Armenian-Tats

The Armenian-speaking Tats, or Armenian-Tats, were part of the diverse mosaic of indigenous peoples in Eastern Transcaucasia. Historian and ethnographer A. Hakobyan notes that they were also known as Tat Armenians, Armenian-speaking Tats, Gregorian Tats, and Armenian-Persians.

This ethnoreligious group is recorded in Shirvan as early as the 18th century. During this time, they consolidated around the Armenian Apostolic faith, which helped them maintain their Armenian identity. The Armenian-Tats were Armenians who had adopted Persian as their spoken language; however, this shift did not diminish their sense of identity. Similarly, Shirvan was also home to Jewish-Tats and Muslim-Tats.

In the 18th century, in the regions of Arran and Shirvan—where the Republic of Azerbaijan would later be established in the early 20th century—both spoken and written Persian remained in use. Persian became prominent in Shirvan initially due to Arab influence and later through the fully Persianized Shirvanshah (Mazyadid) dynasty, which ruled from the 8th to the 16th centuries. The feudal elite and educated classes of medieval Shirvan adopted Persian as the primary language for culture, literature, and interethnic communication. Alongside Persian, Armenian and various Southeastern Caucasian languages were also preserved and used within the region; however, a segment of the population had transitioned to Persian.

What was the relationship between the Armenian-Tats’ language and Persian?

The Armenian-Tats were called so because they spoke Tat. "Tat" was a tribal name used by Turks to refer to their Persian-speaking neighbors, which later became the name for their language. In other words, Tat was the local variant of Persian spoken in the early 19th-century khanates of Baku, Shirvan, and Guba. Interestingly, as Turkic languages spread, the Armenian-Tats also became fluent in Turkic. This created a situation where Persophonia, together with adherence to the Armenian Apostolic faith, became a means for preserving Armenian identity in the face of growing Turkic influence.

Researchers have identified several densely populated Armenian-Tat settlements, including Madrasa (located 7 km southwest of Shamakhi city in what was the Shamakhi region of Soviet Azerbaijan), Kilvar (in the Divichi region of Soviet Azerbaijan), and Khachmaz. Like other indigenous peoples in present-day Azerbaijan, the Armenian-Tats faced ethnic cleansing. Although their migration northward from Eastern Transcaucasia to Russia began in the late 18th century, the establishment of the Republic of Azerbaijan in 1918 was marked by overt and large-scale ethnic cleansing of Eastern Transcaucasia’s indigenous peoples, including the Armenian-Tats. As ethnographer A. Hakobyan noted, the Armenian-speaking Tat communities of Madrasa and Kilvar completely left the territory of the Republic of Azerbaijan only in 1988, as a result of further Azerbaijani genocidal actions.

Image: the Armenian church of Khachmaz

Bibliography

Hakobyan, A., "Tat-speaking Armenians: 15 Centuries from 'Armenianness' to 'Armenianness,'" in South Caucasus: Territories. Histories. People, Tbilisi, Diogene, 2006, pp. 190-212.

Hakobyan, A., "From the History of the Settlement and Deportations of Armenian-Tats (Early 18th - Late 19th Centuries)," Armenological Journal Haykazyan, vol. XXI, Beirut, 2001, pp. 125-143.

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