is
the opinion of eminent historians of Bulgaria like
Zlatarski and Beshevliev, and other very well-known and respectable
scholars like Moravcsik, Marquart, Smirnov, Baskakov,
Feher, Dvornik, Halperin, Czegledy, Obolensky, Vernadsky, Ostrogorsky,
Dabrowski, Rasony, Menges, Runciman,
Rona-Tas, Zimonyi, and others. Moreover, even Prof. Hristo Hristov,
about whom nobody can say that he likes Turks a little
bit, writes that Proto-Bulgarians were obviously ▒a Turkic tribe▓.
Our Bulgarian colleagues think that here is a crime of making (proto)
Bulgarians Turk, but we do not understand why they
choose us to be scapegoats. They should discuss the problem with
before-mentioned names, who made and make use of
primary sources in their researches, and cannot be accused of acting
with ▒pro-Turk▓ sentiments. You may disregard Medieval
Islamic sources clearly defining Bulgars as one of Turkish tribes, but
not European, primarily Byzantian and Russian ones,
about which our colleagues are certainly well informed. In addition to
those primary sources, there are inscriptions from both
Danubian and Volga areas. They were read letter by letter, and it was
proven that they both were exactly same languages, with
some unimportant sound differences, which is very normal since there is
a time interval of half a millenium between writing times
of the Danubian and Volga inscriptions. Furthermore, we have today
Chuvash language, directly successor of Bulgaro-Oghur
language. All these are Turkic, as Turkic of Turkey. That is, there are
hundreds of documents clearly indicating identity of
(proto) Bulgars, but there is no sound evidence pointing to any
possibility of their non-Turkish origin.
If our colleagues say ⌠They, Proto-Bulgarians must be non-Turkish,
because we want so■, then we respect them. Because we
personally believe in democracy and post-modernism, warranting freedom
of expression of belief and ideas for everybody. But
we will continue to stand for science. All these are European values, as
our colleagues believe.
We are of the opinion that there are attempts by some Bulgarian
colleagues to show Bulgars as not Turkic. Their results are
publicly known. And we think that our Bulgarian colleagues should
collect signs to warn their co-nationals not to write so
unscientific and baseless things. Bulgaria have certainly had very great
names in all sciences; this tradition should be kept, and
should not be victimized to political accounts. And we want to express
our stance and idea that history is itself an important
science, and should not be injured by having submitted to politicians
and social engineers.
Our colleagues speak of ▒racial▓ position of our project with no proof,
but they obviously show their stand for Indo-Iranian
racism. We are accused of considering a 4000 years long history into
account by our Bulgarian colleagues, who, in their
accusation letter, base their thesis on 5000 or more years of the
so-called Indo-Iranian entity. They say that Medieval Bulgar
civilization was a piece and product of the settled, and not nomads, but
do not know or regard that among Eurasian nomads
there were a lot of Iranic communities; and they fail to explain how
they did come to the Balkans if they were not nomads. We
want to refer to a question by a Canadian deputy of the mid-19th century
about the famous Indian chief: ⌠How did he pass our
border if he is Sitting Bull, and how can we call him Sitting Bull if he
passed the border by walking?■
As for the so-called conference in Istanbul, we should confess that we
heard it first time by your news relying on the letter of
the seven Bulgarian scholars. We will organize a reception in Istanbul
to promote and evaluate our project, but, when we
complete the project. All our contributors know well about our time plan
according to which the Turkish edition will be
published within January/February, 2002, and the English one within
May/June, 2002. That is, the date is uncertain, and we did
not send any invitation to anybody. As for the invited 26 Bulgarians,
our Bulgarian colleagues seem to have misinformed.
Among a few names mentioned in the news, there are some whom we do not
know at all, and some whom we missed to invite
to the project. We will immediately invite them to contribute to the
project. Please note that people have not been chosen
according to some criteria; we invite everybody available for us. We
found names and contacts of 86 Bulgarian and Turk
historians from Bulgaria, and want to reach to more people. It is an
honor for us to extend our invitation to the seven colleagues
and to people that they may refer.
As for their regression that we do send official call to certain
institutions in Bulgaria, it is due to our very difficult situation:
There
is no any database listing all institutions and names studying in areas
related to Turkish history, language and culture. We have
had to find them one by one, and it is normal to miss some of them,
which is not necessarily to be considered a deliberate act.
We want to remind that we have names and contributors from Argentina and
New Zealand.
Last but not the least, Prof. Omeljan Pritsak is undoubtedly one of
those at the paramount of Eurasian historiography. His
studies are available everywhere and concerning people know very well
what he thinks on this issue. Prof. Pritsak honored us
by sending his very valuable and wide essay titled ⌠The Turkic nomads of
Southeastern Europe■, of which the first part is
devoted to Huns and Bulgarians, respectively.
This is all for your information. We wish all the best for you and BTA
in general,
Cordially,
Osman KARATAY Prof. Kemal ???EK
Coordinator of the Project 'Turk' Academic Consultant
June R Harton
<arch...@erols.com> wrote in message news:3B65F9E7...@erols.com...
So,
> we are of the opinion that what is meant by the
> above phrase on Bulgars is not the original view of Yeni Turkiye, bu is
> the opinion of eminent historians of Bulgaria like
> Zlatarski and Beshevliev, and other very well-known and respectable
> scholars like Moravcsik, Marquart, Smirnov, Baskakov,
> Feher, Dvornik, Halperin, Czegledy, Obolensky, Vernadsky, Ostrogorsky,
> Dabrowski, Rasony, Menges, Runciman,
> Rona-Tas, Zimonyi, and others. Moreover, even Prof. Hristo Hristov,
> about whom nobody can say that he likes Turks a little
> bit, writes that Proto-Bulgarians were obviously ‘a Turkic tribe’.
Amusing? That is another example of your racism, Gail...and that too
has been forwarded for action.
As it is, Bulgar is an undisputable important component of the
Ethnic Slavs of FYROM as any serious scholar will tell you.
from: Spirit Of The Real Makedon
(using June's e-mail to communicate to you)!
........The heart of Macedonia was always Greek
ivaylo p. ivanov
only country where "respected scholars" try to deny the historical
truth they don't like? In any case I think there much fewer of them in
Sofia than Skopje.
Ivaylo.
arch...@erols.com wrote in message news:<3B65F9E7...@erols.com>...
arch...@erols.com
"ivaylo p. ivanov" wrote:
> What do you want to say with this post Galina, that RoM is not the
> only country where "respected scholars" try to deny the historical
> truth they don't like? In any case I think there much fewer of them in
> Sofia than Skopje.
Ivaylo,
I didn't write the post. I thought it interesting
June R Harton
<arch...@erols.com> wrote in message news:3B66FC31...@erols.com...
> "ivaylo p. ivanov" wrote:
> > What do you want to say with this post Galina, that RoM is not the
> > only country where "respected scholars" try to deny the historical
> > truth they don't like? In any case I think there much fewer of them in
> > Sofia than Skopje.
> Ivaylo,
> I didn't write the post. I thought it interesting
Ivaylo, you see I pegged it correctly in my earlier response to her.
ivaylo p. ivanov
> "ivaylo p. ivanov" wrote:
>
> > What do you want to say with this post Galina, that RoM is not the
> > only country where "respected scholars" try to deny the historical
> > truth they don't like? In any case I think there much fewer of them in
> > Sofia than Skopje.
>
> Ivaylo,
>
> I didn't write the post. I thought it interesting
>
May be so, but it was you who posted it! What is the relevance to
a.n.m. other then what I pointed out?
Ivaylo.