The fading of indigenous peoples from Azerbaijan's ethnic map

Boris Miller, a Soviet Iranologist, was the first to provide information about the Talysh tribe calling themselves Charojs, who lived in the village of Sarak located 10 km northwest of the city of Astara in Azerbaijan. He referred to the village as Sarakh, whose inhabitants, the Charojs, are Sunni Talysh people who migrated there from the Talish Dulab region of Iran. The Charojs call the village Sak. Miller noted that the Charojs neither understood nor spoke Turkish and, moreover, had no desire to learn it. This Talysh tribe stood out particularly for its unique local beliefs, traditions, and for proudly preserving the culture inherited from their ancestors. According to a tradition widespread among the Charojs, the first Charojs migrated from Iran in the early 19th century and settled in these areas.

Today, the village is now known as Sarak. According to the 1915 census, 267 Charojs lived in Sarak. In 1999-2000, a group of scholars conducted research in the area, supported by Novruz Ali Mammadov, a linguist, Talysh cultural figure residing in Azerbaijan, head of the "Talysh Cultural Center," and editor-in-chief of the newspaper Voice of Talishstan (he was killed in prison by Azerbaijani authorities in 2009). The ethnographic study revealed that the number of Charoj population of Sarak had decreased due to pressures of enforced Turkification. Not only are there no state programs to support the preservation of the dialect and culture of the traditionally conservative Charojs, but all conditions are being created to facilitate their assimilation into Azerbaijani identity.

Literature

Б. В. Миллер. Предварительний отчет о поездке в талыш летом. Баку. 1926.

Sociolinguistic Situation of the Talysh in Azerbaijan by John Clifton, Calvin Tiessen, Gabriela Deckinga, Laura Lucht. SIL International. 2005․

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