Lazes

The Lazes (or Tchanes) are Caucasian people, speaking the Laze, a dialect Géorgien, which live mainly in the North-East of the Turkey; a community laze is also present in Georgia. They are of Moslem and Christian confession in the past. Their culture, their language, their music and their gastronomy, clearly differentiate them from the other people of Anatolia and from the the Caucasus. In spite of their ethnic and cultural differences with the remainder of the Turkish people, they are well integrated in this country, even if their language were prohibited.

Geography

Lazes (Turkish Karadeniz) formerly trained people with a single language on an active territory of Batoumi (Georgia HTTP: /fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Georgie_carte.gif) with Trébizonde (Turkey). Now some groups subistent in the south-west of Georgia and almost totality in the North-East of Turkey. The language laze is indexed in the mériional group Caucasian languages with the languages géorgienne, Mégrélienne, Svan. Several dialects lazes were studied by Georges Dumézil.

History

The history of these people goes back to the 5th century before J.C. Lazes are mainly Moslem today in spite of a past préchrétien and Christian. One notes the conversion of Tzath, king of Lazes, in Colchide, 520 after J. - C. The Persian king Chosroês Anoushirvan (531-579) invades the country of Lazes into 541, carrying Pétra. Certains Lazes joined the Tatares. Others fled the Turkish army which wanted to enlist them of force and migrated until in the south of France. Thus one finds many Lazes in Ariège, as Elise Lazes (Mazelier wife] for example. Certains Lazes even continued their migration to Quebec, then in the United States, on several generations.

Nowadays, the Laze language is disappearing in its written form and Laze populates it is divided into two by the border between Georgia and Turkey.

Personalities Lazes

Current Turkish the Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan is resulting from this community.

Birol Topaloglu , singer and player of kemençe tries to save the culture of its people of the lapse of memory by the music and the oral tradition: " The Turks have evil to admit that we lived on this ground of any eternity. They are convinced that we followed the same course as them, from the Central Asia. However, our cousins are not of Ouzbecs or Turkmènes, they are Megrels and Svans de Géorgie."

The Musician Kazim Koyuncu was one of the political singers in Turkey. He sang for the Laze people and enormously contributed to the promotion of his culture: cultures of the lazes.

Bibliography

- Tales lazes (Institute of Ethnology, vol. 27) Tales and legends of Oubykhs (Institute of Ethnology, vol. 60) by Georges Dumézil.

External bond

  • Lazes

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