- 400
- 500
- 600
- 700
- 800
- 900
- Rouran 400–554
- First Göktürk 552–630
- Tang rule 630–682
- Second Göktürk 682–744
- Uyghur 744–840
- Kirghiz 840–924
- Huns 370–469
- Western Göktürk 552–659
- Türgesh 699–766
- Karluk 766–800
- Khazar 650–969
A popular account has been current in Turkey and in South Korea since the middle of the twentieth century. It holds that the two peoples are old brothers. The Göktürks and Goguryeo were allies against China. The Orkhon inscriptions record the bond. The Turkish contingent in the Korean War of 1950 to 1953 kept an ancient promise. The account is a real object of study: who says it, since when, and on what.
The two passages
Two passages of the Kül Tegin inscription are cited for it, and they say less than the account does.
In the first, the Bökli come from the sunrise to mourn the founders. They stand in a list that runs on through the Chinese, the Tibetans, the Avars, the Romans, the Kırgız and five more peoples.[1] Being on that list means being counted among the powers of the world. It is not an alliance, and nine other peoples are on it.
In the second, Göktürks under Tang command campaigned eastward as far as the Bökli khan.[1] That is a statement about Göktürks fighting against the eastern power, not beside it. The inscription’s point in making it is that their strength was spent for a foreign ruler.
Whether bökli is Goguryeo at all is a matter of interpretation. One word beside it may not even refer to Korea. The Bökli question sets that out. The proposed pictorial contact is an embassy in feathered caps in the Afrasiab paintings. It rests on an identification that is not settled.
What the sources give, then, is two facts. A Göktürk monument names a Korean state among the powers of the world. Göktürk troops were sent east against it. That is a relation, and it is not brotherhood.
Origin of the modern account
The narrative took its present shape after 1950. The Korean War is its centre of gravity. Turkey sent a brigade, and the losses were heavy. The war produced in both countries a lasting popular memory of the other. The historical clothing was added to that memory, not the other way about. The inscriptions were already published and translated. The identification of Bökli with Goguryeo was already the scholarly default. Both were available to be used.
School textbooks, state commemorations, popular history and, latterly, television carried it further. The account is now strong in both countries. It is often reported as a historical finding rather than as a modern interpretation.
Narrative and evidence
A national narrative of descent or brotherhood is neither a finding nor something to dismiss. It is a position, and what counts is who holds it and on what. The Turkish–Korean case is a clean example of the type, and cleaner than most. The underlying textual point is real and is argued in the philological literature. The modern use of it is separable from that argument. The two can be kept apart without either being denied.
What is established is twofold. A Göktürk monument of 732 named a people at the sunrise and counted it among the powers of the world. A Chinese emperor sent Göktürk soldiers against that people.[1] What is claimed beyond that belongs to the twentieth century and is dated from it.
References
Sources
Literature
- Emre-E. Yavuz (ed.), The Kül Tegin Inscription: working translation with transcription and notes (2026)
- Peter B. Golden, An Introduction to the History of the Turkic Peoples (1992)
- Emre-E. Yavuz, The Gokturk Empire: 2nd Edition (2025)
What links here3
- Sources
- Afrasiab paintings
- Controversies
- The Bökli question · The Turkic ethnogenesis debate
Cite this article
Yavuz, Emre-E. “The Turkish–Korean friendship narrative.” Turkic Atlas, revised 8 November 2026. https://turkicatlas.org/historiography/turkic-korean-friendship-reception/
Last revised: 8 November 2026
