Armenia: Yezidis

The Caucasian Knot will make a return visit to the Armavir region tomorrow with Kurdish ethno-musicologist Nahro Zagros. The last visit was in 2006 and detailed in posts here, here, here, and here. The Yezidis — Armenia’s largest ethnic minority — have been a long-term project since 1998 and my last article was published by Geographical in January 2008.

Nestled at the foot of Mount Aragats, Armenia’s highest peak, the villages of Riya Taza and Alagyaz hardly merit more than a passing glance from motorists heading north towards the border with Georgia. Elderly women dressed in colourful garb nonetheless line the road, while children play nearby among rusting abandoned vehicles and farmers herd their cattle in the surrounding pastures. Few stop at the makeshift shacks selling basic groceries and provisions on the roadside. In fact, nobody pays much attention at all.

But for academics from as far away as the UK, France, Germany and Japan, these small, impoverished villages are a dream come true. Located 60 kilometres from Yerevan, the Armenian capital, Riya Taza, Alagyaz and other villages interconnected by pockmarked roads are home to one of the biggest concentrations of Yezidis in the country.

As a group, the Yezidis are defined by their religion, which combines elements from Zoroastrianism, Islam, Christianity and Judaism. They are often accused of devil worship by Christians and Muslims, because they believe that both good and evil are manifestations of God. The Yezidis are the largest ethnic minority in Armenia, the majority having arrived in the country during the mid-19th and early 20th centuries. Worldwide, their precise number is unknown, with estimates varying between 200,000 and 500,000. According to a 2001 census, there are just over 40,000 in Armenia.

What makes the Yezidis so interesting to the academic community is the fact that they are considered to be ethnic Kurds who resisted pressure to convert to Islam. Speaking Kurmanji, the dialect of Kurdish spoken in Turkey, Armenia’s Yezidis are considered by many Kurdologists to represent the purest form of Kurdish culture in the region.

Previous articles on the Yezidis published by Transitions Online and the Institute for War & Peace Reporting are here and here. Interviews conducted as part of continuing research on the Yezidis since 1998 are here with additional coverage here.