There are conflicting etymological theories about the origin of the wordErgenekon. According to the Kazakh philologist Nemat Kelimebov and other Turkic-origin advocates,Ergenekon is aportmanteau derived fromOld Turkic rootsergene "fording point, passage, mountain gorge" andkon "encampment, place of living" and can be translated as "encampment (of cattle breeders) in a mountain gorge".[6]
According to academics such as the Russian linguist Zoriktuev, who attribute the myth originally to Mongolic peoples, the name was derived from theArgun River (Ergune) andkun, which in the Old Mongolian language meant a high plateau with steep slopes.[6]
In the Turkic mythology, the myth aims to explain the foundation of theFirst Turkic Khaganate. The Ergenekon legend tells about a great crisis of the ancient Turks. Following a military defeat, the Turks took refuge in the legendary Ergenekon valley where they were trapped for four centuries. They were finally released when ablacksmith created a passage by melting the mountain, allowing the gray wolfAsena to lead them out. The people led out of the valley founded the Turkic Khaganate, with the valley functioning as its capital.[7][8][9][10][11][12] A New Year's ceremony commemorates the legendary ancestral escape from Ergenekon.[13]
In the Mongolic version, Ergenekon was the refuge of the progenitors of theMongols, Nekuz and Qiyan (according toAbulghazi Bahadur, nephew and son of Il-Khan respectively), as told in the 14th-century literary historyJāmiʿ al-tawārīkh, written byRashid-al-Din Hamadani.[4][14][15][16] It is a common epic in Mongol mythologies.
Abulghazi Bahadur, khan of theKhanate of Khiva (1643–1663), told of the Ergenekon Mongoliancreation myth in his work, 17th-century "Shajara-i Turk" (Genealogy of the Turks).[15][16]
Ziya Gökalp's poem put the Ergenekon epic in the context ofTurkic history (Turkish text), published as "Türk An'anesi: Ergenekon" inTürk Duygusu magazine from May 8 to June 5, 1913,[19]Altın Armağan[20] in September 1913,[21] and under the title of "Ergenekon" inKızılelma, 1914.[22]Ömer Seyfettin's poem on the topic was published inHalka Doğru magazine, April 9, 1914.[18][23]Rıza Nur translatedShajara-i turk into modernTurkish in 1925,[24] and mentioned Ergenekon inOğuznâme, published inAlexandria, 1928.[25]
The first author to connect the mythology of Ergenekon to the founding of the Turkish Republic in 1923 wasYakup Kadri Karaosmanoğlu. Karaosmanoğlu was the author of several essays about theTurkish War of Independence. His interpretation of the myth bolstered its place in the founding mythology of the modern Turkish nation-state.[26]
The myth itself was a story about the survival of the Turkic people who, faced with extinction, were able to escape with the help of theirtotem god, thebozkurt "wolf".[27] The wolf remains a potent symbol of Turkish nationalism into the present day. Even the renowned Turkish dissident poetNazim Hikmet laudedMustafa Kemal Atatürk as a "blonde wolf" in the poem titledKuva-yi Milliye. While the original Ergenekon myth was about the survival of the ancient Turkic people, in its Republican form it carried the symbolism of Turkey's nationalself-determination.[26]
According to Ergün Candan, there are some similarities between the mythologies of other cultures in their symbolism. The she-wolfAsena showed the Turks the way through thelabyrinth of valleys and mountain passes. According to Ergün Candan, the she-wolf may be seen as a symbol of the "dog star"Sirius.[33]
^Dursun Yıldırım, "Ergenekon Destanı", Türkler, Vol. 3, Yeni Türkiye, Ankara, 2002,ISBN975-6782-36-6, pp. 527–43.
^İbrahim Aksu: The story of Turkish surnames: an onomastic study of Turkish family names, their origins, and related matters, Volume 1, 2006, p. 87
^H. B. Paksoy, Essays on Central Asia, 1999, p. 49
^Andrew Finkle, Turkish State, Turkish Society, Routledge, 1990, p. 80
^Michael Gervers, Wayne Schlepp: Religion, customary law, and nomadic technology, Joint Centre for Asia Pacific Studies, 2000, p. 60
^Jiexian Chen, Guoli Taiwan daxue,Proceedings of the Fifth East Asian Altaistic Conference, December 26, 1979 – January 2, 1980, Taipei, China, National Taiwan University, 1980.According to Reshideddin's record original Mongols, historically, were divided into two parts. They are: 1. Those branches descended from the Original Mongol Tribes, which had been in ارکننه قون Ergenekon… Those tribes are: The origin of Mongols were descendants from these two persons, Nekuz and Qiyan and their wives who escaped to Ergenkon.(in English)
^abBahaeddin Ögel,Türk Mitolojisi Vol. I, Milli Eğitim basımevi, İstanbul, 1971,Türk Mitolojisi I: 'Kaynakları ve Açıklamaları İle Destanlar, Tütk Tarih Kurumu, Ankara, 1989, pp. 14–15.(in Turkish)
^abDursun Yıldırım, "Ergenekon Destanı",Türkler, Vol. 3, Yeni Türkiye, Ankara, 2002,ISBN9756782366, pp. 527–43.(in Turkish)
^Ziya Gökalp,Ziya Gökalp Külliyatı I: Şiirler ve Halk Masalları, haz. Fevziye Abdullah Tansel,Türk Tarih Kurumu, Ankara, 1989, s. xlii, 78–83.(in Turkish)
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