 | |
| Total population | |
|---|---|
| 140,000 | |
| Regions with significant populations | |
| Turkey | 103,900 (Ethnologue, 2019)[1] |
| Georgia | 1,000 (2007)[1] |
| Germany | 1,000 (2007)[1] |
| Languages | |
| Laz,Georgian,Turkish | |
| Religion | |
| InTurkey: majoritySunni Islam[2] InGeorgia: majorityGeorgian Orthodox[3] | |
| Related ethnic groups | |
| Georgians (especiallyMingrelians),Pontic Greeks | |
| Laz people |
|---|
 |
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TheLaz people, orLazi (Laz:ლაზიLazi;Georgian:ლაზი,lazi; or ჭანი,ch'ani;Turkish:Laz), are aKartvelianethnic group native to theSouth Caucasus, who mainly live inBlack Sea coastal regions ofTurkey andGeorgia. They traditionally speak theLaz language (which is a member of theKartvelian language family) but have experienced a rapid language shift toTurkish.
Of the 103,900 ethnic Laz in Turkey, only around 20,000 speak Laz and the language is classified as threatened (6b) in Turkey and shifting (7) in Georgia on theExpanded Graded Intergenerational Disruption Scale.[1]
The ancestors of the Laz people are cited by many classical authors fromScylax toProcopius andAgathias, but the word Lazi in Latin language (Greek:Λαζοί,romanized: Lazoí) themselves are firstly cited byPliny around the 2nd century BC.[4][5][6]
Vladimir Minorsky, Russian scholar ofOriental studies, argued in 1913 that the Laz living in Turkey and Georgia have developed different understandings of what it means to be Laz as their identity in Georgia has largely merged with a Georgian identity with the meaning of "Laz" being seen as merely a regional category.[7]
In a stereotyping manner, non-Laz often use the exonymLaz for groups that are mostly not ethnic Laz:
The Lazuri-speaking ancestors of the modern Laz originally hailed from the northeast, aroundAbkhazia andSamegrelo-Zemo Svaneti and settled in the present homeland of the Laz in antiquity.[10]
Modern theories suggest that theColchian tribes are direct ancestors of the Laz-Mingrelians, they constituted the dominant ethnic and cultural presence in the south-eastern Black Sea region in antiquity, and hence played a significant role in the ethnogenesis of the modernGeorgians.[11]
In the thirteenth centuryBC,[12][13] the Kingdom ofColchis was formed as a result of the increasing consolidation of the tribes inhabiting the region, which covered modern western Georgia andTurkey's north-eastern provinces ofTrabzon,Rize andArtvin. Colchis was an important region in Black Sea trade – rich with gold, wax, hemp, and honey. In the eighth century, several Greektrading colonies were established along the shores of the Black Sea, one of them being Trebizond (Greek:Τραπεζοῦς,romanized: Trapezous) founded byMilesian traders fromSinope in 756 BC. Trebizond's trade partners included the Proto-Laz tribes ofMossynoeci.[citation needed]
By the sixth century BC, the tribes living in the southern Colchis (Macrones,Mossynoeci,Marres etc.) were incorporated into thenineteenth satrapy ofPersia. The Achaemenid Empire was defeated byAlexander the Great, however following the Alexander's death a number of separate kingdoms were established inAnatolia, includingPontus, in the corner of the southern Black Sea, ruled by the Persian noblemanMithridates I. Culturally, the kingdom wasHellenized,[14] with Greek as the official language.[15]Mithridates VI conquered the Colchis, and gave it to his sonMithridates of Colchis.[citation needed]
As a result of theRoman campaigns between 88 and 63 BC, led by the generalsPompey andLucullus, the kingdom of Pontus was completely destroyed by theRomans and all its territory, including Colchis, was incorporated into the Roman Empire. The former southern provinces of Colchis were reorganized into theRoman province ofPontus Polemoniacus, while the northern Cholchis became the Roman province ofLazicum. Roman control remained likewise only nominal over the tribes of the interior.[16]
The first-century historiansMemnon andStrabo remark in passing that the people formerly called Macrones bore in his day the name ofSanni, a claim supported also byStephanus of Byzantium. The second-century historianArrian notes thatTzanni, same as the Sanni[17] are neighbours of the Colchians, while the latter were now referred to as the Lazi. By the mid-third century, the Lazi tribe came to dominate most of Colchis, establishing thekingdom of Lazica.[citation needed]
