The Gokturks: History, Culture and Legacy of the First Turkic Empire

The book is out now! https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09XZ2SZ6F

Homeland. Folk. Nation. What meaning do these terms have in our present day?

In some countries, they seem like relics of ancient times. But in others, they are ubiquitous in politics and society. One of these countries is Turkey. The reason for this is rooted in its past. Like any great civilization, the history of the early Turks began small and unremarkable. They had to fight for freedom before they even became visible on the world stage as a united ethnic group. But their origins do not lie in Anatolia, which they have inhabited for a millennium, but deep in the heart of Asia. They should go down in the history books as the founders of Turkic identity...
It all began with a tribe that has long been forgotten: the Ashina. This clan of either Hunnic or Wusun origin consisted of people who had fled from an invasion of Chinese armies, and had to rebuild their home in the Altay Mountains. Their story is also the reason for the emigration of the Turks from Central Asia to Europe and the Middle East. Soon the Ashina mingled with the surrounding Turkic tribes. In the process, they learned metallurgy and the art of war, and planned their retaliation. But they remained vassals of more powerful empires.
Two brothers, politically educated and militarily experienced, took over the leadership of the tribe and started a revolution. They rebelled against the Mongol and Chinese feudal lords of the time and led their family to political and economic independence for the first time in generations. In doing so, they mobilized that strength that had always lain dormant deep in the steppe, leading women and men alike into battle. A distinctive feature of the Ashina was that, although they themselves were of mixed ethnic origin, they explicitly cultivated the Turkic language and traditions.
In a very short time, they also broke the chains of all other tribes that spoke what is known today as the Common Turkic language, and expanded in all directions as the Turks' new leaders. Within a few years, long before the Ottomans and Seljuks, the Ashina created a Turkic empire - the Khaganate - that stretched from Korea and Manchuria in Asia to the Crimean Peninsula in Europe. Their empire became even larger than that of the Ottomans a millennium later. They gave themselves the name "Turk". For the first time in history, a state was inhabited as well as ruled by Turks.
But these new lords of the steppe were different from the Huns before and the Mongols after them. The Göktürks were not only hospitable, but also extremely tolerant towards other cultures. Their rulers invoked ancient Turkic traditions and Tengrism, the original religion and life philosophy of the Turkic peoples, and did not stop at the usual borders of the Eurasian steppe. Byzantines, Persians, Koreans and Chinese had to deal with young and eager warriors who used both military power and diplomatic skills. This is their rise to power.

With the addition of the latest historical and archaeological research results and after evaluation of ancient sources, the history of these "heavenly Turks" ("Gök" stands for "heaven" in Turkic) is now told in detail for the first time in English

Lastly, this documentary has been produced for all those who are interested in the origin of the Turks, but also in the history of the steppe nomads of Asia before the Mongols; for those who are interested in Tengrism; and finally for all people who are concerned with the question of what "homeland" really means.
Here are the sources I used for the video:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1G4a_-m_TLYaqVgMOMrZK7DMjFR5ZEHRULrEOJs12brA/edit

Website: thekhansden.com
Twitter: @kingofturks1

Видео The Gokturks: History, Culture and Legacy of the First Turkic Empire канала Khan's Den