The Children of the Wolf

The rise of the Göktürks and the world’s first Turkic empire

When you think of a powerful Turkic empire, what comes to mind? The most common answer is the Ottoman Empire, a long-time rival of the Europeans for control of the Middle East, the Balkans, and the Mediterranean Sea.

But long before the Ottomans, a group of blacksmiths in the Eurasian steppes forged the world’s first and largest Turkic empire. They were the Göktürks (Romanized from Kök Türük meaning celestial or blue Turks).

The First Turkic Khaganate (a Turkic term for empires of the Steppes) stretched from Siberia in the East to the shores of the Black Sea in the West. It was the largest empire in the world in the 6th century.

The Göktürks were the first to use the term “Turk” to refer to a specific cultural, linguistic, and political group. They set the stage for the rise of later Turkic powers such as the Uyghurs, Kara-Khitans, Khazars, Ghaznavids, Seljuks, and Ottomans, who ruled different parts of Asia, Europe, and Africa, dominating world politics from the Middle Ages to modern t…