Issue 76 · Winter 2016

Dear Readers,

We are happy to present the 76th issue of bilig, which is an international quarterly peer-reviewed journal published by the Board of Trustees of Ahmet Yesevi University. Before moving on to the contents of this issue, we would like to make an important announcement.

2016 is a special year for Ahmet Yesevi University. As a result of the efforts of the Board of Trustees and the recommendation of the Turkish and Kazakh UNESCO National Committees, 2016 has been declared the year of Ahmet Yesevi. The Board of Trustees is now working very hard to spread Ahmet Yesevi’s legacy to larger masses of people through a number of activities to be held in 2016 such as publishing all of Yesevi’s works, organizing an International Ahmet Yesevi Symposium and an Ahmet Yesevi Musical Composition Competition.

As the Editorial Board of bilig, we would like to contribute to these activities through a special issue on “Hoca Ahmet Yesevi”. This will be the title of the 79th issue of our journal, which will be published at the end of 2016. We are now accepting submissions to this issue from you distinguished scholars. Submissions to this issue should be made as soon as possible, given that the peer review process also takes a considerable amount of time.

Distinguished Readers,

It is quite difficult for a quarterly journal to have content that is fully up-to-date concerning current issues and developments. Setting aside the debate as to the meaningfulness of such a concern, our unchanging principle is that bilig is a journal giving priority to academic studies focusing on the social problems of the Turkish World and offering solutions to these problems. For the 76th issue, we have, as the Editorial Board, tried to make a selection of interesting articles that will contribute to a better understanding of current developments.

History education plays an important role in the formation of a national identity and a common consciousness. Decision-makers are inevitably influenced by the environment they are raised in and the education they receive. The recent political crisis between Turkey and Russia has once again demonstrated the role of historical memory in international politics. Evren Balta and Süheyla Demir’s article on the representation of the Ottoman-Turk in current history textbooks in the Russian Federation is a must-read especially if we would like to have a better understanding of the latest crisis between Turkey and Russia. Russian identity, which is based on an opposition to the West, unfortunately depicts the Ottoman Empire and Turkey in a negative light too.

The article focusing on the manuscript, “The Story of the Tsargrad (The Foundation of the City and its Conquest by the Turks in 1453)”, which is thought to have been written in the 15th century by Alexander Nestor, which was discovered in 1886 by Arşimandrit Leonid in Troitse-Sergiyeva Monastery and which is the first Russian source on the conquest of Istanbul, also gives information on the basic references of current history textbooks of the Russian Federation. It is possible to understand Alexander Nestor’s prejudiced attitude toward Mehmet II and the Turks since he was, after all, a medieval man of religion. It is, however, hard to explain why Russian statesmen of the 21st century continue to use the same language of hatred for the Turks.

Zübeyde Güneş Yağcı’s article titled “International Leader of North Caucasus: Sefer Zaniko” describes a people’s struggle for existence through the biography of Zanzade Sefer, who was a significant Circassian figure in the 19th century.

On the other hand, the article focusing on the Turkish students who studied at the Communist University of the Toilers of the East (KUTVA) is significant in terms of understanding Russia’s attempts at influencing Turkish politics and the roots of leftist thinking in Turkey. The 14-month program in this institution included Marxist-Leninist theory, intelligence, guerilla warfare, secret codes and the techniques of underground political activity. Among those who studied at this university are famous leftist figures of the time like Nazım Hikmet, Vâlâ Nureddin, Zehra Kosova - one of the founders of TKP - Şevket Süreyya Aydemir, Dr. Şefik Hüsnü Deymer, Mehmet Bozışık, and İsmail Bilen.

The first World War, which started in 1914 and devastated for four years all regions of the world from Europe to Africa and from the Middle to the Far East, is the starting point of many international problems that still continue today. One of the neglected issues concerning the first World War is that of Muslim captives. Russian and French armies included millions of soldiers coming from colonial regions. Tens of thousands of these soldiers, most of whom were Muslims, became prisoners of war to Germany. In her article on the German interest in Turkestan, Gulzhaukhar Kokebayeva points to the significant role played by Muslim soldiers fighting in the Russian army who fell captive to Germany in the formation of Germany’s Turkestan policy. The sources Kokebayeva uses indicate that Germany had 40 thousand Muslim captives and that 10 thousand of these were willing to fight voluntarily in Turkestan. Germany, however, was not willing to give away these captives fearing that this would increase the Ottoman influence in Caucasia. Yaşar Demir’s article, on the other hand, focuses on Germany’s Muslim captives in World War I who came from North Africa, a previous French colony. In his study based on French archival resources, Demir demonstrates how captive North African soldiers did not respond to İttihat-ı İslam (Unity of Islam) efforts in the expected way and how they remained loyal to France instead.

Roza Abdıkulova’s article exploring the influence on Kyrgyz literature of the 1916 Turkestan Rebellion, which involved Turkestani peoples’ rebellion against the Tsar’s armies and the resulting mass migration and deaths, is significant especially because it draws attention to the issue in the centenary of “Urkun”. Hasan Ali Karasar’s article focuses on the Bolshevik Revolution that took place during the war and the struggle of the Turkestani intellegentsia who had to emigrate from Russia during the civil war.

An error has been made in Issue 75 in the printed version of Zeyneb Çağlıyan İçener›s article, titled “The Recent History of Presidential System Debates in Turkey: Political Views of Ozal and Demirel”. The corrected version of the article can be found in pdf format on the website of bilig.

We thank all the contributors to this issue for their valuable articles and hope that our readers will find them useful. As the Editorial Board of bilig, we wish you a happy new year. May 2016 bring peace, comfort and happiness to all humanity.

Prof.Dr. Fırat PURTAŞ

Editor in Chief