The warlike tribes of the Chaldia, called Tzanni, the ancestors of modern Laz people lived inTzanica, the area located between the Byzantine and the Lazica. It included several settlements named:Athenae,Archabis andApsarus; Tzanni were neither subjects of the Romans nor of the king of the Lazica, except that during the reign of theByzantine emperorJustinian I (r. 527–565) they were subdued,Christianized and brought to central rule.[18][19] The bishops of Lazica appointed the priests of the Tzanni, given they were now Christians. Tzanni began to have closer contact with the Greeks and acquired variousHellenic cultural traits, including in some cases the language.[citation needed]
From 542 to 562, Lazica was a scene of the protracted rivalry between theEastern Roman andSassanid empires, culminating in theLazic War, where 1,000 Tzanni auxiliaries underDagisthaeus participated. EmperorHeraclius's offensive in 628 AD brought victory over the Persians and ensured Roman predominance in Lazica until the invasion and conquest of the Caucasus by theArabs in the second half of the seventh century. As the result of Muslim invasions, the ancientmetropolis,Phasis, was lost and Trebizond became the new Metropolitan see of Lazica, since then the name Lazi appears the general Greek name for Tzanni. According to Geography ofAnania Shirakatsi of the 7th century,[20] Colchis (Yeger in Armenian sources, synonymous with Lazica) was subdivided into four small districts, one of them being Tzanica, that isChaldia, and mentions Athinae, Rhizus and Trebizond among its cities. From the second half of the eight century the Trebizond area is referred to in Greek sources (namely ofEpiphanius of Constantinople) as Lazica. The 10th-centuryArab geographerAbul Feda regarded the city of Trebizond as being largely a Lazian port.[citation needed]
In 780, the mkingdom of Abkhazia incorporated the former territories of Lazica via a dynastic succession, thus ousting the Pontic Lazs (formerly known as Tzanni) from western Georgia; thereafter, the Tzanni lived under nominal Byzantine suzerainty in thetheme of Chaldia, with its capital at Trebizond, governed by the native semi-autonomous rulers, like theGabras family,[21] of possibly "Greco-Laz" or simplyChaldian origin.[22]
With theGeorgian intervention in Chaldia and thecollapse of Byzantine Empire in 1204,Empire of Trebizond was established along the southeastern coast of the Black Sea, populated by a large Kartvelian-speaking population.[23] In the eastern part of the same empire, an autonomous coastal theme ofGreater Lazia was established.[24] Byzantine authors, such asPachymeres, and to some extent Trapezuntines such asLazaropoulos andBessarion, regarded the Trapezuntian Empire as being no more than a Lazian border state.[25] Though Greek in higher culture, the rural areas of Trebizond empire appear to have been predominantly Laz in ethnic composition.[26] Laz family names, withHellenized terminations, are noticeable in the records of the mediaeval empire of Trebizond, and it is perhaps not too venturesome to suggest that theantagonism between the "town-party" and the "country-party," which existed in the politics of "the Empire," was in fact a national antagonism of Laz against Greek.[27]
In 1282, thekingdom of Imereti besieged Trebizond, however after the failed attempt to take the city, the Georgians occupied several provinces,[28] and all the Trebizontine province of Lazia threw off its allegiance to the king of the 'Iberian' and 'Lazian' tribes and united itself with the GeorgianKingdom of Imereti.[citation needed]
Laz populated area was often contested by different Georgian principalities, however throughBattle of Murjakheti in 1535,Principality of Guria ensured control over it, until 1547, when it was finallyconquered by resurgentOttoman forces and reorganized into theLazistan sanjak as part ofeyalet ofTrabzon.[citation needed]
The Ottomans fought for three centuries todestroy the Christian-Georgian consciousness of the Laz people.[29] Due to the OttomanIslamization policy, throughout of seventeenth century Lazs gradually converted toIslam. As the Ottomans consolidated their rule, theMillet system was brought to the newly conquered territories. Local orthodox inhabitants, once subordinated to theGeorgian Orthodox Church, had to obeyPatriarchate of Constantinople,[30] thus gradually becomingGreeks, the process known asHellenization of Laz people.[30] Lazs who were under the control of Constantinople, soon lost their language and self-identity as they became Greeks and learned Greek,[31] especiallyPontic dialect ofGreek language, although native language was preserved by Lazs who had become Muslims. In the middle of the seventeen century, several governors ofTunis, who bore the title ofDey were Laz origin, such as: Muhammad Laz (1647-1653), Mustafa Laz (1653-1665) and Ali Laz (1673).[citation needed]
