Why is Nouruz celebrated all over the Turkic states of the former Soviet Union, but not in Turkey?
Upvote:1
Some interesting points have already been raised, however one important point is missing:
Nouruz is traditionally associated with important dates in the life of Imam Ali: either his birth (might be the more "popular" explanation?) or with a declaration of Muhammad supposed to mean that he wanted Ali to be his successor (this is maybe the more official explanation?).
Note that there is a separate holiday for that latter event in the Islamic lunar calender. And also note that "associated" here does not necessarily mean that those other event really happened around March 21st.
This association with Imam Ali would explain why Shiite Albanians and Alevite Turks celebrate this holiday, but Sunni Turks not so much.
See also this answer on another stack.
There is, however, another aspect to explain why Nouruz is not much celebrated in Turkey:
Nouruz was actually a noted date in Ottoman times. There was a whole genre of poems written for the occasion (example, by Nedim), and cooks in the Topkapı palace presented special foods to the court members on the occasion.
After the end of the Ottoman empire, it seems the tradition initially continued, and festivities were held in Ankara until 1925, but the old date of Nouruz had now become connected to the Ernegekon legend about the origin of the Türks. Still not sure why Nouruz did not continue to be celebrated afterwards, however.
Upvote:5
Fortunately, this is one of those "why did something not happen" questions that's easy to answer: Nowruz is a very politically charged holiday in Turkey and was banned there from 1925 to 1992. The Kurds were able to keep it a part of their culture in communities that were part of other states.
Had many Turks in Turkey celebrated it before 1925? It seems unlikely. Nowruz was originally a Zoroastrian holiday, as Wikipedia mentions. Its celebration greatly predates Turkic migration into Anatolia. The nomadic Turkic peoples who moved into Zoroastrian-influenced areas such as Central Asia adopted the custom, and the ones who moved past it and into Anatolia did not.
until Islam reached the region [central asia], the ideological content of Nowruz was tied to the local variants of Zoroastrianism
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