The Epic of Ergenekon or Ergenekon Epic (sometimes ''Ergeneqon''; ) is a

founding myth An origin myth is a type of myth that explains the beginnings of a natural or social aspect of the world. Creation myths are a type of origin myth narrating the formation of the universe. However, numerous cultures have stories that take place a ...

of Turkic and Mongolic peoples.
āmiʿ al-tawārīkh

Abulghazi Bahadur Abu al-Ghazi Bahadur (Chagatai language, Chagatai and , Abulgazi, Ebulgazi, Abu-l-Ghazi, August 24, 1603 – 1663) was the Khan of Khiva from 1643 to 1663. He was a member of the Khanate of Khiva#:~:text=of the region.-,After 1500,-%5Bedit%5D, Uzb ...

,
Genealogy of the Turk

Etymology

There are conflicting etymological theories about the origin of the word ''Ergenekon.'' According to the Kazakh philologist Nemat Kelimebov and other Turkic-origin advocates, ''Ergenekon'' is a

portmanteau In linguistics, a blend—also known as a blend word, lexical blend, or portmanteau—is a word formed by combining the meanings, and parts of the sounds, of two or more words together.

derived from

Old Turkic Old Siberian Turkic, generally known as East Old Turkic and often shortened to Old Turkic, was a Siberian Turkic language spoken around East Turkistan and Mongolia. It was first discovered in inscriptions originating from the Second Turkic Kh ...

roots ''ergene'' "fording point, passage, mountain gorge" and ''kon'' "encampment, place of living" and can be translated as "encampment (of cattle breeders) in a mountain gorge". According to academics such as the Russian linguist Zoriktuev, who attribute the myth originally to Mongolic peoples, the name was derived from the Argun River (''Ergune'') and ''kun,'' which in the Old Mongolian language meant a high plateau with steep slopes.

Variants

Turkic version

In the Turkic mythology, the myth aims to explain the foundation of the

First Turkic Khaganate The First Turkic Khaganate, also referred to as the First Turkic Empire, the Turkic Khaganate or the Göktürk Khaganate, was a Turkic khaganate established by the Ashina clan of the Göktürks in medieval Inner Asia under the leadership of Bu ...

. The Ergenekon legend tells about a great crisis of the ancient Turks. Following a military defeat, the Turks took refuge in the legendary Ergenekon valley where they were trapped for four centuries. They were finally released when a

blacksmith A blacksmith is a metalsmith who creates objects primarily from wrought iron or steel, but sometimes from #Other metals, other metals, by forging the metal, using tools to hammer, bend, and cut (cf. tinsmith). Blacksmiths produce objects such ...

created a passage by melting the mountain, allowing the gray wolf Asena to lead them out. The people led out of the valley founded the Turkic Khaganate, with the valley functioning as its capital. A New Year's ceremony commemorates the legendary ancestral escape from Ergenekon.

Mongolic version

In the Mongolic version, Ergenekon was the refuge of the progenitors of the

Mongols Mongols are an East Asian ethnic group native to Mongolia, China ( Inner Mongolia and other 11 autonomous territories), as well as the republics of Buryatia and Kalmykia in Russia. The Mongols are the principal member of the large family o ...

, Nekuz and Qiyan (according to

, nephew and son of Il-Khan respectively), as told in the 14th-century literary history '' āmiʿ al-tawārīkh'', written by Rashid-al-Din Hamadani">āmiʿ al-tawārīkh'', written by Rashid-al-Din Hamadani.Bahaeddin Ögel, ''Türk Mitolojisi'' Vol. I, Milli Eğitim basımevi, İstanbul, 1971, ''Türk Mitolojisi I: 'Kaynakları ve Açıklamaları İle Destanlar'', Tütk Tarih Kurumu, Ankara, 1989, pp. 14–15. Dursun Yıldırım, "Ergenekon Destanı", ''Türkler'', Vol. 3, Yeni Türkiye, Ankara, 2002, , pp. 527–43. It is a common epic in Mongol mythologies. Abulghazi Bahadur, khan of the Khanate of Khiva (1643–1663), told of the Ergenekon Mongolian creation myth in his work, 17th-century "Shajara-i Turk" (Genealogy of the Turks).

