“东突厥斯坦”这一地名称谓源自于“突厥斯坦”,指广义上的突厥斯坦地区的东部。“突厥斯坦”一名是源自伊朗语支,意为“突厥人所居之地”[26],指中亚地区使用突厥语族语言的多个民族所生活的地区。“突厥斯坦”所指的地域随时代的变迁和突厥人居住地区的迁移而不断改变,具体的地理范围在不同时期、不同文献中各有不同[27]。约563年,突厥人在锡尔河畔击败嚈哒[26],进入河中地区,与当时统治伊朗的波斯萨珊王朝以阿姆河为界[28]。已发现的最早的“突厥斯坦”一词出现在7世纪的粟特文文书中[29],指锡尔河与阿姆河之间的一小块地区[30]。该词在8世纪后已被广泛使用于阿拉伯人撰写的地理学著作[31],但阿拉伯人灭亡萨珊王朝并占领中亚后,突厥势力被逐出河中地区,因此在9-11世纪的阿拉伯语文献中,“突厥斯坦”所指的地域也就开始向北、向东迁移,河中地区因被阿拉伯人占领而被排除在突厥斯坦以外[26]。成书于846年的阿拉伯地理著作《道里邦国志》中写道“在突厥所有领地中,九姓乌古斯人的领地算是突厥地中最大的一块[32]:34-35。”其所谓的“突厥地”(突厥斯坦)应是指今锡尔河以北的草原和毗邻地带[27]。成书于982年的波斯文地理著作《世界境域志》称河中地区是“通往突厥斯坦的门户”,将葛逻禄和古斯之地称为“突厥斯坦”;13世纪波斯名著《世界征服者史》中也将“突厥斯坦”与“河中”相提并论[27]。尽管中国古籍中一般仅仅把阿史那部人称为突厥人,但对这些阿拉伯作者来说,突厥人是指操突厥语的游牧民族,以区分于操波斯语的绿洲定居者[21]。随着突厥联盟的崩溃以及13世纪蒙古人对中亚地区的征服(英语:Mongol invasion of Central Asia),“突厥斯坦”一词不再是一个有效的地理描述,逐渐不再被使用[33]。18世纪中叶,清朝统一新疆之后,在北京供职的两位葡萄牙籍神甫奉乾隆皇帝圣旨到新疆实地测绘地图,其测绘的多个地理方位于1776年被法国神甫钱德明以“东、西突厥斯坦”为名发表在《关于中国历史、地理等情况的报告》中,塔里木盆地开始被西方人称为“东突厥斯坦”[27],但19世纪初之前该词并未被广泛使用。在此前的1722年,法国巴黎出版的《帖木儿伯克史》中曾将新疆一带称为“南突厥斯坦”[34]。
在清政府占领新疆的同时,英国和俄国的探险者开始在殖民扩张的竞争中积极探索中亚地区,对中亚各地进行非常详尽的测绘和描述,一些地名因他们的使用而广泛传播开来。从17世纪开始,俄国人一般将塔里木盆地一带称为“小布哈拉”[35]:31-32。1824年,俄国汉学家、曾护送东正教传教团赴北京的季姆科夫斯基(俄语:Тимковский, Егор Фёдорович)撰写的《1820-1821年经蒙古至中国的旅行》在圣彼得堡出版,不久翻译为法语在巴黎出版,1827年经克拉普罗特编辑后的英文版在伦敦出版,书中提出“小布哈拉”应作“中国突厥斯坦”[26];两年后的1829年,俄国汉学家俾丘林在圣彼得堡出版的《准噶尔和东突厥斯坦古代和现代记述》中则对“中国突厥斯坦”这一名称不以为然,认为称“东突厥斯坦”更为恰当[36]。1865年至1868年间,俄罗斯帝国逐步吞并中亚的浩罕汗国,其间曾于1865年在塔什干设立突厥斯坦州(俄语:Туркестанская область (Российская империя))、在1867年设立突厥斯坦总督区[37],“突厥斯坦”首次成为现实中的区划名称[26]。已经占领中亚的俄罗斯显然对新疆产生了领土企图[38],19世纪后半叶,俄罗斯趁新疆动乱占领伊犁河谷,迫使清政府将大量领土划给俄国[39]。1869年至1873年,格里戈里耶夫(俄语:Григорьев, Василий Васильевич)将德国地理学家卡尔·里特尔的《亚洲自然地理》翻译为俄文并增补后以《东突厥斯坦自然地理》为名交付俄罗斯帝国地理学会出版[27]。不管俄罗斯取的新称谓是什么,中亚居民通常并不使用“突厥斯坦”来称呼他们自己的土地[40]。不过在突厥斯坦总督区成立后,西方著作中开始将突厥斯坦区分为“俄国突厥斯坦”和“中国突厥斯坦”[33]。尽管西方作者们也都知道新疆是中国的领土,而且该地区已经有中国名,但他们依然倾向于使用那些“强调突厥、伊斯兰或者中亚元素的名字,而非中国元素的名字”[15]。对英国旅行家和英语材料来说,使用“Chinese Turkestan”(中国突厥斯坦)、“East Turkestan”(东突厥斯坦)、“Chinese Central Asia”(中属中亚)、“Serindia”(塞林迪亚、西域)[41]还是“Sinkiang”(新疆)并无共识,这些词常常在描述新疆地区时交替使用[36]。直到20世纪,当地人仍习惯用城市或绿洲的名字来称呼他们所在的地区,并根据需要对这个地名的范围进行缩放[15]。1917年十月革命后,在原突厥斯坦总督区建立突厥斯坦苏维埃社会主义自治共和国,但为打击泛伊斯兰主义和泛突厥主义,苏联于1924年以民族识别为基础在中亚建立多个加盟共和国,并在国内取缔了“突厥斯坦”的使用,用“中亚”一词将之取代[27]。
^Sheridan, Michael. Islamist bombers target Olympics. London: The Sunday Times. 2008-07-27 [2011-02-05]. (原始内容存档于2020-05-22). The group may be allied with the East Turkestan Islamic Movement – designated a terrorist organisation by the US, China and several other countries – which seeks independence for the Muslim Uighur people of China's far west province of Xinjiang, which Uighur separatists call East Turkestan.
