Aghuls - Orientation

The Aghuls are one of the indigenous peoples of Daghestan, culturally and linguistically akin to the Lezgins and Tabasarans. Traditionally the Aghuls identified themselves only by their village name (Khutkhul, Khorej, etc.).

The Aghuls inhabit twenty-one settlements in four valleys in the southern highlands of Daghestan. Sixteen of the settlements—including Tpig, the largest—are situated in Aghuldere ("the valley of the Aghuls"), which is believed to be the original homeland of this ethnic group. Until recently the Aghul villages were reachable only by narrow mountain pathways, frequently rendered impassable by landslides and snowfall. (The situation improved in the 1930s with the opening of an automobile road between Tpig and the Lezgin village of Kasumkent). The immediate neighbors of the Aghuls are the Lezgins to the south, the Rutuls to the west, the Dargins and Kaitaks to the north, and the Tabasarans to the east. After the annexation of Daghestan by the Soviet Union, the Aghul territories, along with those of the Lezgins, were incorporated in the Kurakh Raion (district) of the Daghestan Autonomous Republic within the Russian Federated Republic.

The earliest enumeration of the Aghuls, in 1886, gave their population as 6,522. The 1979 census counted 12,078 Aghuls, a sharp rise from the 1970 figure of 8,831. About 95 percent of the Aghuls live in the Daghestan Republic, and over 99 percent claim Aghul as their native language.

The Aghul language belongs to the Lezghians (Samurian) Subgroup of the Daghestanian Group of the Northeast Caucasian Family. It is most closely related to Tabasaran. Aghul has never been used as a written language; writing is done in Russian or, for local purposes, Lezgin. Knowledge of Lezgin, Russian, and sometimes other local languages (Lak, Dargin, Tabasaran) is widespread among the men. In earlier times Aghul women were largely monolingual, a situation that has changed with the introduction of universal education.

In the eighteenth century the Aghuls of the Aghuldere were under the hegemony of the Kazikumukh khans. The other Aghul valleys were under the control of other feudal rulers—for example, the qadis (Islamic judges) of Tabasaran. With the conquest of Daghestan by the Russian Empire in the early nineteenth century the Aghul valleys, along with part of the Lezgin territory, became part of the Kyurin Okrug (region).