The outlandish plan to 'de-Turkify' Central Asia
A fringe movement wants to remove Turkish and Mongol influence from Central Asia to restore its Indo-European heritage. Historical fact or nationalist delusion?
English · Original discussion in Spanish · Published
The outlandish plan to 'de-Turkify' Central Asia
Was Central Asia an extension of Europe before the Mongol invasions? A fringe movement claims the region must free itself from Turkic and Mongol influence in order to reclaim its Indo-European heritage. The thesis, which circulates in certain corners of the internet, calls for a cultural "de-Turkification": the peoples of the region would abandon Turkic-Mongolic languages and adopt languages such as Ukrainian, Alanic or Tocharian.
Contested historical roots
Supporters of this idea point out that before the Mongol expansion, Xinjiang was under Tocharian rule (a centum-language people related to Latin), the Scythians founded their empire in Turkestan, and Alexander the Great's Greeks colonized the area. They note that Nestorian Christianity reached the region —the Tocharians themselves eventually adopted it after mixing with the Uyghurs, who were initially Buddhist and Manichaean— before Sarracinization. The Andronovo and Sintashta cultures are claimed as the cradle of the Aryan peoples.
The shadow of ethnic cleansing
The plan is not limited to culture: some more radical voices propose creating a unified Turco-Mongol state within present-day Mongolia (1.6 million km²) and expelling Turks and Mongols from Anatolia and Central Asia. Critics within the same discussion call the proposal "cultural genocide" and compare it to the purges of Tamerlane and Genghis Khan. Others dismiss it as unfeasible without massive ethnic cleansing.
Geopolitics and Sarracinization
The debate becomes entangled with accusations that the US fostered the Sarracinization of the region to fight communism, while the USSR had previously de-religionized it. China, by contrast, is portrayed as a brake on radical Sarracinism in Xinjiang. These ideologically charged readings turn the discussion into a minefield where each side seeks out its own historical reference points.
Conclusion: the proposal to de-Turkify Central Asia is a cocktail of biased historical data, nationalist grievances and geopolitical fantasies. There is no real movement behind it, but its very existence reveals how far reinterpretations of the past can go.
Related forum discussions
Was Central Asia an extension of Europe before the Mongol invasions? A fringe movement claims the region must free itself from Turkic and Mongol influence in order to reclaim its Indo-European heritage. The thesis, which circulates in certain corners of the internet, calls for a cultural "de-Turkification": the peoples of the region would abandon Turkic-Mongolic languages and adopt languages such as Ukrainian, Alanic or Tocharian.
Contested historical roots
Supporters of this idea point out that before the Mongol expansion, Xinjiang was under Tocharian rule (a centum-language people related to Latin), the Scythians founded their empire in Turkestan, and Alexander the Great's Greeks colonized the area. They note that Nestorian Christianity reached the region —the Tocharians themselves eventually adopted it after mixing with the Uyghurs, who were initially Buddhist and Manichaean— before Sarracinization. The Andronovo and Sintashta cultures are claimed as the cradle of the Aryan peoples.
The shadow of ethnic cleansing
The plan is not limited to culture: some more radical voices propose creating a unified Turco-Mongol state within present-day Mongolia (1.6 million km²) and expelling Turks and Mongols from Anatolia and Central Asia. Critics within the same discussion call the proposal "cultural genocide" and compare it to the purges of Tamerlane and Genghis Khan. Others dismiss it as unfeasible without massive ethnic cleansing.
Geopolitics and Sarracinization
The debate becomes entangled with accusations that the US fostered the Sarracinization of the region to fight communism, while the USSR had previously de-religionized it. China, by contrast, is portrayed as a brake on radical Sarracinism in Xinjiang. These ideologically charged readings turn the discussion into a minefield where each side seeks out its own historical reference points.
Conclusion: the proposal to de-Turkify Central Asia is a cocktail of biased historical data, nationalist grievances and geopolitical fantasies. There is no real movement behind it, but its very existence reveals how far reinterpretations of the past can go.
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Summary of a discussion on Burbuja.info - Foro de economía, actualidad y política., translated from Spanish and reviewed before publication. Read the full discussion (36 replies).
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