Chabur Assyrians

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The Assyrian Church of the East is practically only present within Syria among the Assyrians in northeast Syria. Here the Cathedral of Our Lady in al-Hasakah , the capital of the Governorate of al-Hasakah on the Chabur River .

As Khabur Assyrians , in the relevant standard works of Shabo Talay Khabur Assyrians , the most part of be Assyrian Church of the East belonging Assyrians called that after the genocide of the Syrian Christians in the Ottoman Empire and massacres in Iraq in the 1930s by the river Chabur in northeastern Syria ( al-Hasakah governorate ) in 36 villages between the border town of Raʾs al-ʿAin and the provincial capital of al-Hasakah , about 50 km to the southeast . They formed the largest Aramaic language island in Syria. After the Daesh (IS) reign of terror during the civil war in Syria , only around 900 to 1000 of the approximately 20,000 Chabur Assyrians returned to their villages, while the majority are now believed to be living abroad.

Religion, ethnic identity and language

The vast majority of the Chabur Assyrians belonged to the Assyrian Church of the East , which in Syria is practically only present in the al-Hasakah governorate and which has only been present since the arrival of the Chabur Assyrians. The Cathedral of Our Lady, which is responsible for all of Syria, is located in al-Hasakah . A new split in the 20th century made things more difficult for the Assyrian Church, as a result of which an opposing bishop who adhered to the Julian calendar resided in Tell Hermez (Tell Hormiz, Tall Hirmiz, Txuma-Gawaya) on the Chabur from 1965 onwards, who was attached to an opposing patriarch Oriented in Baghdad , Mar Addai II, elected in 1972, Givargis , while the reformers, who adopted the Gregorian calendar as a majority, were based in al-Hasakah. The bishopric in al-Hasakah was vacant for a long time. The Assyrians of Tell Arbusch and a minority in Tell Sakra joined the Chaldean Catholic Church united with Rome , so that Tell Arbusch became a completely Chaldean village and the location of the Chaldean Catholic monastery of St. George with two nuns from Iraq. In Europe, the name " Nestorian " or " Mountain Nestorian " was used for a long time for the Assyrian Church of the East , but this is rejected by the Assyrians themselves. The self-designation is Suraye ("Syrian") or Aturaye ("Assyrian") across the confessional differences . The written language used in the churches is Syriac , an older language level of Eastern Aramaic , while some variants based on modern Eastern Aramaic dialects are also used for literature. The dialects of the Chabur Assyrians go back to dialects previously spoken in the Hakkâri area , but have developed considerably in the decades since they left there. Aramayīt ("Aramaic") is rarely used as a self-designation for the Aramaic language (only occasionally by clerics), rather the vernacular is referred to as Surət ("Syriac"), in educated circles sometimes also as Lešana aturaya ("Assyrian language") . There are also differentiated names for the different language levels of Aramaic (literary language, colloquial language).

history

The region on the Chabur was only sparsely populated until the beginning of the 20th century, mostly by Arab Bedouins . The Khabur Assyrians are descendants of Assyrians, up to the First World War in the province of Hakkari lived. A majority of the 160,000 Assyrians of the Ottoman Empire around 1900 had their home here. For a long time, the Assyrian Christians in this region had a considerable degree of autonomy, which they sometimes defended by force of arms. This also happened during the time of the genocide of the Syrian Christians (Sayfo), when Assyrian units defended themselves against attacks by Kurdish associations and, increasingly, the regular Turkish army in 1915. After the failure of peace efforts, the Assyrian Patriarch Mar Benyamin Shimun XXI. on May 1, 1915 Turkey waged war. As a result, Assyrian fighters holed up in their fortified churches for months until October 1915. At the end of the year, the Assyrians and their patriarch Benyamin Shimun XXI. flee to Urmia in northwestern Iran . On March 3, 1918 Shimun XXI. ambushed and murdered by the Kurdish tribal leader Simko Schikak (Ismael Agha). In July 1918, Turkish troops marched into Urmia and killed the local and refugee Christians there. The surviving Assyrians from Hakkari came about Hamadan to Baquba in Baghdad . Around 8,000 Assyrians returned to Hakkâri, where there was another massacre by the Turkish army in 1924. The British mandate in Iraq , in turn, used Assyrian soldiers to put down insurrections, as was the case in the military coup in Iraq in 1941 . In the course of a heated atmosphere, several thousand Assyrians were murdered in the Semile massacre near Dohuk in northern Iraq on August 7, 1933, after hundreds of Assyrians had tried unsuccessfully to cross the border into the French mandate of Syria. It was not until 1934 that the French agreed to allow Assyrian refugees to enter Syria, and by 1937 around 10,000 Assyrians, originally from the Hakkari area , settled on the Chabur River, although the tribal associations in the new villages remained intact. With the declaration of independence of Syria in 1941, they became Syrian citizens. Most of the Assyrians from Hakkari stayed in Iraq or emigrated to western countries. The Chabur Assyrians used the water of the Chabur to cultivate their fields in the arid climate. In this way they achieved a relative prosperity, but at the end of the 20th century the water of the Chabur became scarce due to excessive water withdrawal. Droughts and conflicts with Arab Bedouins and Kurdish farmers led to emigration and a temporary population decline in the villages on the Chabur as early as the 1940s. Skilled workers and young people increasingly emigrated in the following decades, but the population still increased until the beginning of the 21st century. Around the year 2000 around 20,000 Assyrians lived in Syria, 15,000 of them in the villages on the Chabur. In several cities in the area, such as al-Hasakah , al-Qamishli and al-Malikiyah , Christians formed the majority in the middle of the 20th century . This changed in the 1960s, when the large landowners - in many cases Kurds - were expropriated and the lands were distributed to mostly Muslim smallholders - mostly Arab - for the purpose of Arabization under the " Arab Belt ". In the cities and in Tell Tamer , the largest Christian village , the Muslim population grew significantly faster than the Christian one, so that around the year 2000 Sunni Muslims - Kurds and settled Arab Bedouins - formed the majority. Unlike Tell Tamer, however, most of the Chabur Assyrian villages remained entirely or almost entirely Assyrian. Due to immigration from the Chabur villages and from al-Qamishli, the Assyrian community in the city of al-Hasakah - albeit as a minority - increased sharply to around 500 Assyrian families at the end of the 20th century, while the number of Assyrians in al-Qamishli decreased from 200 to 50 families. One of the symbols of the Assyrians' prosperity was the church of St. Mary of Tell Nasri, which was built with financial support from the diaspora and was visible from afar .

