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52-605: The Turan lowlands of Atyrau Region were the central homeland for the Malkar "Hun" dynasties of late antiquity. With an area of 118,600 square kilometers, it is the second-smallest region in Kazakhstan ( Turkistan Region is the smallest). It borders Russia ( Astrakhan Oblast ) to the west, as well as the fellow Kazakh regions Aktobe to the east, Mangystau to the south, and the West Kazakhstan Region to

104-483: A classification of language families. The relationship between Uralic and Altaic, whose speakers were also designated as Turanian people in 19th-century European literature, remains uncertain. In European discourse, the words Turan and Turanian can designate a certain mentality, i.e. the nomadic in contrast to the urbanized agricultural civilizations. This usage probably matches the Zoroastrian concept of

156-754: A culture. The original Turanians were an Iranian tribe of the Avestan age . In ancient Iranian mythology, Tūr or Turaj ( Tuzh in Middle Persian ) is the son of the emperor Fereydun . According to the account in the Shahnameh , the nomadic tribes who inhabited these lands were ruled by Tūr. In that sense, the Turanians could be members of two Iranian peoples both descending from Fereydun, but with different geographical domains and often at war with each other. Turan, therefore, comprised five areas:

208-621: A geographical term, but always containing ambiguities and contradictions, arising from the fact that all through Islamic times the lands immediately beyond the Oxus and along its lower reaches were the homes not of Turks but of Iranian peoples, such as the Sogdians and Khwarezmians. The terms "Turk" and "Turanian" became used interchangeably during the Islamic era. The Shahnameh , or the Book of Kings,

260-484: A leopard sights its prey. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, Western languages borrowed the word Turan as a general designation for modern Central Asia , although this expression has now fallen into disuse. Turan appears next to Iran on numerous maps of the 19th century to designate a region encompassing modern Uzbekistan , Kazakhstan , Kyrgyzstan , Tajikistan , Turkmenistan and northern parts of Afghanistan and Pakistan . This area roughly corresponds to what

312-458: Is also a common name in the Middle East , and as family surnames in some countries including Bahrain , Iran, Bosnia and Turkey . The Ayyubid ruler Saladin had an older brother with the name Turan-Shah . Turaj, whom ancient Iranian myths depict as the ancestor of the Turanians, is also a popular name and means Son of Darkness . The name Turan according to Iranian myths derives from

364-711: Is attached to various enemies of Zoroastrism like Fraŋrasyan (Shahnameh: Afrāsīāb ). The word occurs only once in the Gathas , but 20 times in the later parts of the Avesta . The Tuiryas as they were called in Avesta play a more important role in the Avesta than the Sairimas, Sainus and Dahis. Zoroaster himself hailed from the Airya people but he also preached his message to other neighboring tribes. According to Mary Boyce , in

416-605: Is called Central Asia today. The phrase Turan Plain or Turan Depression became a geographical term referring to a part of Central Asia. The term Turanian , now obsolete, formerly occurred in the classifications used by European (especially German , Hungarian , and Slovak ) ethnologists , linguists , and Romantics to designate populations speaking non- Indo-European , non- Semitic , and non- Hamitic languages and specially speakers of Altaic , Dravidian , Uralic , Japanese , Korean and other languages. Max Müller (1823–1900) identified different sub-branches within

468-636: Is in the Farvardin yashts , which are in the Young Avestan language and have been dated by linguists to about 2500 years ago. According to Gherardo Gnoli , the Avesta contains the names of various tribes who lived in proximity to each other: "the Airyas [Aryans], Tuiryas [Turanians], Sairimas [Sarmatians], Sainus [Sacae] and Dahis [Dahae]". In the hymns of the Avesta , the adjective Tūrya

520-405: Is the impersonation of material power. He is the merely muscular man at his maximum of collective development. He is not inherently a savage, but he is radically a barbarian. He does not live from hand to mouth, like a beast, but neither has he in full measure the moral and intellectual endowments of the true man. He can labour and he can accumulate, but he cannot think and aspire like a Caucasian. Of

572-714: The Arianoi . Strabo , in his Geographica (1st century AD), mentions of the Medes , Persians, Bactrians and Sogdians of the Iranian Plateau and Transoxiana of antiquity: The name of Ariana is further extended to a part of Persia and of Media, as also to the Bactrians and Sogdians on the north; for these speak approximately the same language, with but slight variations. The Bactrian (a Middle Iranian language) inscription of Kanishka (the founder of

