Ankara is annoyed by the name "Aegean Sea"

Minister of Education of Turkey Yusuf Tekin made a new attack against Greeceproposing to replace the title in Turkish school textbooks Aegean Sea on “Sea of ​​Islands” — Adalar Denizi.

According to the Turkish publication T24Tekin stated that during the signing Treaty of Lausanne supposedly there was no term “Aegean Sea”and the correct name was “Sea of ​​Islands”.

This logic does not look like a concern for the accuracy of textbooks, but like another attempt to adjust geography to a political line Ankara. If the name reminds you of Greeceit apparently needs to be replaced. A very scientific approach: erase a word and hope that history disappears with it.

Textbooks as a field of revisionism

Tekin said the changes are part of a broader reform of the school curriculum. It replaces not only geographical, but also historical terms: for example, “Crusades” it is proposed to call “crusade attacks”A “Central Asia” — “Turkestan”.

Pro-government newspaper Yeni Akit has already presented this approach as a sign “national and local thinking”. The thesis is directly repeated there: you need to say not Ege DeniziA Adalar Denizibecause the title “Aegean Sea” supposedly consolidated under the influence of the Greeks.

In practice, we are talking not about linguistics, but about politics. The name of the sea is being turned into part of the ideological training of schoolchildren. Geography is becoming not a science, but an application to Turkish foreign policy doctrine.

“Blue Motherland” enters the classroom

This line is directly related to the doctrine “Mavi Vatan” (“Blue Homeland”). As previously written “Athens News”topic “Blue Motherland” and term Adalar Denizi have already appeared on the Turkish educational agenda as part of a program where Turkish maritime rights and interests are explained to schoolchildren. More details: material from Athens News.

That is why the dispute about the name Aegean Sea cannot be considered an innocent terminological correction. Ankara has consistently transferred revisionist language from politicians’ statements and maps to school textbooks. That is, they explain to the future generation in advance: the sea is not just a sea, but a field of Turkish claims.

At the same time, the internationally accepted name Aegean Sea has an ancient tradition and is associated with the Greek historical and cultural environment. Encyclopedia Britannica defines the Aegean Sea as the part of the Mediterranean Sea between the Greek Peninsula and Asia Minor. So the version of a “post-war Greek invention” looks, to put it mildly, as a politically convenient fantasy.

Editorial comment

When the state begins to change the names of the seas in school textbooks, this is no longer education, but ideological engineering. Turkish children are actually being asked not to study geography, but to memorize a political map of desires Ankara.

The problem is not the word itself “Sea of ​​Islands”. The problem is the goal: remove the title Aegean Seabecause it irritates Turkish revisionist rhetoric. This is no longer a dispute between scientists, but an attempt to refashion the consciousness of schoolchildren under the doctrine “Blue Motherland”.

This is how the battle for the textbook begins, but preparing for future claims. First they change the words, then the cards, then they explain that all this has always been “ours.”

The reception is as old as time…

Source link