Not only thePashas (governors) of Trabzon until the 19th century, but real authority in many of thecazas (districts) of each sanjak by the mid-17th century lay in the hands of relatively independent native Lazderebeys ("valley-lords"), or feudal chiefs who exercised absolute authority in their own districts, carried on petty warfare with each other, did not owe allegiance to a superior and never paid contributions to the sultan. In the period following the war of 1828–1829,Sultan Mahmud II attempted to break the power of the great independent derebeys of Lazistan. In the event, the Laz derebeys, led byTahir Ağa Tuzcuoğlu of Rize, did rise in revolt in 1832. The revolt was initially successful: at its height in January 1833, but by the spring of 1834, the rising had been put down.[32] The suppression of the rising had finally broken the power of the Laz derebeys. This state of insubordination was not really broken until the assertion of Ottoman authority during the reforms of theOsman Pasha in the 1850s.[32]
In 1547, Ottomans built coastal fortress ofGonia, an important Ottoman outpost in southwestern Georgia,[33][34] which served as capital of Lazistan; thenBatum until it was acquired according to theCongress of Berlin by the Russians in 1878, throughout theRusso-Turkish War, thereafter,Rize became the capital of the sanjak. The Muslim Lazs living in newly establishedBatumi Oblast were subjected to ethnic cleansing; by 1882, approximately 40,000 Lazs had settled in the Ottoman Empire, especially to provinces in Western Anatolia such asBursa,Yalova,Karamursel,Izmit,Adapazarı andSapanca.[35] With the spread ofYoung Turk movement in Lazistan, the short-lived autonomist national movement headed byFaik Efendişi was established. However, it was soon eliminated as the result ofAbdul Hamid's intervention.[36] During theFirst World War (1914–18) Russians invaded the provinces of Rize and Trabzon. However, following theBolshevik Revolution in 1917, the Russian forces had to withdraw from the region and finally left the area to the Ottoman-Turkish forces in March 1918. From 1918 to 1920, the national movement swept rapidly all around Lazistan, committees and an interim government was created. It was oriented towards Soviet Russia. But as soon as, the Soviet-Turkishtreaty of friendship was concluded, it helped the Turks, to integrate Lazistan.[37] The autonomous Lazistan sanjak existed until 1923, while the designation of the term of Lazistan was officially banned in 1926, by theKemalists. Lazistan was divided betweenRize andArtvin provinces.[38]
During the beginning of theStalinist era, the Lazs living under Soviet domination had a certain cultural autonomy in the Soviet Union but after breakout of theSecond World War, Soviet authorities designed a strategy to ethnically cleanse the border regions of populations it deemed unreliable. The Laz population was sent to exile inSiberia andCentral Asia. After the deathStalin in 1953, the political climate had changed that between 1953 and 1957 the surviving Lazs were allowed to return to their homeland.[citation needed]
Most Laz people today live in Turkey, but the Laz minority group has no official status in Turkey. The number of the Laz speakers is decreasing, and is now limited chiefly to some areas in Rize and Artvin.[citation needed]
The total population of the Laz today is only estimated, with numbers ranging widely. The majority of Laz live in Turkey, where the national census does not record ethnic data on minor populations.[39]
| Country / region | Official data | Estimate | Concentration | Article |
|---|---|---|---|---|
 Turkey | — | 103,900[1] | Rize:Pazar,Ardeşen,Fındıklı,Çamlıhemşin andIkizdere districts. Artvin:Arhavi andHopa. minorities in:Borçka district. Trabzon :Of | Laz people in Turkey |
 Georgia | — | 1,000[1] | Tbilisi Adjara:Sarpi,Kvariati,Gonio,Makho,Batumi andKobuleti. | Laz people in Georgia |
 Germany | — | 1,000[1] | — | Laz people in Germany |
 Russia | 160[40] | — | — | — |
