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Sons of the Conquerors: The Rise of the Turkic World

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Turkey is the keystone between the Middle East of Syria, Iran and Iraq, and on the other side is Greece and the European Union. The broader Turkic World, those countries or regions where Turkish is the predominant language, lies to the northeast of Turkey and make up the region that lies between China and Russia.

In this book, Mr. Pope who heads the Istanbul bureau for the Wall Street Journal, gives a report of his travels throughout this part of the world. He reports on the transition in the countries that were previously part of the Soviet Union. He reports on the religious aspects of a country viewed with suspicion by the Christian West because of their Muslim religion, and shunned by their co-religionists in the Islamic world for its alliance with the Christian West.

This book is more of a chronicle of Mr. Pope's travels and experiences through this world than a true history. The years since the collapse of the Soviet Union have been years of drastic change in this region. Countries like Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and others are visited and some of their story told.

This is a region previously hidden in the monolithic Soviet Union. Now it is opening up to be a part of the rest of the world but independently. This book brings this region to light in a light and easily understood manner.

Hugh Pope has travelled from one end of the Turkic world to the other to write a magnificent survey of the Pan-Turanian world he calls Sons of the Conquerors. Now Istanbul bureau chief of the Wall Street Journal,, Pope has lived and travelled in Turkey for some twenty years. He speaks Turkish, Persian, and Arabic, as well as English. As a result, he can talk to anyone from a bazaar merchant, to a police chief, to a businessman, to an imam, to a president. And he does so in this book.

Anyone who has been to Istanbul knows that the vibrant country Pope describes is already a reality. What he is saying is that even if pan-Turanianism cannot succeed as a political movement, Turkic qualities of Turkic states will give them a solid foundation to follow in Turkey's footsteps to modernity-as Sons of the Conquerors.

The author of Turkey Unveiled certainly knows Turkey, the Turks, and Turkish culture. Pope takes an almost anatomical interest in Turkey's people, as well as Turkic brothers and cousins scattered around the globe. He describes the realities of the Turkish Republic, its relation to the Balkan States and Azerbaijan. He visits the humming factories and gleaming offices of the new Turkish entrepreneurs, as well as the dusty agricultural towns of central Anatolia.

He understands Turkic psychology, too. His second section, on Turkic politicians, is entitled "Save us, Father!" It begins with a profile of Ataturk and his secular revolution, and continues to explore Turkmenbashi, Aliyev, and Nazarbaev's political debt to the Turkic leader. Finally, he tracks down the ghose of Isa Beg, and his Uighur pan-Turanian legacy. His descriptions of Kashgar and Urumqi are priceless.

From examining the Turkish mentality, Pope turns to explore Turkic geopolitics-namely Iran and Russia. The Persian and Slavic influences have been a part of Turkey's history, and the Turkic personality and society can be understood as a diamond squeezed by the pressure between Russian Orthodoxy and Persian Shi'ism.

Pope travels abroad as well, to look at Turkic communities in Germany, Holland, and the USA. What he finds is interesting, especially in the different ways expatriate Turkish immigrants adapt to their different host societies. Most intriguing is his claim that Virginia's Melengueon Indian tribe were originally Turkish galley slaves washed ashore on the American coast. Even if you don't buy that theory, his evidence that Native American Indian tribes had Turkish origins is persuasive.

There's just so much that it is impossible to summarize. He describes the Caspian oil boom, the Kazakh oil boom, and the re-invention of the Turkish police force as the nation attempts to enter the EU-from "Midnight Express" to "Midnight Espresso."

When it comes to Uzbekistan, Pope is sympathetic to Islam Karimov. Pope's basic argument seems to be that Karimov, although of Tajik (Persian) ancestry, is closely following Ataturk's path of independence, authoritarianism, secularism, and self-improvement.He sees Uzbekistan much like Turkey was in the 1920s, and is surprisingly bullish :

...But Uzbekistan has continued to develop according to the stern precepts of its regime, just as early republican Turkey insisted on it right to develop at its own pace. As in Turkey, its stubborn self-reliance and narrow-minded government have delayed its development. Again like Turkey, it may well help create a coherent Turkic nation, although scars will be left by Karimov's widescale and often vicious oppression of the Muslim-minded countryside. A Soviet legacy of urban planning, literacy and education may even give it advantages over Turkey in some areas.(p.349)

Pope does a good job of explaining Uzbekistan's uneasy relations with Turkey over the years, and details the reasons behind the closing of Turkish schools by President Karimov. He even speculates about a Turkish-Iranian-Russian alliance as an alternative to Europe-something also mentioned by Russian Eurasianist philosopher Aleksandr Dugin.

