Twentieth Century Reformations of Turkish Religious History

Rose Marie Varga

This paper focuses on variations between a set of Turkish creation myths collected amongst the Altai Turks by a nineteenth century Russian missionary, Vladimir Vassily Verbitskii and the presentation of these same myths by two twentieth century Turkish scholars, Abdźlkadir Inan and Bahaeddin …gel. Inan and …gel's renditions of these myths not only contain significant variations from the original but they also make claims to a set of cultural conventions and beliefs that are incompatible with the original myths. In this paper, particular attention is paid to these underlying socio-cultural assumptions and the ways in which the authors attempt to alter the myths in order to support a monotheistic ideal.

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