Tsakhurs - History and Cultural Relations



The Tsakhurs are an ancient, indigenous population of the eastern Caucasus. Their early ethnic history is related to that of Caucasian Albania and of the peoples speaking languages of the Lezgin group. Scholars believe that the Tsakhurs were an ethnically distinct entity among the Lezgin peoples no earlier than the fifteenth century. The name "Tsakhur" first appears in Armenian and Georgian sources of the twelfth century (in the first as "Tsekhoik"). Later in the Middle Ages (thirteenth century) the village of Tsakhur was the subject of writings by the Arabic cosmograph Zakaria al-Kazreni and subsequently by the Turkish geographer and traveler Evlia Chelebi (seventeenth century). Originally the Tsakhurs lived within the limits of contemporary Daghestan but after that pushed forward into northern Azerbaijan. From the fifteenth century on there was a feudal formation (sultanate) on Tsakhur territory, with its center originally in the town of Tsakhur in Daghestan but later, from the seventeenth century on, in the city of Elisu in Azerbaijan. Among the Azerbaijan Tsakhurs there also existed free village communes in Elisu, Karadulakh, Bagh Suragil, Jannykh, Mukhukh, and Sabunchi. The inhabitants of the last three named settlements, together with their Avar neighbors, formed a union (the Dzharo-Belokanskiye Free Communes). Throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the Tsakhurs were fighting for their independence against the Turks and Persians, who were engaged in a struggle for supremacy in the Caucasus. From 1707 to 1723 the Azerbaijan Tsakhurs battled against the Iranians. The Persian army, lead by Nadir Shah, invaded Daghestan in 1735, 1741, and 1743, burning villages, killing or enslaving many Daghestanians, and bringing famine and epidemic upon those who remained. By the beginning of the nineteenth century, the Tsakhurs were looking to Russia for help. With the signing of the Gulistan Treaty of 1813, the Tsakhur territory (in the form of the Elisu sultanate) was incorporated into the Russian Empire. The Tsakhur sultan Daniel-Beg initially gave his loyalty to Russia, for which he was granted authority over the Rutul Mahal, but in 1844 he gave his support to the anti-Russian uprising of the Islamic Caucasian peoples under the leadership of Shamil. Many Tsakhurs joined Shamil's army. In 1852, to counteract this source of support for the rebellion, the Russian government exiled the Daghestanian Tsakhurs to Azerbaijan and destroyed many of their settlements. In 1861, after the Shamil revolt was crushed, the Tsakhurs were allowed to return to their homeland.


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