It is fascinating to think about the future of Central Asia, given Pope's hopeful analysis of Turkish mentality, culture, society, and history.It would be nice if he is right...(This review was originally published on <a href="http://www.registan.net">Registan.net</a>.)

This book aims to examine developments in the newly independent Turkic-speaking states of Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, Kirgizstan, and Kazakhstan, in the post-Soviet era, particularly in their relations to the Republic of Turkey. Because of their wealth in natural resources and their importance since 2001 in the "War on Terror," it is a region that has newfound importance for an American audience.

There are a number of concerns I have about this work. I think it overstates the importance of the Turkish Republic as a player in the region and that it overstates the saliency of "Turkic cultural" values as a way of understanding the region's politics.

But these concerns are more than balanced by Pope's familiarity with the main political actors, by his talent for using a telling anecdote to demonstrate his point, and by his sophisticated analysis of a whole series of regional issues, ranging from kleptocracy and oil wealth, to state-building, to Islam and human rights.

For those looking for a history of the region or more scholarly analysis, Carter V. Findley's The Turks in World History is a better bet. For those interested in the region's recent past and its place in contemporary politics, one could do worse than this engaging and informative book.

Hugh Pope's "Sons of the Conquerors" is an interesting read - particularly for those interested in the Turkic world or those interested in literature about far-flung places (how many people do you know who've been to Xinjiang, for example?). "The Turkic World", for those who are unfamiliar with the term, is the part of the world inhabited by Turkic peoples - a belt stretching roughly from western China to the Balkans and including, as well as the Turks of Turkey, the Azeris, Kazakhs, Turkmens and Uighurs among others.

Pope, a journalist based in Istanbul, professes at the outset to have had little knowledge of the broader Turkic world until being told to cover a demonstration by Uighurs in China. As the Soviet Union collapsed, however, he found himself well-placed to investigate some of the newly-independent states of Central Asia, most of which are Turkic-majority.
What follows, then, is a series of travelogue-style pieces as Pope traverses this under-analysed part of the world. He wanders through bazaars in western China, meets with the President of Kazakhstan, crosses the Caspian Sea, interviews refugees from Nagorno-Karabakh and even gets to talk to some Bulgarian Turks thinking about returning to the motherland.

Entertaining and informative as all of this is (English-language books on any aspect of Central Asia still being a developing market), Pope's analyses frequently lack context. His discussions of the Turkmen and Kazakh leaders seem to fall too easily into the standard lines (the former is a dictator, but an amusing one, the latter could do with being more democratic but seems a nice guy). Admittedly, in this part of the world, it doesn't pay to be too critical of one's hosts, particularly not if one intends to return later on for more journalistic coverage, but as a historian of the Turks, I found this wanting a bit.
Equally concerning were Pope's frequent plunges into the local languages. While his puzzling rendering of "Xankandi" in Azerbaijan as "Hankenty" is perhaps excusable due to the orthographical reforms taking place at the time, there is a description of a Turkmen contact's language as evoking the dustiness and furtiveness of Turkmen historical existence which is patently ridiculous. While this is the only occasion on which Pope makes such comments openly, one wonders idly how many times such essentialist thinking influenced his views of the situation.
As a third consideration, Pope gives undue weight to some groups of Turks while giving others short shrift. His "appalachian Turks" make for a romantic story, but could easily have been dispensed with in light of anthropological consensus on the topic. Groups such as the Christian Gagauz of Moldova, the Crimean Tatars of Ukraine and the myriad Turkic groups of the Russian Federation (including the Buddhist Buryats) hardly even get a mention, which feels like an oversight. Even the relatively well-known polyphonic throat singers of Tuva only get a paragraph or two.

This is not to say that Pope's work is substandard. For the lay reader, this is very possibly a better book than I am making it out to be. Be aware, however, that the specialist - or indeed the non-specialist who finds this sort of thing interesting - is going to want a lot more than what is written up here.

Not a superior history, of course that was not the author's primary intent. But this book is another example of what can go wrong when a journalist ventures into the world of History.


In particular the author's understanding of Central Asian History is very poor. He utilizes a very Pan-Turkist, Soviet, post-Soviet Nationalist, and Anatolian Turkish interpretation of Uzbek, Kazakh, Uyghur, Turkmen, and Anatolian Turkish history.

On a certain level this book is interesting in that it shows how modern Turkic speakers perceive their own history and their relation to other Turkic groups. That said, the author is at his best when speaking about contemporary groups.

There are no other books that cover this region between the Mid-East, Russia, and China, which is amazing to me considering the importance of the area. This book is part travelogue, part history, and Pope does a wonderful job of pulling the modern into perspective with the historical. Not only is it smart and insightful, but it's also very readable and hard to put down.

