Laz

Bedişi osteru do ixişi obaru ar ren.   (Fate’s games and the wind’s blow are the same.)

## Race

White (Eastern/Southern European) / Brown (Middle Eastern)

## Language And Script

Lazuri: 200,000 (20% of Ethnic Population)
Georgian and Latin Script

## Date When Land Was Settled

3,300 years ago during the Consolidation of Colchian Tribes

## Related Ethnic Groups

Kartvelians Mingrelians

The **Laz people**, or **Lazi** (Laz: ლაზი *Lazi*; Georgian: ლაზი, *lazi*; or ჭანი, *ch'ani*; Turkish: *Laz*), are an indigenous ethnic group who mainly live in Black Sea coastal regions of Turkey and Georgia. They speak the Laz language (Lazuri), a member of the Kartvelian language family which also includes Georgian, Svan and Mingrelian. The Laz language is classified as endangered by UNESCO, with an estimated 130,000 to 150,000 speakers in 2001.

Estimates of the total population of the Laz people today vary drastically, with numbers as low as 150,000 to as high as 1 million people, with the majority living in northeast Turkey.

The Laz and the Mingrelians are both descendants of the people known as the Colchians in antiquity.

Over time the Laz living on either side of the frontier (border between Georgia and Turkey) have developed different conceptions of what it means to be Laz. Today, most of those living in Turkey do not consider themselves Turkish, but uphold their Laz identity as a separate one. In contrast, Laz identity in Georgia has largely merged with a Georgian identity, and the meaning of "Laz" is seen as merely a regional category. At the same time, in Turkey, the term Laz is a 'folk' definition for people of different ethnic and linguistic backgrounds originating from the Black Sea Region.

## Etymology

The ancestors of the Laz people are cited by many classical authors from Scylax to Procopius and Agathias, but the Laz (Greek: Λαζοί, romanized: *Lazoí*) themselves are cited by Pliny around the 2nd century BC, The ethnonym "Laz" is linked to a Svan toponym Lazan (i.e. the territorial prefix *la-* + Zan, "land of the Zan"). The Pontic Lazi, which were incorporated within the Byzantine Empire, and differed from the Caucasian Lazi, or Mingrelians, have retained the old name "Lazi" till today.

## History

### Land of Colchis

The eastern Black Sea region in antiquity was home to the well-developed Bronze Age culture known as the Colchian culture, related to the neighbouring Koban culture, that emerged toward the Middle Bronze Age. In at least some parts of Colchis, the process of urbanization seems to have been well advanced by the end of the second millennium BC. The Colchian Late Bronze Age (fifteenth to eighth century BC) saw the development of significant skill in the smelting and casting of metals. Sophisticated farming implements were made, and fertile, well-watered lowlands and a mild climate promoted the growth of progressive agricultural techniques.

The earliest attestations of the name of Colchis can be found in the 8th century Greek poet Eumelus of Corinth as "*Κολχίδα*" and earlier, in Urartian records as "*Qulḫa*" mentioned by the Urartian kings, who conquered it in 744 or 743 BC.

According to Svante Cornell, "What could be conceived as the proto Georgian statehood emerged mainly in the Western parts of today's Georgia, with the kingdom of Colchis (*Kolkheti*) in the sixth century BCE. Colchis was inhabited by a number of tribes whose settlements lay along the shore of the Black Sea. Chief among those were the Machelones, Heniochi, Zydretae, Lazi, Chalybes, Tibareni/Tubal, Mossynoeci, Macrones, Moschi, Marres, Apsilae, Abasci, Sanigae, Coraxi, Coli, Melanchlaeni, Geloni and Soani (Suani). The ancients assigned various origins to the tribes that inhabited Colchis.

