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

The book is out now 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 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 e