The majority of the Laz today live in an area they callLaziǩa, Lazistan, Lazeti orLazona name of the cultural region traditionally inhabited by the Laz people in modern northeast Turkey and southwest Georgia. Geographically, Lazistan consists of a series of narrow, rugged valleys extending northward from the crest of thePontic Alps (Turkish:Anadolu Dağları), which separate it from theÇoruh Valley, and stretches east–west along the southern shore of theBlack Sea. Lazistan is a virtually a forbidden term in Turkey.[A] the name was considered to be an 'unpatriotic' invention of ancien regime.[38]
Laz ancestral lands are nota well-defined and there is no official geographic definition for the boundaries of Lazistan. However, parts of the following provinces are usually included:
Historically, Lazistan was known for producinghazelnuts.[41] Lazistan also producedzinc, producing over 1,700 tons in 1901.[41] The traditional Laz economy was based on agriculture—carried out with some difficulty in the steep mountain regions and also on the breeding of sheep, goats, and cattle. Orchards were tended and bees were kept, and the food supply was augmented by hunting. The Laz are good sailors and also practise agriculture rice, maize, tobacco and fruit-trees. The only industries were smelting, celebrated since ancient times, and the cutting of timber used for shipbuilding.
Over the past 20 years, there has been an upsurge of cultural activities aiming at revitalizing the Laz language, education and tradition.Kâzım Koyuncu, who in 1998 became the first Laz musician to gain mainstream success, contributed significantly to the identity of the Laz people, especially among their youth.[42]
The Laz Cultural Institute was founded in 1993 and the Laz Culture Association in 2008, and a Laz cultural festival was established inGemlik.[40][43] The Laz community successfully lobbied Turkey's Education Ministry to offer Laz-language instruction in schools around the Black Sea region. In 2013, the Education Ministry added Laz as a four-year elective course for secondary students, beginning in the fifth grade.[44]
Lazuri is a complex and morphologically rich tongue belonging to theSouth Caucasian language family whose other members areMingrelian,Svan andGeorgian.N. Marr regarded Laz and Megrelian, two dialects of "linguistically one" language, as two languages. The Laz language does not have a written history, thus Turkish and Georgian serve as the main literary languages for the Laz people. Their folk literature has been transmitted orally and has not been systematically recorded. The first attempts at establishing a distinct Laz cultural identity and creating a literary language based on theArabic alphabet was made by Faik Efendisi in the 1870s, but he was soon imprisoned by the Ottoman authorities, while most of his works were destroyed. During a relative cultural autonomy granted to the minorities in the 1930s, the written Laz literature—based on the Laz script—emerged inSoviet Georgia, strongly dominated by Soviet ideology. The poet Mustafa Baniṣi spearheaded this short-lived movement, but an official standard form of the tongue was never established.[45] Since then, several attempts have been made to render the pieces of native literature in the Turkish and Georgian alphabets. A few native poets in Turkey including Raşid Hilmi Pehlivanoğlu, a well- known figure in Rize district, have appeared later in the 20th century.[46]
Andrew the Apostle after traveling fromTrebizond into Lazica in the first century AD, built a church here.[47] The significance of the apostle's activities was that he introduced the principle of Christian faith and thereby paved the way for later missionary activities. The Lazes were converted toChristianity in the 5th century by the first Christian king,Gubazes I of Lazica, who declared Christianity as astate religion of Lazica. After the introduction of Christianity,Phasis was the see of a Greek diocese, one of whose bishops,Cyrus, became aPatriarch of Alexandria between AD 630 and 641.[48][49]Trebizond became the metropolitan see of Lazica when the ancient metropolis, Phasis, was lost by the Byzantine Empire.[50] Trebizond, which was the only diocese established far in the past,Cerasous andRizaion, both formed as upgraded bishoprics. All three dioceses survived the Ottoman conquest (1461) and generally operated until the 17th century, when the dioceses of Cerasous and Rizaion were abolished. The diocese of Rizaion and the bishopric ofOf were abolished at the time due to theIslamisation of the Lazs. Most of them subsequently converted toSunni Islam.[51][52] There are several ruined churches in present-day Rize and Artvin districts, such as;Jibistasi inArdeşen,Makriali (Noghedi) inHopa,Pironity inArhavi etc.