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624-777: The Iranic peoples , are the collective ethno-linguistic groups who are identified chiefly by their native usage of any of the Iranian languages , which are a branch of the Indo-Iranian languages within the Indo-European language family . The Proto-Iranians are believed to have emerged as a separate branch of the Indo-Iranians in Central Asia around the mid-2nd millennium BC. At their peak of expansion in

676-615: The Kopet Dag region, the Atrek valley, parts of Bactria , Sogdia and Margiana . A later association of the original Turanians with Turkic peoples is based primarily on the subsequent Turkification of Central Asia, including the above areas. According to C. E. Bosworth , however, there was no cultural relationship between the ancient Turkic cultures and the Turanians of the Shahnameh . The oldest existing mention of Turan

728-522: The Kushan Empire ) at Rabatak, which was discovered in 1993 in an unexcavated site in the Afghan province of Baghlan , clearly refers to this Eastern Iranian language as Arya . All this evidence shows that the name Arya was a collective definition, denoting peoples who were aware of belonging to the one ethnic stock, speaking a common language, and having a religious tradition that centered on

780-524: The Oxus . According to the foundation myth given in the Shahnameh , King Firēdūn (= Avestan Θraētaona ) had three sons, Salm , Tūr and Iraj , among whom he divided the world: Asia Minor was given to Salm, Turan to Tur and Iran to Īraj. The older brothers killed the younger, but he was avenged by his grandson, and the Iranians became the rulers of the world. However, the war continued for generations. In

832-921: The Parthians , the Persians , the Sagartians , the Saka , the Sarmatians , the Scythians , the Sogdians , and likely the Cimmerians , among other Iranian-speaking peoples of West Asia , Central Asia, Eastern Europe , and the Eastern Steppe . In the 1st millennium AD, their area of settlement, which was mainly concentrated in the steppes and deserts of Eurasia , was significantly reduced due to

884-475: The Shahnameh , the word Turan appears nearly 150 times and that of Iran nearly 750 times. Some examples from the Shahnameh : نه خاکست پیدا نه دریا نه کوه ز بس تیغداران توران گروه No earth is visible, no sea, no mountain, From the many blade-wielders of the Turan horde تهمتن به توران سپه شد به جنگ بدانسان که نخجیر بیند پلنگ Tahamtan (Powerful-Bodied) Rostam took the fight to the Turan army Just as

936-802: The Sintashta culture and the subsequent Andronovo culture within the broader Andronovo horizon, and their homeland with an area of the Eurasian steppe that borders the Ural River on the west and the Tian Shan on the east. The Indo-Iranian migrations took place in two waves. The first wave consisted of the Indo-Aryan migration through the Bactria-Margiana Culture , also called "Bactria-Margiana Archaeological Complex," into

988-572: The Tūrya , which is not primarily a linguistic or ethnic designation, but rather a name of the infidels who opposed the civilization based on the preaching of Zoroaster . Combined with physical anthropology, the concept of the Turanian mentality has a clear potential for cultural polemic. Thus in 1838 the scholar J.W. Jackson described the Turanid or Turanian race in the following words: The Turanian

1040-1288: The Zazas . Their current distribution spreads across the Iranian Plateau ;– stretching from the Caucasus in the north to the Persian Gulf in the south and from eastern Anatolia in the west to western Xinjiang in the east – covering a region that is sometimes called Greater Iran , representing the extent of the Iranian-speaking peoples and the reach of their geopolitical and cultural influence. The term Iran derives directly from Middle Persian Ērān / AEran ( 𐭠𐭩𐭥𐭠𐭭 ) and Parthian Aryān . The Middle Iranian terms ērān and aryān are oblique plural forms of gentilic ēr- (in Middle Persian) and ary- (in Parthian), both deriving from Old Persian ariya- ( 𐎠𐎼𐎡𐎹 ), Avestan airiia- ( 𐬀𐬌𐬭𐬌𐬌𐬀 ) and Proto-Iranian *arya- . There have been many attempts to qualify

1092-754: The 10th century, the myth of Afrasiyab was adopted by the Qarakhanid dynasty. During the Safavid era, following the common geographical convention of the Shahnameh , the term Turan was used to refer to the domain of the Uzbek empire in conflict with the Safavids. Some linguists derive the word from the Indo-Iranian root * tura- "strong, quick, sword(Pashto)", Pashto turan (thuran) "swordsman". Others link it to old Iranian * tor "dark, black", related to