In Turkish literature

Ottoman Era

In the late Ottoman era, the Ergenekon epic enjoyed use in

Turkish literature Turkish literature () comprises oral compositions and written texts in the Turkish language. The Ottoman form of Turkish, which forms the basis of much of the written corpus, was highly influenced by Persian and Arabic literature,Bertold Sp ...

(especially by the

Turkish nationalist Turkish nationalism () is nationalism among the people of Turkey and individuals whose national identity is Turkish people, Turkish. Turkish nationalism consists of political and social movements and sentiments prompted by a love for Turkish cu ...

movement), describing a mythical Turkic place of origin located in the inaccessible valleys of the

Altay Mountains The Altai Mountains (), also spelled Altay Mountains, are a mountain range in Central and East Asia, where Russia, China, Mongolia, and Kazakhstan converge, and where the rivers Irtysh and Ob have their headwaters. The massif merges with th ...

. In 1864

Ahmed Vefik Pasha Ahmed Vefik Pasha () (3 July 1823 2 April 1891) was an Ottoman statesman, diplomat, scholar, playwright, and translator during the Tanzimat and First Constitutional Era periods. He was commissioned with top-rank governmental duties, including pr ...

translated ''Shajara-i Turk'' into the Ottoman language under the title ''Şecere-i Evşâl-i Türkiyye,'' published in '' Tasvir-i Efkâr'' newspaper.İsa Özkan, "Ergenekon Destanı Hakkında", ''Türk Yurdu'', Cilt: 29, Sayı: 265, Eylül 2009, pp. 43–47.

Ziya Gökalp Mehmet Ziya Gökalp (born Mehmed Ziya, 23 March 1876 – 25 October 1924) was a Turkish sociologist, writer, poet, and politician. After the 1908 Young Turk Revolution that reinstated constitutionalism in the Ottoman Empire, he adopted the pen ...

's poem put the Ergenekon epic in the context of Turkic history ( ''Turkish text''), published as "Türk An'anesi: Ergenekon" in ''Türk Duygusu'' magazine from May 8 to June 5, 1913, ''Altın Armağan'' in September 1913, and under the title of "Ergenekon" in ''Kızılelma,'' 1914.

Ömer Seyfettin Ömer Seyfettin (11 March 1884, Gönen – 6 March 1920, Istanbul), was a Turkish writer from the late 19th to early 20th century, considered to be one of the greatest modern Turkish authors. His work is much praised for simplifying the Turkish ...

's poem on the topic was published in ''Halka Doğru'' magazine, April 9, 1914. Rıza Nur translated ''Shajara-i turk'' into modern Turkish in 1925, and mentioned Ergenekon in ''Oğuznâme,'' published in

Alexandria Alexandria ( ; ) is the List of cities and towns in Egypt#Largest cities, second largest city in Egypt and the List of coastal settlements of the Mediterranean Sea, largest city on the Mediterranean coast. It lies at the western edge of the Nile ...

, 1928.

Foundation of the Turkish Republic

The first author to connect the mythology of Ergenekon to the founding of the Turkish Republic in 1923 was

Yakup Kadri Karaosmanoğlu Yakup Kadri Karaosmanoğlu (also rendered Yakub Kadri; ; 27 March 1889 – 13 December 1974) was a Turkish novelist, journalist, diplomat, and member of parliament.Edebiyatogretmeni.net ''Yakup Kadri Karaosmanoğlu'' Google translated' Biograp ...

. Karaosmanoğlu was the author of several essays about the

Turkish War of Independence , strength1 = May 1919: 35,000November 1920: 86,000Turkish General Staff, ''Türk İstiklal Harbinde Batı Cephesi'', Edition II, Part 2, Ankara 1999, p. 225August 1922: 271,000Celâl Erikan, Rıdvan Akın: ''Kurtuluş Savaşı tarih ...

