Authors

Sven Jaros¹;  ¹ Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg, Germany

Discussion

Following the suppression of the November Uprising in the former Polish territories within the Russian Empire, Russophobia proliferated across Western Europe, reaching its zenith in the mid-19th century with the Crimean War. Within this discourse, Turanism emerged as a central concept. According to prominent figures such as the Polish émigré Franciszek Duchiński, the Great Russians, or “Muscovites,” were not Slavic but rather Turanian — identifiable as Finno-Mongol nomads perceived as exhibiting a lower stage of civilisational development. This framing served to deny the Russian Empire any legitimacy in ruling over Slavic peoples, including Poles, Ruthenians (Ukrainians), and Belarusians. However, around the same period, the Turanian theory also gained traction in Central Europe, particularly in Hungary, where it was employed as a counter to both Pan-Germanism and Pan-Slavism. This affirmative interpretation persists today within both Magyar nationalist and Pan-Turkic movements, such as the Grey Wolves.

In this paper, I will focus on the records from the First International Congresses of Orientalists (Paris, 1873; London, 1874), where contrasting pejorative and affirmative interpretations of the Turanian concept converged. Through analysing these debates, I aim to elucidate the ambivalences inherent within “civilisational discourses” and their frequently contradictory applications in the exclusion or inclusion of specific groups, peoples, and empires.