Moscow isn’t Trying to Win Over Turkic Nations inside Russia but Rather to Destroy Them via Assimilation, Gumbatov Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Mar. 6 – Gakhraman Gumbatov, an Azerbaijani researcher who has just published a new book, The Turkic World and Russia, says that Moscow is not trying to win over the Turkic nations within the current borders of the Russian Federation as some have thought but rather to assimilate them to the Russian nation.

            Moscow is trying to win over to its side Turkic peoples outside of Russia, the Baku scholar says; but “to say that Moscow is taking the Turkic world under its control” is wrong, especially those parts of it still within the borders of the Russian Federation.  There Moscow’s policy is entirely different (academia.edu/68188538/Тюркский_мир_и_Россия).

            With regard to the Turkic nations inside the Russian Federation, Gumbatov argues, “Moscow is conducting the very same policy it is against other national minorities: assimilation and Russification by restricting their languages and the development of their culture, eliminating their chance for self-government and preventing the economic independence of the republics.”

            This is something both they and advocates of the Turkic world must understand rather than think that Moscow is doing something analogous to what Ankara has been doing. For discussions on this supposed contest, see  windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2022/01/greater-turan-will-never-include.html, windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2022/01/turkic-world-real-threat-to-russia-and.html and windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2022/01/erdogans-turkish-world-far-more.html.)