Dersim

Dersim (; ; ) is a mountainous historical region in the Armenian Highlands, which is in Eastern Turkey today.
The region included all parts of Tunceli Province (Cemisgezek, Hozat, Pertek, Tunceli, Ovacik, Pulumur, Nazimiye, Pertek) Tercan, Erzincan, Kemah and Kemaliye in Erzincan Province, Keban in Elazig Province, Kigi in Bingol Province and Arapkir in Malatya Province.
History
This region was known as Ishuwa in the 2000s BC. As a result of the struggle of the Ishuva Kingdom, which was established by the Hurrians in the region, with the Hittites, this place passed under the rule of the Hittites towards the 1600s BC. Then it came under the domination of the Urartians and formed the westernmost part of the country of Urartu. After that, it was ruled by Medes and the Persian Achaemenid Empire, next it passed into the hands of the Alexander the Great, king of Macedon. During the reign of Tigranes the Great, the king of Armenia of the Artaxiad dynasty, Dersim was annexed to the kingdom of Armenia, even after the fall of the Artaxiad dynasty, Dersim remained loyal to them and did not submit to the Romans.
Medieval
After the acceptance of Christianity as the official religion in Armenia, as in many territories subject to Armenia, Dersim, the people resisted the influence of the new religion and adhered to their old religious traditions. After the Byzantine Empire occupied the western parts of Armenian state, they deported as many of the Dersimites as they could capture to Thrace and made these refugees serve as soldiers against the Bulgarian invasion. Despite all Byzantine "tricks", the people of Dersim were able to prevent the establishment of Byzantine influence in their neighbourhood. Also the Seljuks defeated Byzantine Empire in 1093 but the people of Dersim did not submit to the Seljuks. At the time of the establishment of the Safavid Empire, Shi'ism, the official sect of the Safavid Empire, had been able to spread to Dersim in a favourable manner. The Kurds of Dersim showed favour towards Shah Isma'il I and agreed to cede the fortress of Kemah to Isma'il as a military base to facilitate the military movements of the Safavids, on condition that their sovereignty and independence would be respected by Isma'il.
Ottoman Empire rule
Although the Ottoman presence began to be felt in the region after Mehmed II the Conqueror defeated the Aq Qoyunlu in 1473, its incorporation into the Ottoman lands took place after the Battle of Chaldiran in 1514 during the reign of Selim the Grim. However, the harsh and rugged geographical structure of this place caused it to be in the hands of local administrators from time to time, away from state control. They displayed a rebellious situation during the weak periods of the central administrations. The southwestern parts was ruled by the Emirate of Cemisgezek, a hereditary and autonomous Kurdish emirate that existed from the 13th century until 1663, centred on Cemisgezek, which included Mazgirt, Pertek and Sagman. The emirate was inhabited by both Muslims and non-Muslims, and also had a significant Kurdish Alevi population, which flourished and expanded thanks to the self-government secured under Ottoman rule despite Ottoman hostility towards the minority.
In 1848, the Dersim Sanjak was formed within the Erzurum Vilayet. In 1880, the Dersim or Hozat vilayet was formed with Hozat as its center, although by 1888 it was made a sanjak/mutasarrifate of the Mamuret-ul-Aziz vilayet (now Elazig). Even in 1895 between 1897, many Armenian fedayis took refuge in Dersim and benefited from the baht (of asylum) of the Dersimites and were able to protect themselves against the bathtubs of the Ottoman administration. Various rebellions took place in the region in the 1877, 1885, 1892, 1907, 1911, 1914 and 1916.
In Turkey
With the abolition of the Ottoman Empire, Turkey became the owner of the region. In 1937, an Alevi Kurdish broke out in the region and was suppressed with the deaths of 30,000 Kurds. Following the Tunceli Law 1935, which demanded a more powerful government in the region, the Fourth Inspectorate-General (Umumi Mufettislik, UM) was created in January 1936. The fourth UM span over the provinces of Elazig, Erzincan, Bingol and Tunceli, and was governed by a Governor Commander. Most of the employees in the municipality were to be filled with military personnel and the Governor-Commander had the authority to evacuate whole villages and resettle them in other parts. Also the juridical guarantees did not comply with the law in the other parts in Turkey. The trials were at most 15 days long and sentences could not be appealed. For a release, the Governor Commander had to give his consent. The application of the death penalty was under the authority of the Governor-Commander, while normally it would be the authority of the Grand National Assembly of Turkey to approve such a punishment. In 1946 the Tunceli Law was abolished and the state of emergency removed but the authority of the fourth UM was transferred to the military. The Inspectorates-General was dissolved in 1952 during the Government of the Democrat Party.
