Epic of Ergenekon
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Epic of Ergenekon

The Epic of Ergenekon or Ergenekon Epic (sometimes Ergeneqon; Mongolian: Эргүнэ хун, romanizedErgüne khun) is a founding myth among Mongolic and Turkic peoples.

There are conflicting etymological theories about the origin of the word Ergenekon. According to the Kazakh philologist Nemat Kelimebov and other Turkic-origin advocates, Ergenekon is a portmanteau derived from Old Turkic roots ergene "fording point, passage, mountain gorge" and kon "encampment, place of living" and can be translated as "encampment (of cattle breeders) in a mountain gorge".

According to academics such as the Russian linguist Zoriktuev, who attribute the myth originally to Mongolic peoples, the name was derived from the Argun River (Ergune) and kun, which in the Old Mongolian language meant a high plateau with steep slopes.

In the Turkic mythology, the myth aims to explain the foundation of the First Turkic Khaganate. The Ergenekon legend tells about a great crisis of the ancient Turks. Following a military defeat, the Turks took refuge in the legendary Ergenekon valley where they were trapped for four centuries. They were finally released when a blacksmith created a passage by melting the mountain, allowing the gray wolf Asena to lead them out. The people led out of the valley founded the Turkic Khaganate, with the valley functioning as its capital. A New Year's ceremony commemorates the legendary ancestral escape from Ergenekon.

In the Mongolic version, Ergenekon was the refuge of the progenitors of the Mongols, Nekuz and Qiyan (according to Abulghazi Bahadur, nephew and son of Il-Khan respectively), as told in the 14th-century literary history Jāmiʿ al-tawārīkh, written by Rashid-al-Din Hamadani. It is a common epic in Mongol mythologies.

Abulghazi Bahadur, khan of the Khanate of Khiva (1643–1663), told of the Ergenekon Mongolian creation myth in his work, 17th-century "Shajara-i Turk" (Genealogy of the Turks).

In the late Ottoman era, the Ergenekon epic enjoyed use in Turkish literature (especially by the Turkish nationalist movement), describing a mythical Turkic place of origin located in the inaccessible valleys of the Altay Mountains. In 1864 Ahmed Vefik Pasha translated Shajara-i Turk into the Ottoman language under the title Şecere-i Evşâl-i Türkiyye, published in Tasvir-i Efkâr newspaper.

Ziya Gökalp's poem put the Ergenekon epic in the context of Turkic history (Turkish text), published as "Türk An'anesi: Ergenekon" in Türk Duygusu magazine from May 8 to June 5, 1913, Altın Armağan in September 1913, and under the title of "Ergenekon" in Kızılelma, 1914. Ömer Seyfettin's poem on the topic was published in Halka Doğru magazine, April 9, 1914. Rıza Nur translated Shajara-i turk into modern Turkish in 1925, and mentioned Ergenekon in Oğuznâme, published in Alexandria, 1928.

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