Runes in Eurasia: On the Scholarly History of Comparing Turkic and Germanic Runic Traditions

This study refutes the fatal misconception of the foreignness of peoples and scripts. At the same time, it reveals an apocalyptic spiral toward their reunification. Thus, a promising and revolutionary field of research opens up.

The first part reveals that in the Middle Ages, people believed in their kinship and the Turkish origin of the runes. However, after the conquest of Constantinople by the Turks in 1453, church war propaganda barbarized them by reverting to ancient sources and introduced the concept of Europe as a "fortress" along with the myth of the Germanic peoples as a combative term. The glorification of the Germanic tribes, in turn, sparked interest in runes in Scandinavia. Contrary to classical Gothicism, Rudbeckianism soon polarized research by elevating runes to the model of all alphabets and claiming their invention in Sweden.

In contrast, the discovery of runes in Siberia in the 18th century reminded scholars of the medieval migration legends. The majority of researchers, especially W. C. Grimm, included the Siberian inscriptions in runic studies. However, L. Wimmer bypassed these discourses by denying such findings.

The second part highlights that V. Thomsen deciphered the Siberian “runes” as Old Turkic but assumed their similarity to runes was coincidental. His assumption was then declared a fact without verification, and the scripts were kept separate. Nevertheless, the revelation of Turkish history fueled the process of self-discovery in Turkey. The National Socialists in Germany took this as a model but disregarded the Old Turkic script and perverted the runes into a symbol of their Germanic ideology.

Only around the turn of the millennium did runology reach a new stage. Now, the question of the historical connection between the Old Turkic script and the runes arises again—and inevitably—before us.