Herodotus regarded the Colchians as "dark-skinned and woolly-haired", an Ancient Egyptian race. Herodotus states that the Colchians, with the Ancient Egyptians and the Ethiopians, were the first to practice circumcision, a custom which he claims that the Colchians inherited from remnants of the army of Pharaoh Sesostris (Senusret III). Herodotus writes:

These claims have been widely rejected by modern historians. It is in doubt if Herodotus had ever been to Colchis or Egypt.

According to Pliny the Elder:

Many modern theories suggest that the ancestors of the Laz-Mingrelians constituted the dominant ethnic and cultural presence in the region in antiquity, and hence played a significant role in the ethnogenesis of the modern Georgians.

Pausanias, a 1st century BCE Greek geographer, citing the poet Eumelos, assigned Aeëtes, the mythological first king of Colchis, a Greek origin.

### Dissolution

The tribes living in the southern Colchis (Macrones, Moschi, and Marres) were incorporated into Persia and formed the 19th satrapy, while the northern tribes submitted "voluntarily" and had to send to the Persian court 100 girls and 100 boys every five years. In 400 BC, shortly after the Ten Thousand reached Trapezus, a battle was fought between them and the Colchis in which the latter were decisively defeated. The influence exerted on Colchis by the vast Achaemenid Empire with its thriving commerce and wide economic and commercial ties with other regions accelerated the socio-economic development of the Colchian land.

Subsequently, the Colchis people appear to have overthrown the Persian Authority, and to have formed an independent state. According to Ronald Suny this western Georgian state was federated to Kartli-Iberia, and its kings ruled through *skeptoukhi* (royal governors) who received a staff from the king. According to David Braund's reading of Strabo's account, the native Colchian dynasty continued ruling the country in spite of its fragmentation into *skeptoukhies*.

Gocha R. Tsetskhladze explains that although Colchis and neighboring Iberia were once viewed as not having been under Achaemenid rule, "ever more evidence is emerging to show that they were, forming a lesser part of the Armenian satrapy".

Mithridates VI quelled an uprising in the region in 83 BC and gave Colchis to his son Mithridates, who, soon being suspected in having plotted against his father, was executed. During the Third Mithridatic War, Mithridates VI made another of his sons, Machares, king of Bosporus and Colchis, who held his power, but only for a short period. On the defeat of Mithridates VI of Pontus in 65 BC, Colchis was occupied by Pompey, who captured one of the local chiefs (sceptuchus) Olthaces, and installed Aristarchus as a *dynast* (63–47 BC). On the fall of Pompey, Pharnaces II, son of Mithridates, took advantage of Julius Caesar being occupied in Egypt, and reduced Colchis, Armenia, and some part of Cappadocia, defeating Gnaeus Domitius Calvinus, whom Caesar subsequently sent against him. His triumph was, however, short-lived. Under Polemon I, the son and heir of Zenon, Colchis was part of the Pontus and the Bosporan Kingdom. After the death of Polemon (8 BC), his second wife Pythodorida of Pontus retained possession of Colchis as well as of Pontus, although the kingdom of Bosporus was wrested from her power. Her son and successor, Polemon II of Pontus, was induced by Emperor Nero to abdicate the throne, and both Pontus and Colchis were incorporated in the Province of Galatia (63) and later, in Cappadocia (81). Phasis, Dioscurias and other Greek settlements of the coast did not fully recover after the wars of 60-40 BC and Trebizond became the economical and political centre of the region.

### Roman Empire

Despite the fact that all major fortresses along the sea coast were occupied by the Romans, their rule was relatively loose. In 69, the people of Pontus and Colchis under Anicetus staged a major uprising against the Roman Empire, which ended unsuccessfully.

The lowlands and coastal area were frequently raided by fierce mountain tribes, with the Svaneti and Heniochi being the most powerful of them. Paying a nominal homage to Rome, they created their own kingdoms and enjoyed significant independence.

