Turkish nationalists and the great wall: my ancestors werent born yet
so i see turkish dudes in every comment section claiming the great wall was built to keep the TURKS out because "we are too strong for China"
bros. my guy. ataturk's cousin. listen to me carefully.
the wall you see in all the photos is mostly MING dynasty, built 1368-1644. the Ottomans didn't even "exist" until around 1299. Anatolian Turks didn't even move into Anatolia until about 1071. your literal ancestors were still sitting in Central Asia when the wall of your favorite "humiliation" was being engineered. it's like saying the gates of Troy were built to hold back Norway.
this is just the tip of the cope iceberg tho. Turkish nationalist comment sections are a museum of bullshit:
- "Japanese is a Turkic language" (the Altaic theory, dead since forever, but they keep it on life support like a family heirloom) - "Sumerians were Turks" (Sumerian is a LANGUAGE ISOLATE. connected to nothing. but ok, they're turks, sure) - "The Greeks? let me introduce you to the Anatolian connection" - every history video on every platform = 500 Turkish comments explaining that all of world history is a footnote to the Turkish nation
where does this come from? a 1931 government pamphlet
the "Turkish History Thesis" was a state-issued textbook thesis that said, dead serious, that Turks were the creators of the FIRST CIVILIZATIONS ON EARTH - in Mesopotamia, Egypt, and even China. printed with taxpayer money. you can't win against a man whose national ideology includes the sentence "we were the first, baby."
so the turkish history textbooks teach: Huns = first Turkish state (the Hun language is UNKNOWN, nobody ever figured out what they spoke, but they're Turkish. trust). Hittites = also Turks (the Hittites spoke an INDO-EUROPEAN language, zero connection to Turkic, but they lived in modern Turkey, so the realtor's fee includes a bloodline). Sumerians = yes, Turkish again.
meanwhile, the boring version - chinese textbooks
chinese textbooks say: the Huns were a northern nomad tribe who fought the Han dynasty - sometimes losing, sometimes raiding, sometimes marrying into the royal family. the Gokturks (= YOUR ACTUAL ANCESTORS, you guys) get like two pages: "northern minority, defeated by the Tang dynasty, migrated west, whatever." the Yuan dynasty? it's literally IN THE CHINESE DYNASTY LIST. a Mongol-led dynasty is a Chinese dynasty because the Chinese like to collect things, including empires.
and now the part that will genuinely hurt you, mr. turk
WHO WROTE THE HISTORY OF THE STEPPE? not you. the Chinese. every single historical record of the Xiongnu comes from Sima Qian, a Chinese guy, writing in Chinese. every source on the Gokturks lives inside the Old and New Tang Books - Chinese archives, in a language you might not read. the famous Turkic Orkhon inscriptions? a few stones in a field. the entire early Turkic world stays alive in the historical record because of CHINESE BOOKS. a Turkish history PhD citing Gokturk history is literally citing the Zizhi Tongjian, a book written in Chinese by Chinese people about your grandfathers, from the POV of the people your grandfathers fought. if that doesn't make you drink a glass of water, nothing will.
verdict
China has 24 dynastic histories, oracle bones with actual writing on them, archaeology, and a whole "let's dig up the truth" industry. Turkey has one state-sponsored fanfic from 1931 that covers Mesopotamia-to-China. yes, China also tells its history in a flattering way - but the difference is this: China retells the story, Turkey REWRITES WHO THE WARRIORS WERE. one is a narrator shift. the other is a full script rewrite.
and the real pisser? they believe it AND they think we can't read. meanwhile their ancestors' biography is sitting in a Chinese library, calligraphy, spine out, in a language that literally records the day their grandfather got slapped around by the Tang dynasty. lmao.
don't argue with Turkish nationalists. their national myth is that they invented the concept of arguing.