. His interpretation of the myth bolstered its place in the founding mythology of the modern Turkish nation-state. The myth itself was a story about the survival of the Turkic people who, faced with extinction, were able to escape with the help of their

totem A totem (from or ''doodem'') is a spirit being, sacred object, or symbol that serves as an emblem of a group of people, such as a family, clan, lineage (anthropology), lineage, or tribe, such as in the Anishinaabe clan system. While the word ...

god, the ''bozkurt'' "wolf". The wolf remains a potent symbol of Turkish nationalism into the present day. Even the renowned Turkish dissident poet

Nazim Hikmet Subahdar, also known as Nazim, was one of the designations of a governor of a Subah (province) during the Khalji dynasty of Bengal, Mamluk dynasty, Khalji dynasty, Tughlaq dynasty, and the Mughal era who was alternately designated as Sahib-i-Su ...

lauded

Mustafa Kemal Atatürk Mustafa Kemal Atatürk ( 1881 – 10 November 1938) was a Turkish field marshal and revolutionary statesman who was the founding father of the Republic of Turkey, serving as its first President of Turkey, president from 1923 until Death an ...

as a "blonde wolf" in the poem titled

Kuva-yi Milliye The Kuva-yi Milliye (; 'National Forces' or 'Nationalist Forces') were irregular Turkish militia forces active in the early period of the Turkish War of Independence. These irregular forces emerged after the occupation of the parts of Turkey by t ...

. While the original Ergenekon myth was about the survival of the ancient Turkic people, in its Republican form it carried the symbolism of Turkey's national

self-determination Self-determination refers to a people's right to form its own political entity, and internal self-determination is the right to representative government with full suffrage. Self-determination is a cardinal principle in modern international la ...

. During the early republican era of Turkey (especially in the 1930s, when

ethnic nationalism Ethnic nationalism, also known as ethnonationalism, is a form of nationalism wherein the nation and nationality are defined in terms of ethnicity, with emphasis on an ethnocentric (and in some cases an ethnostate/ethnocratic) approach to variou ...

held its sway in Turkey), the tale of the Bozkurt, Asena and Ergenekon were promoted along with

Pan-Turkism Pan-Turkism () or Turkism () is a political movement that emerged during the 1880s among Turkic intellectuals who lived in the Russian region of Kazan (Tatarstan), Caucasus Viceroyalty (1801–1917), South Caucasus (modern-day Azerbaijan) and th ...

, and included in history textbooks as the Göktürk creation myth. In 1933,

Şevket Süreyya Aydemir Şevket Süreyya Aydemir (1897–25 March 1976) was a Turkish writer, intellectual, economist, historian, and one of the founders, publisher and a key theorist of '' Kadro'' ("Cadre"), an influential left-wing political journal published in Turke ...

, a Turkish intellectual and a founder and key theorist of the Kadro movement, consubstantiated the Ergenekon epic with the Turkish revolution. In the new Turkish version of the ''Egenekon Legend'', the motif of the wolf was added ('' Turkish text'', version of Ministry of National Education of

Turkey Turkey, officially the Republic of Türkiye, is a country mainly located in Anatolia in West Asia, with a relatively small part called East Thrace in Southeast Europe. It borders the Black Sea to the north; Georgia (country), Georgia, Armen ...

Comparisons

According to Ergün Candan, there are some similarities between the mythologies of other cultures in their symbolism. The she-wolf Asena showed the Turks the way through the

labyrinth In Greek mythology, the Labyrinth () is an elaborate, confusing structure designed and built by the legendary artificer Daedalus for King Minos of Crete at Knossos. Its function was to hold the Minotaur, the monster eventually killed by the h ...

of valleys and mountain passes. According to Ergün Candan, the she-wolf may be seen as a symbol of the "dog star"

Sirius Sirius is the brightest star in the night sky. Its name is derived from the Greek word (Latin script: ), meaning 'glowing' or 'scorching'. The star is designated Canis Majoris, Latinized to Alpha Canis Majoris, and abbr ...

.Candan, Ergun. (2002). ''Türklerin Kültür Kökenleri'', Sınır Ötesi Yayınları, Istanbul, pp. ?113–14,

References

External sources

* * Ergenekon'' at WikiSource (Turkish) (the version of the Ministry of National Education of

) {{Turco-Mongol Turkish nationalism Turkic mythology Turkic literature History of the Turkic peoples Göktürks Mongol mythology Mongolian literature Mongol Empire National mysticism Origin myths