Aznauri

Aznauri ( Georgian აზნაური , ɑznauri ; pl. Aznaurni , აზნაურნი / aznaurebi , აზნაურები) was a class of Georgian nobles ; it is usually comparable to the count , although the title was originally applied to all nobles and in the late Middle Ages was increasingly restricted to the barons and the lower nobles.

The term is related to the Middle Persian āzāt-ān , "free" or "noble". This is how the lowest dignitaries were designated in the inscriptions of Hajjiabad by King Shapur I (240-270) and there are parallels to the " azat " of Armenia . The term appears for the first time in the Martyrdom of Saint Shushanik , a hagiographic work from the 5th century. A later chronicle by Leonti Mroweli traces the term "aznauri" back to the semi-legendary ruler Azon (the Georgian - uri is a common adjective suffix), whose 1,000 soldiers abandoned him and was subsequently used by Azon's victorious rival Parnawas I. were called "aznauri". However, this etymology has been shown to be incorrect.

The class differences in the Georgian feudal system, which is also known collectively as "aznauri", became apparent in the 9th and 10th centuries. A higher class was delimited by the title "didebuli" (roughly: Aznauri, who held the office of "dideba" at court). Later in the Middle Ages, even clearer boundaries were drawn between aznauri (dependent nobles) and tavadi and mtavari (princes of the dynasty); from the 15th century the Aznauri were addressed as qma (literally " vassal "), both as secular and ecclesiastical dignitaries. This form of dependency was defined in the Watchtang VI code of law . codified between 1705 and 1708 and was to a certain extent considered batonq'moba even after the Russian annexation of Georgia at the beginning of the 19th century. Around 1820 the status of the Aznauri was adjusted to the status of the Russian Dworjanstwo .

literature

• G. Sophia Vashalomidze: The position of women in ancient Georgia: Georgian gender relations, especially during the Sasanid period (= Orientalia Biblica et Christiana , ISSN  0946-5065 , vol. 16). Otto Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden 2007, ISBN 978-3-447-05459-1 , p. 141 ( limited preview in the Google book search).
• Ralph Ardnassak: Father's mistrust. The world of Josef Stalin. First volume: Birth to Yezhovchina. neobooks, Munich 2014, ISBN 978-3-8476-9605-6 ( limited preview in Google book search).

Web links

Wiktionary: აზნაური  - Explanations of meanings, word origins , synonyms, translations (Georgian)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Stephen H. Rapp: Studies In Medieval Georgian Historiography: Early Texts And Eurasian Contexts. Peeters, Löwen 2003, ISBN 90-429-1318-5 , pp. 266, 276, 316.
2. ^ Ronald Grigor Suny: The Making of the Georgian Nation. Indiana University Press, Bloomington 1994, ISBN 0-253-20915-3 , pp. 22, 337.
3. ^ Mariam Lordkipanidze: Georgia in the XI-XII centuries. trans. & ed. v. George B. Hewitt. Ganatleba, Tbilisi 1987, p. 19 ( online ).