Total population | |
---|---|
c. 10,000 [1] | |
Regions with significant populations | |
Russia | 2,551 (2021) [2] |
Azerbaijan | 4,100 |
Ukraine | 592 [3] |
Armenia | 202 [4] |
Georgia | 174 [5] |
Languages | |
Udi, Azerbaijani, and Russian | |
Religion | |
Albanian-Udi Church, Eastern Orthodox Christianity | |
Related ethnic groups | |
Other Northeast Caucasian-speaking peoples Especially Aghuls, Lezgins, and Tabasarans |
Udis (endonym Udi or Uti) are a native people of the Caucasus that currently live mainly in Russia and Azerbaijan, with smaller populations in Georgia, Armenia, Kazakhstan, Ukraine, and other countries. Their total number is about 10,000 people. They speak the Udi language, which belongs to the Northeast Caucasian language family. Some also speak Azerbaijani, Russian, Georgian, or Armenian, depending on where they reside. Their religion is Christianity.
The Udi are considered to be one of the 26 tribes of the Caucasian Albania of late antiquity. According to the classical authors, the Udi inhabited the area of the eastern Caucasus along the coast of the Caspian Sea, in a territory extending to the Kura River in the north. There was also province of the Kingdom of Armenia, Utikʻ (later annexed by Caucasian Albania), which likely bore the name of the ancestors of the Udis. [6] [7]
Since the 5th century, the Udi people are often mentioned in the Armenian sources. More extensive information is given in The History of the Land of Ałuank [8] by Movsēs Kałankatuatsʻi. The Udi were one of the predominating Caucasian Albanian tribes. [9]
Due to their Caucasian Udi language and their Christian faith, the Udis are regarded as the last remnants of the old Caucasian Albanians. Under Arab and later Persian rule, some of them converted to Islam, and soon adopted the Azeri language. Others assimilated into the Georgians or Armenians. The Armenian Apostolic Church held services exclusively in the Armenian language and refused to ordain a local Udi priest, against which Udis protested: [10]
...our strong desire is that our pastor be a representative of our people, for although we belong to the Church of St. Gregory the Enlightener, our language is different: we are the Uti and we know that these people live nowhere except for the villages of Nizh and Vardashen. We do not have the slightest command of the Armenian language; nor have we any idea about what the Gospel says...
Today, most Udis belong to the Eastern Orthodox Church, while in Nij, they belong to the Armenian Apostolic (or Gregorian) Church and used to conduct services in Armenian. Centuries of life in the Armenian, Iranian, and Turkish spheres influenced their culture, as is expressed in Udi folk traditions and their material culture. [11]
Whereas the Udis of Vartashen remained in the Armenian Apostolic Church, the Udi Christians of Nij changed from the Armenian to the Russian Orthodox Church soon after the beginning of Russian rule. [10] In 2003, the “Albanian-Udi Christian Religious Community” was founded in Azerbaijan, which seeks to restore the Albanian Apostolic Church as a church independent from the Armenian Apostolic Church. [12]
Until 1991, the main Udi villages were Vartashen (now Oğuz) and Nij in Azerbaijan, as well as the village of Zinobiani in Georgia. In the recent past, Udi people also lived in Mirzabeily, Soltan Nuha, Jourlu, Mihlikuvah, Vardanli (now Karimli), Bajan, Kirzan, and Yenikend. In contemporary times they have mostly assimilated with the people of Azerbaijan. [13]
Vartashen was mainly a Udi village, where the Vartashen dialect of the Udi language was spoken by about 3000 people in the 1980s. The Udis of Vartashen belonged to the Armenian Apostolic Church and had Armenian surnames. During the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, the Udis as well as the Armenians left to Armenia. [14] Some 50 Udi people remained among some 7000 ethnic Azeris in the town, which was renamed to Oghuz. [15]
Today the only places of concentrated Udi settlement are the village of Nij in Azerbaijan and the village of Zinobiani in Georgia, which was founded by Udi refugees from Vartashen in the 1920s. [15] [13]
A significant group of Udi lives in the Georgian village of Zinobiani, founded by Udi from Vartashen in the 1920s. Small groups reside in Russia in the Rostov region (Shahty, Taganrog, Rostov-na-Donu, Azov, Aleksandrovka); in the Krasnodar territory (Krasnodar, areas of Dinskoy, Leningrad, Kushchevsky); in the Stavropol Territory (Minvody, Pyatigorsk); in the Volgograd region (Volgograd, Dubovy Ovrag); and also in Sverdlovsk, Ivanovo, Kaluga areas, Moscow, Saint Petersburg, Astrakhan; in Georgia in the outskirts of Tbilisi, Poti, Rustavi, in Armenia mainly in the Lori Province, and Aktau in Kazakhstan. Some also live in Ukraine's Kharkiv oblast. [15]
The Udi language is a Northeast Caucasian language of the Lezgic branch. The two primary dialects are Nij (Nidzh) and Vartashen. The people today also speak Azerbaijani, Russian, and Georgian. The Udi are commonly bilingual, and less frequently trilingual, depending on residence and work. Many use Udi only in daily life, but for official purposes, the Udi use the language of the country in which they reside, such as Armenian.
The Udi language has two dialects: Nidzh and Vartashen. Nidzh dialect has sub-dialects that are divided into three subgroups - bottom, intermediate, top. Linguists believe the dialects originated according to geographic groupings of the Udi from the Tauz region: the villages of Kirzan and Artzah (Artsakh, v. Seysylla, Gasankala) moved to Nidzh. [16] The Vartashen dialect has two sub-dialects: Vartashen and Oktomberry.