This book is a must for anyone with an interest in the area of which so many are sadly ignorant.

This book is amazing in couple of dimensions. First, he lived in Turkey and learned Turkish well (and wrote 'Turkey Unveiled' which I read before reding this book), and then he has traveled almost all over the lands where Turkish/Turkic people live (he just left out Turks in Northern Cyprus, Northern Syria and Ethnic Turks scattered in a couple of newly established Balkan countries (Albania, Macedonia, Bosnia) and some parts of Russia. But I am sure he will go for it too!), and this book is a product of these experiences. He had crazy trips, under difficult conditions. From time to time, he interviewed them under conditions which he was not supposed to (like interviewing Uygur Turks in China. The Chinese don't allow foerign journalists to talk to the Uygur people, in order to cover their oppression of Uygur people). He unveils the longtime sufferings of the Turkic people all over the world, little known by the western world.
I recommend this book for everyone who is interested in Turkic people, people who will travel to Turkic countries, who will have a mission there (diplomats, businessmen, etc.). I also recommend this book to every Turk. I haven't read/seen this comprehensive a book on Turkic World, and my understanding of the situation of the Turkic World now has certainly increased. I will be waiting for Pope's next book. As we Turks say "Who knows more? The one who lives more? Or the one who travels more?". We say it in a way that we stress the latter; and although many of us won't have the chance to travel, reading this book itself is travelling into the Turkic world.

A superb book, easily readable, exhibiting an unparalleled combination of prudent scholarship, and excellent journalism. Mr. Pope studied his subject matter well, traveled over half the known world to observe all the Turkic people from China to Turkey.His interviews were excellent! It took a lot of stamina on his part to travel, meet, and interview the different people.Only Mr. Pope couldve accomplished this. Keep up the good work and keep on trucking Hugh. Very very highly recommended.

Hugh Pope's "Sons of the Conquerors: The Rise of the Turkic World" provides the Western reader a glimpse into a different reality of world history.

Under-emphasized and under-represented in any history curriculum at any Western university, this work presents to the reader facts and events of pan-Turkic and central Asian history and culture that have had little currency, recognition or understanding in the West.

Comparatively speaking, the history and culture of East Asia--Chinese history, Japanese history, Korean history and the history of southeast Asia are much better taught and understood in the West than the history of the Turkic peoples in central Asia.

A major strength, but also the major weakness of Pope's work is his concentration on Turkey and Turkish history and culture, especially the Ottoman period and 20th-century, post-Ataturk Turkey. This is understandable because Pope has clearly spent more time, done more research and has more knowledge of Turkey than of the other pan-Turkish cultures of central Asia.

In "Sons of the Conquerers," Pope does not limit himself to documenting Turkey. Instead, he has attempted to bring in the many central Asian nations associated with pan-Turkic culture, i.e., Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, etc.

As a reader, I would have liked to see "more equal time" spent on the cultures of these central Asian nations, many of them newly minted from the breakup of the Soviet Union in the early 1990's. Among these, Uzbekistan is slightly favored with "extra time." In addition, Pope gives short shrift to Turkic peoples living within today's post-Soviet Russia, i.e., Tatars and the Buryats to name two groups.

Having spent time in central Asia with the Buryat people of Buryatia, who inhabit the area east of Lake Baikal in south-central Siberia, I can report that they do indeed have a culture of their own. A Mongol people, the Buryat people made peace with the early Cossack soldiers, traders, trappers and settlers. Unlike many conquered peoples, they were successful in retaining a large amount of their indigenous culture, including their Buddhist faith and animist traditions. Shamanism is widely practiced. Outwardly conformist to Soviet society, Buryats are a Turkic people who managed to survive because of inner strengths, cultural values and traditions quite different from the external culture. I would have liked Pope to delve into this kind of analysis for other pan-Turkic peoples.

This is a good read, especially for someone reading about Turkic history for the first time. However, the serious student will need more than is presented here, especially about the central Asian pan-Turkic peoples.

A surprizingly large expanse of territory across the globe is inhabited by Turkish and Turkic peoples. Pope's fascinating and comprehensive work is among the most important books, and best written on the subject whether providing the reader with a significantg understanding of the importance of the Army on Turkish politics, insights on Turkish history presence in the Balkans or focusing more general on Turkish history and its major figures.
However, the history, politics, economy and social worlds of Turkey is only part of the story of the Turkic people. Pope describes their diverse life worlds and politics on the Steppe of Cental Asia and also as against competitors in this vast area such as the Russians and the Chinese and also with important emphasis on the rush for oil. This is a very bold and extremely well written saga of the Turkic world in the context of the wider world system. A fabulous read, don't miss it.