People
Tunceli's (Dersim) language distribution is 69.5% Kurdish and Zazaki, 29.8% Turkish and 0.74% Armenian in 1927, also according to Savas Sertel, Zazas are majority people and Zazaki were more common than Kurdish. However, Ahmet Kerim Gultekin defined the province as predominantly Kurdish Alevi. Kurmanji Kurdish is the main dialect around Pertek, while Zazaki is spoken in Hozat, Pulumur, Ovacik and Nazimiye. Both Kurmanji and Zaza is spoken in Tunceli town and Mazgirt. The Dimli (or Zaza) people of Dersim are the descendants of the Deylamites who migrated from the highlands of Gilan region of Iran in the 10th-12th century. The districts of Mazgirt, Nazimiye and Cemisgezek had a large Armenian population during the Ottoman period. A large part of this population must have been deported out of Anatolia with the deportation order of 1915. It is likely that the remaining population migrated to Western Anatolia. The town and district of Cemisgezek is both populated by Turks and Kurds.
The Kurdish and Zaza people of the region are divided into tribes. Of the 20 tribes in Hozat, 17 are Zazaki and 3 are Kurmanji; of the 8 tribes in Cemisgezek, 6 are Zazaki and 2 are Kurmanji; of the 17 tribes in Ovacik, 15 are Zazaki and 2 are Kurmanji; of the 13 tribes in Pulumur, 12 are Zazaki and 1 is Kurmanji; of the 14 tribes in Nazimiye 11 are Zazaki and 3 are Kurmanji; 16 of the 30 tribes in Mazgirt speak Kurmanji and 14 speak Zazaki; while all of the 8 tribes in Pertek speak Kurmanji. The Hozat included present-day central district.
Etymology
According to Nuri Dersimi, it is noteworthy that six centuries before Christ, Greek historians and geographers called the Dersim region Daranis, and in the Bisltun inscriptions of Darius the Great, this region is called Zuza, and the term Zuza is similar to the word Zaza, which is the "Kurdish dialect" spoken in Dersim and its region. According to another thesis, estimated that the name Dersim (Der-sim "silver gate" in Persian) was given to the region, which frequently changed hands between the Sasanid and Byzantine Empires during the Byzantine period.
Notable people
John I Tzimiskes (925-976; Cemisgezek) - Byzantine emperor between 969 and 976 years
Seyid Riza (1863-1937; Ovacik) - tribal leader and organizator of Dersim rebellion
Vazken Andreassian (1903-1995; Cemisgezek) - engineer, author, survivor of the Armenian genocide
Andranik Andreassian (1909-1996; Cemisgezek) - author, editor, survivor of the Armenian genocide
Nuri Dersimi (1893-1973; Hozat) - Kurdish nationalist writer, revolutionary and intellectual
Aram Achekbashian (1867-1915; Arapkir) - politician from Hunchak
Abdullah Cevdet (1869-1932; Arapkir) - intellectual, writer and physician
Nicol Galanderia (1881-1944; Kemaliye) - musician
Hasan Hayri (1881-1925; Hozat) - politician
Soghomon Tehlirian (1897-1960; Tercan) - Armenian national hero who assassinated Talaat Pasha
Aurora Mardiganian (1901-1994; Cemisgezek) - author, actress, and a survivor of the Armenian genocide
Vahagn Davtyan (1922-1996; Arapkir) - poet, translator, publicist and public activist
Sait Kirmizitoprak (1935-1971; Nazimiye) - Kurdish nationalist writer, revolutionary and intellectual
Hasan Saltik (1964) - record producer
Kemal Kilicdaroglu (1948; Nazimiye) - economist, retired civil servant, social democratic politician and leader of the Republican People's Party
Kamer Genc (1940-2016; Nazimiye) - politician
Alican Onlu (1967; Nazimiye) - politician
Volga Sorgu (1981; Ovacik) - movie and serial actor
Edibe Sahin (1960; Nazimiye) - politician, former mayor of the municipality of Tunceli.
Hozan Diyar (1966; Mazgirt) - singer
Huseyin Aygun (1970; Nazimiye) - lawyer and politician
Ali Haydar Kaytan (1952-2019; Nazimiye) - miliant, co-founder of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK)
Aynur Dogan (1975; Cemisgezek) - singer and songwriter
Fatih Mehmet Macoglu (1968; Ovacik) - communist politician, current mayor of Tunceli
Ferhat Tunc (1964; Ovacik) - singer
Mikail Aslan (1972; Hozat) - musician
Nilufer Gundogan (1977; Nazimiye) - Dutch politician
Originating from Dersim
Turgut Ozal (1927-1993; Cemisgezek) - former president and prime minister of Turkey
Gultan Kisanak (1961) - journalist, author and politician
Dilan Yesilgoz-Zegerius (1977) - politician, current Minister of Justice and Security in Netherlands
Zuhal Demir (1980) - lawyer, politician, current Flemish minister of Environment, Justice, Tourism and Energy in Belgium
Yildiz Tilbe (1966) - prominent singer
Related pages
Tunceli Province
References
Sources
Regions of Asia