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DOI: 10.46698/VNC.2022.18.11.002
CHRISTIAN ELEMENTS IN THE ZAZA-ALEVIT RELIGION
Arakelova, Victoria A.
Kavkaz Forum. 2022. Issue 11.
Abstract:
The Zazas are an Iranian people predominantly inhabiting the Dersim region
(today’s Tunceli in Eastern Anatolia). Part of the Zazas are Sunnis, the rest profess
a syncretic religion, formally attributed to Alevism, but marked by a number of
specific features that are characteristic exclusively of the religious tradition of the
Zaza-Alevis. Among the latter there is an impressive layer of Christian elements,
borrowed during the period of centuries of close contacts with Armenian
neighbors. The ancestors of the Zazas, who moved from the Caspian Deylam to the
extreme west of historical High Armenia as a result of several waves of migration
in the 10th-12th centuries, lived in close contact with Armenians, which greatly
influenced the Zaza culture, their religious tradition and language. This article is
a brief overview of some aspects illustrating this influence, namely: the worship
of Armenian Christian shrines in the Zaza environment, the features of Christian
saints in the images of the Zaza folk pantheon, Armenian Christian terminology in
the Zaza language. The Zaza-Alevi religion is not so much a complex phenomenon
as a process that, in fact, is not completed and still continues. Its uniqueness is
largely determined by the selectivity of the elements borrowed by the people’s
consciousness, as well as the peculiarities of their interweaving into its system
components (into a cult, a complex of beliefs, a worldview paradigm). In addition
to the features that have been preserved from the times of deep archaism,
elements of a number of religions are intertwined in its cult practice.
Keywords: the Zaza-Alevis, Christian elements, Khalvori Vank Monastery, Khyzr, Duzgyn
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