Christianity began to spread in the early first century. Traditional accounts relate the event with Andrew the Apostle, Simon the Zealot, and Saint Matthias. The Hellenistic civilization, local paganism and Mithraic Mysteries would, however, remain widespread until the fourth century. Arrian listed the following peoples in his Periplus of the Euxine Sea written in 130-131 (from south to north): Sanni, Machelones, Heniochi, Zudreitae, Lazi, Apsilae, Abasgoi, Sanigs and Zilchi. Goths, dwelling in the Crimea and looking for new homes, raided Colchis in 253, but were repulsed with the help of the Roman garrison of Pitsunda.

### Kingdom of Lazica

By the first century BC, the Lazica (or the Laz) kingdom was established in the region. Lazica became known as Elgrisi in 66 BC when Elgrisi became a vassal of the Roman Empire after the Caucasian campaign of Pompey.

From 542 to 562, Lazica was a scene of the protracted rivalry between the Eastern Roman and Sassanid empires, culminating in the Lazic War, where 1,000 Tzanni auxiliaries under Dagisthaeus participated. Emperor Heraclius'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 the Arabs in the second half of the seventh century. As the result of Muslim invasions, the ancient metropolis, Phasis, was lost and Trebizond became the new Metropolitan bishop of Lazica, since then the name Lazi appears the general Greek name for Tzanni. According to Geography of Anania Shirakatsi of the 7th century, Colchis (*Yeger* in Armenian sources, same as Lazica) was subdivided into four small districts, one of them being Tzanica, that is Chaldia, 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 of Epiphanius of Constantinople) as Lazica. The 10th-century Arab geographer Abul Feda regards city of Trebizond as being largely a Lazian port.

The Laz lived under nominal Byzantine suzerainty (after 780 AD) in the theme of Chaldia, with its capital at Trebizond, governed by the native semi-autonomous rulers, like the Gabras family, of possibly "Greco-Laz" or simply Chaldian origin.

### Ottoman Empire

In 1282, kingdom of Imereti besieged Trebizond, however after the failed attempt to take the city, the Georgians occupied several provinces, 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 Georgian Kingdom of Imereti. Afterwards Laz was under the control of the Kingdom of Georgia until 1547, when it was finally conquered by resurgent Ottoman forces and reorganized into the Lazistan sanjak as part of eyalet of Trabzon.

The Ottomans fought for three centuries to destroy the Christian-Georgian consciousness of the Laz people. Due to the Ottoman Islamization policy, throughout of seventeenth century Lazs gradually converted to Islam. As the Ottomans consolidated their rule, the Millet system was brought to the newly conquered territories. Local orthodox inhabitants, once subordinated to the Georgian Orthodox Church, had to obey Patriarchate of Constantinople, thus gradually becoming Greeks, the process known as Hellenization of Laz people. Lazs who were under the control of Constantinople, soon lost their language and self-identity as they became Greeks and learned Greek, especially Pontic dialect of Greek language, although native language was preserved by Lazs who had become Muslims. In the middle of the seventeen century, several governors of Tunis, who bore the title of Dey were Laz origin, such as: Muhammad Laz (1647-1653), Mustafa Laz (1653-1665) and Ali Laz (1673).

Not only the Pashas (governors) of Trabzon until the 19th century, but real authority in many of the *cazas* (districts) of each sanjak by the mid-17th century lay in the hands of relatively independent native Laz derebeys ("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 by Tahir 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. 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 the Osman Pasha in the 1850s.

In 1547, Ottomans built coastal fortress of Gonia, an important Ottoman outpost in southwestern Georgia, which served as capital of Lazistan; then Batum until it was acquired according to the Congress of Berlin by the Russians in 1878, throughout the Russo-Turkish War, thereafter, Rize became the capital of the sanjak. The Muslim Lazs living in newly established Batumi 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 as Bursa, Yalova, Karamursel, Izmit, Adapazarı and Sapanca. With the spread of Young Turk movement in Lazistan, the short-lived autonomist national movement headed by Faik Efendişi was established. However, it was soon eliminated as the result of Abdul Hamid's intervention.

