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For the city in the region that used to be known as Dersim, see Tunceli.
The region included all parts of Tunceli Province (Çemişgezek, Hozat, Pertek, Tunceli, Ovacık, Pülümür, Nazımiye, Pertek) Tercan, Erzincan, Kemah and Kemaliye in Erzincan Province, Keban in Elâzığ Province, Kiğı in Bingöl Province and Arapkir in Malatya Province).
History
Isuwa on a map of the ancient Middle East in the beginning of the Amarna period, the first half of the 14th century BC.
As a result of the struggle of the Ishuva Kingdom, which was established by the Hurrians in the region, it came under the rule of the Hittites towards the 1600s BC. Then it came under the domination of the Urartians and formed the westernmost part of the country of Urartu.
The Armenian district of Daranaghi (partly corresponding with Tunceli province) shown as a part of the holdings of the Mamikonian dynasty
After Christianity was made Armenia's official religion, the people of Dersim resisted the influence of the new religion and kept their old religious traditions. This was not unique to Dersim.
After the Byzantine Empireoccupied the western parts of Armenia, they deported as many of the Dersimites as they could capture to Thrace. There, they made these refugees serve as soldiers against the Bulgarianinvasion. Despite all Byzantine "tricks", the people of Dersim were able to prevent Byzantine influence from being established in their region.
In 1093 the Seljuks defeated the Byzantine Empire, but the people of Dersim did not submit to the them.
By the time the Safavid Empire was established in 1501, its official religious sect, Shi'ism, had spread to Dersim.
The Kurds of Dersim showed favour towards Shāh Ismā'īl I. They agreed to give up control of the fortress of Kemah so Ismā'īl could use it as a military base. They did so on condition that Ismā'īl would respect their sovereignty and independence.
16th century Ottoman (left) and 17th century Safavid (right) miniatures depicting the battle of Chaldiran
The Ottomans began to establish themselves in the Dersim region after SultanMehmed II the Conqueror defeated the Aq Qoyunlu dynasty in 1473. However, Dersim was not brought under Ottoman control until the Battle of Chaldiran in 1514, during the reign of Selim the Grim.
However, Dersim was difficult to control because of its harsh and rugged geography. At times, it was under the control of local administrators. The people of Dersim rebelled during times when central government administrations were weaker.
The southwestern parts of Dersim were ruled by the Emirate of Çemişgezek, a hereditary and self-governing Kurdish emirate that existed from the 13th century until 1663. It centred on Çemişgezek, which included Mazgirt, Pertek and Sağman. The emirate was inhabited by both Muslims and non-Muslims, and also had a significant Kurdish Alevipopulation, which flourished and expanded thanks to the self-government secured under Ottoman rule despite Ottoman hostility towards the minority.
In 1848, the Dersim Sanjak was formed within the Erzurum Vilayet. In 1880, the Dersim or Hozat vilayet was formed with Hozat as its center, although by 1888 it was made a sanjak/mutasarrifate of the Mamuret-ul-Aziz vilayet (now Elazığ). Even in 1895 between 1897, many Armenian fedayis took refuge in Dersim and benefited from the baht (of asylum) of the Dersimites and were able to protect themselves against the Ottoman administration. Various rebellions took place in the region in the 1877, 1885, 1892, 1907, 1911, 1914 and 1916.
In Turkey
With the abolition of the Ottoman Empire, Turkey became the owner of the region. In 1937, an Alevi Kurdish broke out in the region and was suppressed with the deaths of 30,000 Kurds.
Following the Tunceli Law 1935, which demanded a more powerful government in the region, the Fourth Inspectorate-General (Umumi Müfettişlik, UM) was created in January 1936. The fourth UM span over the provinces of Elazığ, Erzincan, Bingöl and Tunceli, and was governed by a Governor Commander. Most of the employees in the municipality were to be filled with military personnel and the Governor-Commander had the authority to evacuate whole villages and resettle them in other parts.
The juridical guarantees did not comply with the law in the other parts in Turkey. The trials were at most 15 days long and sentences could not be appealed. For a release, the Governor Commander had to give his consent. The application of the death penalty was under the authority of the Governor-Commander, while normally it would be the authority of the Grand National Assembly of Turkey to approve such a punishment.
In 1946 the Tunceli Law was abolished and the state of emergency removed, but the authority of the fourth UM was transferred to the military. The Inspectorates-General was dissolved in 1952 during the Government of the Democrat Party.
People
Armenian family in 1915 from Çemişgezek district, TunceliKurdishtribal leaders of Tunceli (i.e Dersim) in 1895 called Kurdish Sheikhs. Seyid İbrahim, second from the left, was the head of the Abbasan tribe and father of Seyid Riza, an organizer of Dersim rebellion
In 1927, according to Savaş Sertel, 69.5% of Dersim's people spoke Kurdish and Zazaki; 28.8% spoke Turkish; and 0.74% spoke Armenian. At the time, the Zaza people constituted the majority in the area, and were more common than Kurds.
However, Ahmet Kerim Gültekin defined the province as predominantly Kurdish Alevi. Kurmanji Kurdish is the main dialect around Pertek, while Zazaki is spoken in Hozat, Pülümür, Ovacık and Nazımiye. Both Kurmanji and Zaza is spoken in Tunceli town and Mazgirt.
