BİLDİRİ ÖZETLERİ / ABSTRACT BOOK

Uluslararası Tarihte Etimesgut Sempozyumu (UTES)
HISTORY AND CULTURAL LINKS OF THE TURKISH AND SLAV WORLD
ABSTRACT
Neighborliness of Turks and Slavs have been determined from a historical point of view.
The nations can not choose their neighbors. That is why it is necessary for the neighbors to get
along well and overcome their disagreements. Cooperation and partnership in history, culture,
and other areas should be emphasized only when the position of the rival country is not in the
foreground or confined to political and economic relations. The famous Russian Orientalist
I.N. Berezin stated in the preface of his book, which was prepared for the proverbs of Turkish
people in 1856: "According to Turkish proverbs, what is the ideal of a Turk in general? An ideal
Turk should be smart, gentle, good, friendly, hardworking, brave, knowledgeable, not hasty,
but cautious". That the moral values of the Turks fall in conformity with the moral values of the
Slavs and that this conformity is important in understanding each other in spite of the wars that
have taken place. It is noted that the Turkish and Slavic peoples are exchanging culture under
these moral values.
Mirror metaphor is often used to investigate ethnic cultural relations. According to this
metaphor, it gives them the opportunity to see the reflection of themselves in 'foreigner' and
'the foreigner' in their 'reflection'. For centuries, Turkey has been the history mirror of Slavic
peoples to define themselves. Thanks to the wars with the Turks, the Slavs respect themselves
and are bound to their beliefs. Apart from scorning each other, positive aspects of the contact
areas of the Turkish-Slavian interaction are also shown in the sources.
In the folklore of the Slavic peoples, Turks often left traces as cultural heroes and
changemakers. Numerous "Turkish" mountains, mounds, roads, piers were engraved on the
memory of the people in Belarus, Ukraine and the South Slavs, and the achievements of the
Turks were appreciated with right.
The Turkish State has become a force that extends hands to the oppressed no matter who
it is and is distinguished by the hospitality of the Turks. The Slavs who fought the Turks recently
were able to find support and refuge in these lands. The Turkish state helped Polish political
migrants, Zaporizhia and Nekrasov Kazakhs, members of the White Army who fled the
Bolshevik regime. From 1918 to 1923 Istanbul were a transition route for hundreds of
thousands Russian. Only on November 3 1920, 126 vessels, consisting of 150 thousand soldiers
and civilian which lost their homeland and livelihoods from the Black Sea ports in the south of
Russia to the Turkish coast. The Slav nations, who saved themselves from the absolute death,
remembered Turks with gratitude words. In the preface to the book entitled "Thank you"
published by the Russian immigrants in Istanbul in 1924 and published again in Paris included:
"Thank you, Constantinople! Thank you, Istanbul! You embraced us, you saved us, found us a
job, saved our lives! The most beautiful city in the world, we will never forget you! "
164