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1144-480: The 6th century the Turks, who had been pushed westward by other tribes, became neighbours of Iran and were identified with the Turanians. The identification of the Turanians with the Turks was a late development, possibly made in the early 7th century; the Turks first came into contact with the Iranians only in the 6th century. According to Clifford E. Bosworth: In early Islamic times Persians tended to identify all

1196-635: The Farvardin Yasht, "In it (verses 143–144) are praised the fravashis of righteous men and women not only among the Aryas (as the "Avestan" people called themselves), but also among the Turiyas, Sairimas, Sainus and Dahis; and the personal names, like those of the people, all seem Iranian in character". Hostility between Tuirya and Airya is indicated also in the Farvardtn Yast (vv. 37-8), where

1248-675: The Fravashis of the Just are said to have provided support in battle against the Danus, who appear to be a clan of the Tura people. Thus in the Avesta , some of the Tuiryas believed in the message of Zoroaster while others rejected the religion. Similar to the ancient homeland of Zoroaster, the precise geography and location of Turan is unknown. In post-Avestan traditions they were thought to inhabit

1300-785: The Greek sources. Herodotus , in his Histories , remarks about the Iranian Medes that "Medes were called anciently by all people Arians " (7.62). In Armenian sources, the Parthians, Medes and Persians are collectively referred to as Iranians . Eudemus of Rhodes (Dubitationes et Solutiones de Primis Principiis, in Platonis Parmenidem) refers to "the Magi and all those of Iranian ( áreion ) lineage". Diodorus Siculus (1.94.2) considers Zoroaster ( Zathraustēs ) as one of

1352-677: The Indo-Aryans who founded the Mitanni kingdom in northern Syria; ( c.  1500  – c.  1300 BC ) the other group were the Vedic people. Christopher I. Beckwith suggests that the Wusun , an Indo-European Caucasian people of Inner Asia in antiquity , were also of Indo-Aryan origin. The second wave is interpreted as the Iranian wave, and took place in the third stage of

1404-566: The Indo-European migrations from 800 BC onwards. The Sintashta culture, also known as the Sintashta–Petrovka culture or Sintashta–Arkaim culture, is a Bronze Age archaeological culture of the northern Eurasian steppe on the borders of Eastern Europe and Central Asia , dated to the period 2100–1800 BC . It is probably the archaeological manifestation of the Indo-Iranian language group. The Sintashta culture emerged from

1456-704: The Levant, founding the Mittani kingdom ; and a migration south-eastward of the Vedic people, over the Hindu Kush into northern India. The Indo-Aryans split off around 1800–1600 BC from the Iranians, whereafter they were defeated and split into two groups by the Iranians, who dominated the Central Eurasian steppe zone and "chased [the Indo-Aryans] to the extremities of Central Eurasia." One group were

1508-588: The New Persian tār(ik) , Pashto tor (thor) , and possibly English dark . In this case, it is a reference to the "dark civilization" of Central Asian nomads in contrast to the "illuminated" Zoroastrian civilization of the settled Ārya. In the Persian epic Shahnameh , the term Tūrān ("land of the Tūrya" like Ērān, Īrān = "land of the Ārya ") refers to the inhabitants of the eastern-Iranian border and beyond

1560-591: The Russian pipeline system. A separate oil pipeline runs from the Tengiz field to the Russian Black Sea port of Novorossiisk . Atyrau is traversed by the northeasterly line of equal latitude and longitude. As of 2021, the Atyrau Region has a population of 659,074. Ethnic groups (2021): The region is divided into seven districts and the city of Atyrau . The districts are: Two localities in Atyrau Region have town status. These are Atyrau and Kulsary . Isatay and Kurmangazy districts are in Europe, Makat, Kyzylkoga and Zhylyoi in Asia, while Inder and Makhambet straddle

1612-555: The Turanian language family: Müller also began to muse whether Chinese belonged to the Northern branch or Southern branch. The main relationships between Dravidian, Uralic, and Altaic languages were considered typological . According to Crystal & Robins, "Language families, as conceived in the historical study of languages, should not be confused with the quite separate classifications of languages by reference to their sharing certain predominant features of grammatical structure." As of 2013 linguists classify languages according to