^Chung, Chien-peng. China's "War on Terror": September 11 and Uighur Separatism. Foreign Affairs. July–August 2002 [2019-06-07]. (原始内容存档于2014-12-11). Beijing now labels as terrorists those who are fighting for an independent state in the northwestern province of Xinjiang, which the separatists call "Eastern Turkestan."
^Wong, Edward. Chinese Separatists Tied to Norway Bomb Plot. The New York Times (Beijing). 2010-07-09 [2011-02-05]. (原始内容存档于2011-08-27). Many Uighurs call Xinjiang their homeland, and some want an independent state there called East Turkestan.
^ 11.011.111.211.3Rahman, Anwar. Sinicization Beyond the Great Wall: China's Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region. Troubador Publishing Ltd. 2005: 20–26.
^ 12.012.112.2Van Wie Davis, Elizabeth. Uyghur Muslim Ethnic Separatism in Xinjiang, China. Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies. January 2008 [2019-06-07]. (原始内容存档于2009-06-17). The desired outcome by groups that use violence is, broadly speaking, a separate Uyghur state, called either Uyghuristan or Eastern Turkistan, which lays claim to a large part of China.... The largest [Muslim] group, the Hui who have blended fairly well into Chinese society, regard some Uyghurs as unpatriotic separatists who give other Chinese Muslims a bad name.... China's official statement on "East Turkestan terrorists" published in January 2002 listed several groups allegedly responsible for violence
^ 15.015.115.215.315.415.5Bellér-Hann, Ildikó. Place and People. Community Matters in Xinjiang, 1880-1949: Towards a Historical Anthropology of the Uyghur. Brill Publishers. 2008: 35–38, 44–45.
^ 20.020.1Herbertson, Fanny Dorothea. Asia. Adam & Charles Black. 1903: xxxv. Sin-tsiang is made up of the Tarim basin or Chinese (Eastern) Turkestan and Zungaria. The former is a desert with marginal oases where rivers descend from the mountains. The chief centres are Yarkand and Kashgar. Zungaria is a relatively low and fertile steppe land, leading from the low-lands of Southern Siberia to the Mongolian plateau.
^ 36.036.136.236.336.436.536.6Bellér-Hann, Ildikó. Situating the Uyghurs between China and Central Asia. Ashgate Publishing. 2007: 4–5, 32–40.
^Bregel, Yuri. Notes on the Study of Central Asia. Research Institute for Inner Asian Studies. 1996. Strictly speaking, 'Russian Turkestan' as a political term was limited only to the territory of the governorate-general of Turkestan and did not include... the khanates of Bukhara and Khiva
^Rahul, Ram. Central Asia: An Outline History. Concept Publishing Company. 1997: 88.
^ 40.040.1Central Asian Review (London: University of Virginia). 1965, 13 (1): 5. 引文格式1维护:无标题期刊 (link)
^Meyer, Karl Ernest; Brysac, Shareen Blair. Tournament of Shadows: The Great Game and the Race for Empire in Central Asia. Basic Books. 2006: 347. Stein repeatedly crossed 18,000-foot passes, settling down to work in the deserts of Chinese Turkestan. It took 182 packing cases to hold the finds of his third expedition (1913-16) to the region he preferred calling Serindia, from the Greek word for China, Seres, meaning silkworm.
^Sinkiang: Land at the Back of Nowhere. LIFE. Vol. 15 no. 24. December 1943: 95–103. The Chinese rule Sinkiang. Every now and then (1970, 1932) they have to contend with a rebellion of the Moslem masses, usually led by Chinese-speaking Moslems.
^Laçiner, Sedat; Özcan, Mehmet; Bal, İhsan. USAK Yearbook of International Politics and Law 3. 2001: 408.
^Hughes, William. A Class-Book of Modern Geography. G. Philip & son. 1892: 238. Zungaria includes the wild and desolate region between the Thian-Shan and the Altai Mountains, and is bounded by Eastern Turkestan on the south, and by Russian Central Asia on the west.
^Canadian Slavonic Papers (Canadian Association of Slavists). 1975, 17: 352. [Tursun Rakhimov] is not only the author and editor of a number of Uighur linguistic studies, but also an expert on articles about the persecution of the national minorities in the PRC. One may say that this 'personal union' of the Uighur scholar and the Soviet propagandist once more illustrates the intense interdependence of the status of the Soviet Uighurs and their role in Soviet Policy. 引文格式1维护:无标题期刊 (link)
^Covarrubias, Jack; Lansford, Tom. Strategic Interests in the Middle East: Opposition and Support for US Foreign Policy. Ashgate Publishing. 2007: 91.
^Roy, Olivier. Turkey Today: A European Country?. Anthem Press. 2005: 20.