In the past the Udi language was one of the widespread languages of Caucasian Albania, on the basis of which in the 5th century the Caucasian Albanian script [17] was created by the Armenian monk Mesrop Mashtots. [18] The alphabet had 52 letters. The language was widely used, as major Bible texts were translated into the Caucasian Albanian language.[ citation needed ] Church services were conducted in it. After the fall of the Caucasian Albanian state, the Caucasian Albanian liturgical language was gradually replaced by Armenian in church.[ citation needed ]
In 1880, the population of the Udi people living in the area around Qabala in northern gandonbaijan [19] was estimated at 10,000. In the year 1897, the number of the Udi people was given around 4,000, in 1910, it was around 5,900. They were counted as 2,500 in the census of 1926, as 3,700 in 1959, as 7,000 in 1979, and in 1989, the Udi people numbered 8,652. In census of 1999 in Azerbaijan, there were 4,152 Udis. [20]
In the 2002 Russia Census, 3,721 residents identified as Udi. Most of the Udi people (1,573 persons) in Russia have been registered in Rostov region.[ citation needed ]
Caucasian Albania is a modern exonym for a former state located in ancient times in the Caucasus, mostly in what is now Azerbaijan. The modern endonyms for the area are Aghwank and Aluank, among the Udi people, who regard themselves as descended from the inhabitants of Caucasian Albania. However, its original endonym is unknown.
Arran, also known as Aran or Ardan, was a geographical name used in ancient and medieval times to signify a historically-Iranian region which lay within the triangle of land, lowland in the east and mountainous in the west, formed by the junction of the Kura and Aras rivers, including the highland and lowland Karabakh, Mil plain and parts of the Mughan plain. In pre-Islamic times, it corresponded roughly to the territory of the modern-day Republic of Azerbaijan. The term is the Middle Persian equivalent to the Greco-Roman Albania. It was known as Aghvania, Alvan-k in Armenian, and Al-ran in Arabic.
The Udi language, spoken by the Udi people, is a member of the Lezgic branch of the Northeast Caucasian language family. It is believed an earlier form of it was the main language of Caucasian Albania, which stretched from south Dagestan to current day Azerbaijan. The Old Udi language is also called the Caucasian Albanian language and possibly corresponds to the "Gargarian" language identified by medieval Armenian historians. Modern Udi is known simply as Udi.
Oğuz is a city, municipality and the capital of the Oghuz District of Azerbaijan. The village was populated by Armenians and Udis before the exodus of Armenians from Azerbaijan after the outbreak of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.
Amaras Monastery is an Armenian monastery near the village of Sos, in the region of Nagorno-Karabakh, Azerbaijan. It was a prominent religious and educational center in medieval Armenia.
Utik, also known as Uti, was a historical province and principality within the Kingdom of Armenia. It was ceded to Caucasian Albania following the partition of Armenia between Sassanid Persia and the Eastern Roman Empire in 387 AD. Most of the region is located within present-day Azerbaijan immediately west of the Kura River, while a part of it lies within the Tavush province of present-day northeastern Armenia.
Christianity in Azerbaijan is a minority religion. Christians who estimated between 280,000 and 450,000 (3.1%–4.8%) are mostly Russian and Georgian Orthodox. There is also a small Protestant Christian community which mostly came from Muslim backgrounds. Due to the very hostile relations between Azerbaijan and Armenia, Armenian Christians have practically entirely fled the country, and so the Christians in Azerbaijan are members of various other groups, mostly Russians.
The Caucasian Albanian script was an alphabetic writing system used by the Caucasian Albanians, one of the ancient Northeast Caucasian peoples whose territory comprised parts of the present-day Republic of Azerbaijan and Dagestan.
The Church of Kish. Previous research had proposed that it had functioned at different times as a Caucasian Albanian Apostolic church, a Chalcedonian church within the Georgian Orthodox Church, and later as an Armenian Apostolic Church.
The population of Armenia includes various significant minority ethnic groups.
Nij is a town in the Qabala District of Azerbaijan. Located 40 kilometers south-west of the city of Qabala, Nij is one of the world's few settlements of Udi people. It has a population of 5,744.
Kiş is a village and municipality in the Shaki Rayon of Azerbaijan. It is located approximately 5 km north of Shaki. It has a population of 6,244.
The Church of Albania or the Albanian Apostolic Church was an ancient, briefly autocephalous church established in the 5th century. In 705, it fell under the religious jurisdiction of the Armenian Apostolic Church as the Catholicosate of Aghvank centered in Caucasian Albania, a region spanning present-day northern Azerbaijan and southern Dagestan.
Voroshil Levonovich Gukasyan (1932–1986) was a Soviet linguist, caucasologist and specialist in Udi language and Caucasian Albanian inscriptions. He was born in the village Nij, Azerbaijan and was Udi by ethnicity.
Saint Elisæus, Ełišay, Yeghishe, Elishe or Ełišē was the first patriarch of the Church of Caucasian Albania by local tradition.
Zinobi Silikashvili was a Georgian public figure of Udi origin, the first leader of the Georgian Udi community and founder of Zinobiani village in Qvareli Municipality of Georgia.
Zinobiani, formerly Oktomberi is a village in Georgia. It is located in eastern Georgia, in the Qvareli Municipality of the Kakheti region. It has been one of the main places of compact residence of the Udis since 1920s.
Church of Saint Elisæus — was a former Eastern Orthodox church and Armenian Apostolic Church named after Elisaeus of Albania; now a museum located in Oğuz, Azerbaijan.
Eghiazar was the Catholicos and head of Caucasian Albanian Church in the late 7th century.
The Church of Blessed Virgin Mary of Bulun or simply Bulun Church is a 19th-century church in Nij, Azerbaijan. Located in the upper quarter of the village, locals call it Bulun Church to distinguish it from the Tsilin Church in the lower quarter of the village. It was founded as an Armenian church and named Church of the Mother of God.
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