There are also a few Christian Laz in theAdjara region of Georgia who have reconverted to Christianity.[53]
Famous for its saga and myths and bounded by the Black Sea and the Caucasian Mountains, the ancient region of Colchis spreads out from West Georgia to Northeast Turkey. The famous tale in Greek mythology of theGolden Fleece in which Jason and theArgonauts stole the Golden Fleece from KingAeetes, with the help of his daughterMedea, has brought Colchis into the history books.
Kolkhoba is an ancient Laz festival. It is held at the end of August or at the beginning of September inSarpi village,Khelvachauri District. Festival has revived the former lifestyle of Lazeti residents and moments of human relations typical to the times ofancient Greece andColchis related to theArgonauts journey to Colchis. During the celebration of Kolkhoba theater performances are followed by a variety of activities and it is considered one of the main public festivals.
The national instruments includeguda (bagpipe),kemenche (spike fiddle),zurna (oboe), anddoli (drum). In the 1990s and 2000s, thefolk-rock musicianKâzım Koyuncu attained to significant popularity in Turkey and toured Georgia. Koyuncu, who died of cancer in 2005, was also an activist for the Laz people and has become a cultural hero.[54]
The Laz are noted for their folk dances, called theHoron dance of the Black Sea, originally of pagan worship which was to become a sacred ritual dance. There are many different types of this dance in different regions. Horon is related to those performed by theAjarians known asKhorumi. These may be solemn and precise, performed by lines of men, with carefully executed footwork, or extremely vigorous with the men dancing erect with hands linked, making short rapid movements with their feet, punctuated by dropping to a crouch. The women's dances are graceful but more swift in movement than those encountered in Georgia. In Greece such dances are still associated with thePontic Greeks who emigrated from this region after 1922.
The traditional Laz men's costume consists of a peculiar bandanalike kerchief covering the entire head above the eyes, knotted on the side and hanging down to the shoulder and the upper back; a snug-fitting jacket of coarse brown homespun with loose sleeves; and baggy dark brown woolen trousers tucked into slim, knee-high leather boots. The women's costume was similar to the wide-skirted princess gown found throughout Georgia but worn with a similar kerchief to that of the men and with a rich scarf tied around the hips. Laz men crafted excellent homemade rifles and even while at the plow were usually seen bristling with arms: rifle, pistol, powder horn, cartridge belts across the chest, a dagger at the hip, and a coil of rope for trussing captives.
Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the leader of the early decades of the Republic, aimed to create a nation state (Turkish:Ulus) from the Turkish remnants of the Ottoman Empire. During the first three decades of the Republic, efforts to Turkify geographical names were a recurring theme. Imported maps containing references to historical regions such asArmenia,Kurdistan, or Lazistan (the official name of the province ofRize until 1921) were prohibited (as was the case withDer Grosse Weltatlas, a map published inLeipzig).
Cultural assimilation into the Turkish culture has been high, and Laz identity was oppressed during the days of Ottoman and Soviet Rule. One of the pivotal moments was in 1992, when the bookLaz History (Lazların tarihi) was published. The authors had failed to have it published in 1964.[42]
Morritt, R.D. (2010) Stones that Speak. EBSCO ebook academic collection. Cambridge Scholars Pub.(9781443821766) p.99"The tribes in Colchis consolidated during the 13th century BCE. This was at this period mentioned in Greek mythology as Colchis as the destination of the Argonauts and the home of Medea in her domain of sorcery. She was known to Urartians as Qulha (Kolkha or Kilkhi). »
There are orthodox Lazs who are under the control of the Greek patriarchate in Istanbul. They speak Greek and call themselves Greeks.
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)Due to a lack of census information on minorities (aside from a small number of exceptions such as the Greek or Armenian populations), the actual number of Laz living in Turkey can only be estimated
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)Formerly Christians, they converted to Sunni Islam a little over four centuries ago.
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