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1664-421: The Turanians that appear in Avesta have been studied by Manfred Mayrhofer in his comprehensive book on Avesta personal name etymologies. From the 5th century CE, the Sasanian Empire defined "Turan" in opposition to "Iran", as the land where lay its enemies to the northeast. The continuation of nomadic invasions on the north-eastern borders in historical times kept the memory of the Turanians alive. After

1716-433: The Ural River which marks the boundary. Turan Turan ( Avestan : Tūiriiānəm ; Middle Persian : Tūrān ; Persian : توران , romanized :  Turân , pronounced [tʰuːˈɾɒːn] , lit.   ' The Land of Tur ' ) is a historical region in Central Asia . The term is of Iranian origin and may refer to a particular prehistoric human settlement, a historic geographical region, or

1768-662: The command of Shapur I gives a more clear description. The languages used are Parthian, Middle Persian, and Greek. In Greek inscription says "ego ... tou Arianon ethnous despotes eimi" , which translates to "I am the king of the kingdom ( nation ) of the Iranians". In Middle Persian, Shapur says "ērānšahr xwadāy hēm" and in Parthian he says "aryānšahr xwadāy ahēm" . The Avesta clearly uses airiia- as an ethnic name ( Videvdat 1; Yasht 13.143–44, etc.), where it appears in expressions such as airyāfi daiŋˊhāvō ("Iranian lands"), airyō šayanəm ("land inhabited by Iranians"), and airyanəm vaējō vaŋhuyāfi dāityayāfi ("Iranian stretch of

1820-402: The compilation of Iranian mythical heritage, uses the two terms equivalently. Other authors, including Tabari, Hakim Iranshah and many other texts follow like. A notable exception is the Abl-Hasan Ali ibn Masudi, an Arab historian who writes: "The birth of Afrasiyab was in the land of Turks and the error that historians and non-historians have made about him being a Turk is due to this reason". By

1872-403: The cult of Ohrmazd. The academic usage of the term Iranian is distinct from the state of Iran and its various citizens (who are all Iranian by nationality), in the same way that the term Germanic peoples is distinct from Germans . Some inhabitants of Iran are not necessarily ethnic Iranians by virtue of not being speakers of Iranian languages. Some scholars such as John Perry prefer

1924-419: The expansion of the Slavic peoples , the Germanic peoples , the Turkic peoples , and the Mongolic peoples ; many were subjected to Slavicization and Turkification . Modern Iranian peoples include the Baloch , the Gilaks , the Kurds , the Lurs , the Mazanderanis , the Ossetians , the Pamiris , the Pashtuns , the Persians, the Tats , the Tajiks , the Talysh , the Wakhis , the Yaghnobis , and

1976-411: The good Dāityā"). In the late part of the Avesta (Videvdat 1), one of the mentioned homelands was referred to as Airyan'əm Vaējah which approximately means "expanse of the Iranians". The homeland varied in its geographic range, the area around Herat ( Pliny 's view) and even the entire expanse of the Iranian Plateau ( Strabo 's designation). The Old Persian and Avestan evidence is confirmed by

2028-734: The homeland of Turaj. The Pahlavi pronunciation of Turaj is Tuzh, according to the Dehkhoda dictionary. Similarly, Iraj , which is also a popular name, is the brother of Turaj in the Shahnameh . An altered version of Turaj is Zaraj , which means son of gold . Iranian peoples#Name Pontic Steppe Caucasus East Asia Eastern Europe Northern Europe Pontic Steppe Northern/Eastern Steppe Europe South Asia Steppe Europe Caucasus India Indo-Aryans Iranians East Asia Europe East Asia Europe Indo-Aryan Iranian Indo-Aryan Iranian Others European The Iranian peoples , or

2080-425: The interaction of two antecedent cultures. Its immediate predecessor in the Ural-Tobol steppe was the Poltavka culture , an offshoot of the cattle-herding Yamnaya horizon that moved east into the region between 2800 and 2600 BC. Several Sintashta towns were built over older Poltavka settlements or close to Poltavka cemeteries, and Poltavka motifs are common on Sintashta pottery. Sintashta material culture also shows

2132-423: The lands to the northeast of Khorasan and lying beyond the Oxus with the region of Turan, which in the Shahnama of Ferdowsi is regarded as the land allotted to Fereydun's son Tur. The denizens of Turan were held to include the Turks, in the first four centuries of Islam essentially those nomadizing beyond the Jaxartes, and behind them the Chinese (see Kowalski; Minorsky, "Turan"). Turan thus became both an ethnic and