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.

## Language (Nena)

The **Laz language** (ლაზური ნენა, *lazuri nena*; Georgian: ლაზური ენა, *lazuri ena*, or ჭანური ენა, *ç̌anuri ena* / *ch’anuri ena*) is a Kartvelian language spoken by the Laz people on the southeastern shore of the Black Sea. It is estimated that there are around 20,000 native speakers of Laz in Turkey, in a strip of land extending from Melyat to the Georgian border (officially called Lazistan until 1925), and about 2,000 in Georgia.

Laz is one of the four Kartvelian languages. Along with Mingrelian, it forms the Zan branch of this Kartvelian language family. The two languages are very closely related, to the extent that some linguists refer to Mingrelian and Laz as dialects or regional variants of a single *Zan language*, a view held officially in the Soviet era and still so in Georgia today. In general, however, Mingrelian and Laz are considered as separate languages, due both to the long-standing separation of their communities of speakers (500 years) and to a lack of mutual intelligibility. The Laz are shifting to the Turkish of Trebizond.

The ancient kingdom of Colchis was located in the same region the Laz speakers are found in today, and its inhabitants probably spoke an ancestral version of the language. Today most Laz speakers live in Northeast Turkey, in a strip of land along the shore of the Black Sea: in the Pazar (Atina / ათინა), Ardeşen (Art‌̌aşeni / არტაშენი), Çamlıhemşin (Vica / ვიჯა), Fındıklı (Viǯe / ვიწე), İkizdere (Xuras / ხურას) districts of Rize, and in the Arhavi (Arkabi / არქაბი), Hopa (Xopa / ხოფა) and Borçka (Borçxa / ბორჩხა) districts of Artvin. There are also communities in northwestern Anatolia (Akçakoca in Düzce, Sapanca in Sakarya, Karamürsel and Gölcük in Kocaeli, Bartın, and Yalova) where many immigrants settled since the Russo-Turkish War (1877–1878) and now also in Istanbul and Ankara. Only a few Laz live in Georgia, chiefly in Ajaria. Laz are also present in Germany, where they have migrated from Turkey since the 1960s.

Laz has no official status in either Turkey or Georgia, and no written standard. It is presently used only for familiar and casual interaction; for literary, business, and other purposes, Laz speakers use their country's official language (Turkish or Georgian).

Laz is unique among the Kartvelian languages in that most of its speakers live in Turkey rather than Georgia. While the differences between the various dialects are minor, their speakers feel that their level of mutual intelligibility is low. Given that there is no common standard form of Laz, speakers of its different dialects use Turkish to communicate with each other.

Between 1930 and 1938, Zan (Laz and Mingrelian) enjoyed cultural autonomy in Georgia and was used as a literary language, but an official standard form of the tongue was never established. Since then, all attempts to create a written tradition in Zan have failed, despite the fact that most intellectuals use it as a literary language.

## Famous Lazi People

**Yaşar Yakış** (born 1938, Akçakoca, Turkey) is a Turkish politician. He is a former Foreign Minister, and a former ambassador to the UN Office in Vienna, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia. From 2002 to 2011 he represented Düzce as an MP in the Grand National Assembly of Turkey. He is a member of the Justice and Development Party, the leading political party in Turkey at the moment and he is the chair of the European Union Harmonization Committee of the Grand National Assembly of Turkey.

**Sezen Aksu** (Turkish pronunciation: [seˈzen ˈaksu]; born **Fatma Sezen Yıldırım**; 13 July 1954) is a Turkish pop music singer, songwriter and producer who has sold over 40 million albums worldwide. Her nicknames include the "Queen of Turkish Pop" and "*Minik Serçe"*("Little Sparrow"). Her work with Tarkan resulted in continental hits like "Şımarık" and "Şıkıdım" and her collaboration with Goran Bregović widened her international audience. In 2010, NPR named her as one of the "50 Great Voices" of the world.

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