During the Ottoman period, the districts of Mazgirt, Nazımiye and Çemişgezek had a large Armenian population. Following a deportation order in 1915, a large part of this population was deported out of Anatolia. It is likely that the remaining population migrated to Western Anatolia. The town and district of Çemişgezek is populated by both Turks and Kurds.
The Kurdish and Zaza people of the region are divided into tribes:
Of the 20 tribes in Hozat (which includes the present-day central district), 17 are Zazaki and 3 are Kurmanji;
Of the 8 tribes in Çemişgezek, 6 are Zazaki and 2 are Kurmanji;
Of the 17 tribes in Ovacık, 15 are Zazaki and 2 are Kurmanji;
Of the 13 tribes in Pülümür, 12 are Zazaki and 1 is Kurmanji;
Of the 14 tribes in Nazımiye 11 are Zazaki and 3 are Kurmanji;
16 of the 30 tribes in Mazgirt speak Kurmanji and 14 speak Zazaki;
The Bisltun inscriptions of Darius the Great call this region Zuza. This term is similar to the word Zaza, which is the "Kurdish dialect" spoken in Dersim and its region.
Another thesis suggests that the region got its name from the phrase der-sîm, which means "silver gate" in Persian). "Gate" might refer to how frequently Dersim changed between Sasanid and Byzantine control during the Byzantine period.
↑"Turgut Özal'ı rahmetle anıyoruz". Yeni Akit. (in Turkish). Retrieved 9 February 2023. "Babası Malatya/Çırmıktı'lı Ünlüoğulları'ndan banka memuru Mehmet Sıddık Özal, annesi ise Tunceli Çemişgezekli, ilkokul öğretmeni Hafize Hanım (d. 1906 - ö. 1988) olan Turgut Özal kısmen Kürt kökenlidir."
↑"Gültan Kışanak Kimdir?". Bianet. (in Turkish). 9 February 2023. "Ailesi zamanında Dersim'den göçerek Elazığ'ın merkez köylerinden Sünköy'e yerleşmiş bulunan Ağuce aşiretine mensuptur."
↑"Star'daki Yıldız Tilbe'nin Programında Türk-Kürt Gerginliği...". Haber Vitrini. (in Turkish). Retrieved 9 February 2023. "Programın ilerki bölümlerinde Yıldız Tilbe, “Ulaştırma Bakanından uyarı gelmiş. Benim anam Tuncelili, hem Zaza hem Kürt, babam Ağrılı Kürt. Ben bu topraklarda doğdum, büyüdüm. Kürt neyse benim için Türk de odur, Laz da odur, Çerkez de odur. Hiç bir farkı yoktur birbirinden asla” dedi."
Sources
Dersimi, Mehmed Nuri (1952). Kürdistan Tarihinde Dersim (in Turkish). Aleppo: Ani Matbaası. ISBN975-6876-44-1. {{cite book}}: ISBN / Date incompatibility (help)
Ünal, Mehmet Ali (1999). XVI. yüzyılda Çemişgezek Sancağı (in Turkish). Türk Tarih Kurumu Basımevi. ISBN9751609577.
Sertel, Savaş (2014). "Türkiye Cumhuriyeti'nin İlk Genel Nüfus Sayımına Göre Dersim Bölgesinde Demografik Yapı". Fırat Üniversitesi Sosyal Bilimler Dergisi (in Turkish). 24 (1). Elâzığ: 8. doi:10.18069/fusbed.82073. ISSN1300-9702.
Gültekin, Ahmet Kerim (2019), Kurdish Alevism: Creating New Ways of Practicing the Religion (PDF), University of Leipzig
Yıldız, Hatip (2014). Osmanlı Yenileşme Döneminde Dersim Sancağı'nda Eğitim[Education in Dersim Sanjak during the Ottoman Reform Period] (in Turkish). Tunceli: Tunceli Üniversitesi. {{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help)
Cağaptay, Soner (2006). Islam, Secularism and Nationalism in Modern Turkey: Who is a Turk?. Routledge. ISBN978-1-134-17448-5.
Malmîsanij, Mehemed (1988). "Dımıli ve Kurmanci Lehçelerinin Köylere Göre Dağılımı" [Distribution of Dimili and Kurmanji Dialects by Villages]. Berhem (PDF) (in Turkish). 3: 62–67.
Bayır, Derya (2016). Minorities and Nationalism in Turkish Law. Routledge. ISBN978-1-317-09579-8.
Andrews, Peter; Benninghaus, Rüdiger (2002). Ethnic Groups in the Republic of Turkey: Supplement and Index. Reichert. ISBN9783895002298.
van Bruinessen, Martin; Boeschoten, Hendrik (1988). Evliya Çelebi in Diyarbekir. Brill Publishers. ISBN9004081658.
Faroqhi, Suraiya N. (2008). "Guildsmen and handicraft producers". In Faroqhi, Suraiya N. (ed.). The Cambridge History of Turkey. Vol.3. Cambridge University Press. ISBN978-0-521-62096-3.
Gezik, Erdal (2021). "The Kurdish Alevis: The Followers of the Path of Truth". In Bozarslan, Hamit (ed.). The Cambridge History of the Kurds. Cambridge University Press. ISBN9781108623711.
Uzun, Celalettin (2017). "Osmanlı Döneminde Çemişgezek Şehri" (in Turkish). 28. Firat University Social Studies Journal. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
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