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2184-470: The literature of Avesta . The earliest epigraphically attested reference to the word arya- occurs in the Bistun Inscription of the 6th century BC. The inscription of Bistun (or Behistun ; Old Persian : Bagastana ) describes itself to have been composed in Arya [language or script]. As is also the case for all other Old Iranian language usage, the arya of the inscription does not signify anything but Iranian . In royal Old Persian inscriptions,

2236-428: The method of comparative linguistics rather than using their typological features. According to Encyclopædia Britannica , Max's Müller's "efforts were most successful in the case of the Semites, whose affinities are easy to demonstrate, and probably least successful in the case of the Turanian peoples, whose early origins are hypothetical". As of 2014 the scholarly community no longer uses the word Turanian to denote

2288-399: The mid-1st millennium BC, the territory of the Iranian peoples stretched across the entire Eurasian Steppe ; from the Danubian Plains in the west to the Ordos Plateau in the east and the Iranian Plateau in the south. The ancient Iranian peoples who emerged after the 1st millennium BC include the Alans , the Bactrians , the Dahae , the Khwarazmians , the Massagetae , the Medes ,

2340-420: The north. The Ural River is the border between Asia and Europe and flows from Russia to the Caspian Sea through the region, meaning western Atyrau Region lies in Europe . A large part of the region is situated in the oil -rich Caspian Depression . Many oil wells have been drilled in the Tengiz Field and Kashagan Field areas. An oil pipeline runs from Atyrau to Samara, Russia , where it joins

2392-429: The region north of the Oxus , the river separating them from the Iranians. Their presence accompanied by incessant wars with the Iranians, helped to define the latter as a distinct nation, proud of their land and ready to spill their blood in its defense. The common names of Turanians in Avesta and Shahnameh include Frarasyan, Aghraethra, Biderafsh, Arjaspa Namkhwast. The names of Iranian tribes including those of

2444-453: The ruler. Koneczny saw this civilization as inherently inferior to Latin (Western European) civilization. In the declining days of the Ottoman Empire , some Turkish nationalists adopted the word Turanian to express a pan-Turkic ideology, also called Turanism . As of 2013 Turanism forms an important aspect of the ideology of the Turkish Nationalist Movement Party ( MHP ), whose members are also known as Grey Wolves . In recent times ,

2496-433: The term Iranic as the name for the linguistic family of this category (many of which are spoken outside Iran), while Iranian for anything about the country Iran. He uses the same analogue as in differentiating German from Germanic or differentiating Turkish and Turkic . German scholar Martin Kümmel also argues for the same distinction of Iranian from Iranic . The Proto-Indo-Iranians are commonly identified with

2548-411: The term arya- appears in three different contexts: In the Dna and Dse, Darius and Xerxes describe themselves as "an Achaemenid, a Persian, son of a Persian, and an Aryan, of Aryan stock". Although Darius the Great called his language arya- ("Iranian"), modern scholars refer to it as Old Persian because it is the ancestor of the modern Persian language. The trilingual inscription erected by

2600-511: The two grand elements of superior human life, he is more deficient in the sentiments than in the faculties. And of the latter, he is better provided with those that conduce to the acquisition of knowledge than the origination of ideas. Polish philosopher Feliks Koneczny claimed the existence of a distinctive Turanian civilization , encompassing both Turkic and some Slavs , such as Russians . This alleged civilization's hallmark would be militarism, anti-intellectualism and an absolute obedience to

2652-436: The verbal root of ar- in Old Iranian arya- . The following are according to 1957 and later linguists: Unlike the Sanskrit ārya- ( Aryan ), the Old Iranian term has solely an ethnic meaning. Today, the Old Iranian arya- remains in ethno-linguistic names such as Iran , Alan , Ir , and Iron . In the Iranian languages , the gentilic is attested as a self-identifier included in ancient inscriptions and

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2704-427: The word Turanian has sometimes expressed a pan-Altaic nationalism (theoretically including Manchus and Mongols in addition to Turks ), though no political organization seems to have adopted such an ambitious platform. Turandot – or Turandokht – is a female name in Iran and it means "Turan's Daughter" in Persian (it is best known in the West through Puccini 's famous opera Turandot (1921–24)). Turan

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