This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Erminwin (talk | contribs) at 06:40, 27 May 2020 (Chinese chroniclers did not mention Asena as the name of the she-wolf; Ashina was either name or the surname of a male ancestor. Golden (2018) included more Chinese sources & the paper is free to read). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.
Revision as of 06:40, 27 May 2020 by Erminwin (talk | contribs) (Chinese chroniclers did not mention Asena as the name of the she-wolf; Ashina was either name or the surname of a male ancestor. Golden (2018) included more Chinese sources & the paper is free to read)(diff) ← Previous revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff) This article is about Asena in Turkic mythology. For other uses, see Asena (disambiguation).
Asena is the name of a she-wolf associated with the Oghuz Turkic foundation myth. The ancestress of the Göktürks is also a she-wolf, mentioned yet unnamed in two different "Wolf Tales" recorded by Chinese chroniclers
Legend
The legend of Asena tells of a young boy who survived a battle; a female wolf finds the injured child and nurses him back to health. The she-wolf, impregnated by the boy, escapes her enemies by crossing the Western Sea to a cave near the Qocho mountains and a city of the Tocharians, giving birth to ten half-wolf, half-human boys. Of these, Ashina becomes their leader and establishes the Ashina clan, which ruled over the Göktürk and other Turkic nomadic empires.
However, Chinese sources stated that the Göktürks' precursors were simply "mixed barbarians" (雜胡) who migrated from Pingliang to the Altai region, where they would become known as expert blacksmiths, akin to the Scythians.
Modern era
With the rise of Turkish ethnic nationalism in the 1930s, the veneration of figures of Turkic Mythology, such as Bozkurt, Asena and Ergenekon was resurgent. The symbol of Asena is embossed on the stage of the personal theater of the first President of Turkey, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, at his residence in Ankara. He also referenced the motif in his speeches, such as that of 13 February 1931 in Malatya titled Türk Ocağı.
See also
- She-wolf (Roman mythology), a similar figure in the mythical foundation of Rome
- Romulus and Remus
References
- André Wink. Al-Hind: The Making of the Indo-Islamic World. Brill Academic Publishers, 2002. ISBN 0-391-04173-8. Page 65.
- Ziya Gökalp, transcription: Şahin Filiz, "Türk devletinin tekâmülü 12: Hakanlık Teşkilatı",Küçük Mecmua -II-, Bu da Çinlilere göre (Asena=Kurt) manasındadır (in Turkish)
- Golden, Peter B. (August 2018). "The Ethnogonic Tales of the Türks" in The Medieval History Journal, 21(2). 21 (2): 291–327
- Findley, Carter Vaughin. The Turks in World History. Oxford University Press, 2005. ISBN 0-19-517726-6. Page 38.
- Roxburgh, D. J. (ed.) Turks, A Journey of a Thousand Years. Royal Academy of Arts, London, 2005. Page 20.
- Wei Zheng et al., Book of Sui, Vol. 84. (in Chinese)
- Sima Guang, Zizhi Tongjian, Vol. 159. (in Chinese)
- Christopher I. Beckwith, Empires of the Silk Road: A History of Central Eurasia from the Bronze Age to the Present, Princeton University Press, 2011, p.9
- ^ Murat Arman, "The Sources of Banality In Transforming Turkish Nationalism", CEU Political Science Journal, issue: 2 (2007), p. 136.
- Atatürk'ün Söylev ve Demeçleri II, Atatürk Kültür, Dil ve Tarih Yüksek Kurumu Atatürk Araştırma Merkezi, 1989, p. 301, Turkish text: Demiryollarını kullanacak olan Türk milleti menşeindeki ilk sanatkarlığına, demirciliğinin eserini tekrar göstermiş olmakla müftehir olacaktır. (in Turkish)
- Mehmet Önder, Atatürk'ün Yurt Gezileri, Türkiye İş Bankası, 1975, p. 268.