Abstract
EFFORTS TO UNITE THE TRIBES IN ORHON INSCRIPTIONS
While the vast geography, in which Turks live, shapes the “free character” of Turkic tribes, it makes tribes’ process of coming together and reaching the notion of becoming a nation difficult, at the same time. The attempts of Mete, the emperor of the Great Hun Empire, starting from 209-174 BC to unite all the relative communities, which are “combatant (bow-drawing)” and living in the north side of the Great Wall; to build a political unity, to reach the notion of nation and the effort to be powerful against the external threats draw much attention.
In modernist perspective, the rises of the nation and nationalism ideas are connected to the events that were experienced in Europe in 18th century. However, when the Orhon Inscriptions, which are of a great importance in terms of Turkish language and history, are analyzed from this point, it can be seen that the target group is neither a tribe nor some tribes, but it can be seen that Turkishness, which is a supra-tribal notion, is emphasized insistently. Consequently, the practices of the state administrators show us that there is a Turkishness consciousness in the executive people in a serious level and that significant efforts are made in order to reach the notion of nation. The data acquired in this study, which is about the efforts to unite the tribes in Orhon Inscriptions, are such as to support these views.
Keywords
Orhon Inscriptions, notion of nation, Turkic tribes, the process of becoming a nation.