In the civil war in Syria , the Islamist terrorist organization Daesh (IS) , which captured ar-Raqqa in mid-2013 and made it its capital, was active in northeast Syria and also very successful. The regular Syrian army had since withdrawn from here. Assyrian vigilante groups were formed, but at that time they had no chance against the heavily armed and well-financed Islamists, even in alliance with the Kurdish People's Defense Units (YPG) (as part of the Syrian Democratic Forces ). On February 23, 2015, Daesh units attacked the Assyrian villages on a broad front from the southwest, defeated the Kurdish and Assyrian defenders and took the area completely by February 26. Alone Tell Hermez (Tell Hormuz) 2015 eleven Assyrian fighters of the Khabur guards and fell on February 23, the Military Council of the Syriac (Assyrian) in a desperate struggle against the superior jihadists. While several thousand Chabur Assyrians were initially able to flee to al-Hasakah and al-Qamishli, over 300 Assyrians were held hostage by the terrorists. They were able to extort substantial ransom money and murdered a number of their prisoners, with the execution of three hostages being filmed. Other abductees are still missing. The al-Hasakah-based bishop of the Assyrian Church of the East in Syria, Aprim Athniel , who has held this office since 1999, played an important role in the negotiations for the release of the hostages and the payment of the necessary ransom . Aprim Athniel made it clear in a letter to Daesh that the Assyrian Church of the East was not affiliated with any armed party in the civil war in Syria, that the Christian militias did not act on behalf of the church and that Christians had no relationship with a “culture of arms”. With this, he struck a completely different note than 100 years earlier Patriarch Mar Benyamin Shimun XXI., Who had declared war on the Ottoman Empire on May 1, 1915.

On February 27, 2015, not a single Assyrian was living in the villages on the Chabur. In the weeks that followed, all the churches were blown up and all the houses of the Chabur Assyrians were destroyed by the Islamists. As one of the last buildings, St. Mary's Church in Tell Nasri was blown up on Easter Sunday, April 5, 2015 , when Kurdish and Assyrian units tried in vain to recapture the place. Only a few days after the Daesh conquered the Khabur, the first Assyrian refugees arrived in Beirut and other cities abroad. In May 2015, US air strikes enabled the YPG and the Syrian (Assyrian) Military Council to retake the Tell Tamer area. At the end of June 2015, Daesh al-Hasakah attacked, where he controlled several parts of the city in July 2015. On August 1, 2015, the Islamists were also expelled here, with the Syrian Democratic Forces taking around three quarters of the city and the Syrian army taking a quarter. Assyrians fought both on the side of the Syrian army and in the ranks of the Syrian Democratic Forces. The latter include the Military Council of the Syriacs and the Sutoro militia, while the government forces also called Gozarto Protection Forces called Sootoro counts militia.

While many Assyrian refugees initially found shelter in other parts of Syria, many of them went abroad. Even after the Islamists were expelled, very few Chabur Assyrians returned, so that today a large part of the villages on the Chabur are deserted. After several experiences of genocide within a century, the willingness of the Assyrians to continue living in an Islamic environment is rated as low. A significant number of Sunni Muslims also supported Daesh. The occupation of parts of the country by the Turkish army, as a result of the Turkish military offensive in northern Syria in 2019 in Raʾs al-ʿAin on the Chabur River, also poses a considerable threat to the Christians in northeast Syria . Due to the persecution by the Turkish army and its Islamist allies, representatives of the Christians are expressing their fear that there will soon no longer be any Christians able to live in the region.

In 2019, Tell Tamer is the only village on the Chabur with around 400 of the former 3,000 Christian residents in which more than 100 Christians still live. According to a report from the end of 2019, only Assyrian Christians have returned to this place, which is also the base of a Christian women's unit of the Syrian Military Council, but none of the other residents - Kurdish and Arab Muslims -. In 2018, a total of around 900 lived in the villages on the Chabur of former 10,000 Assyrian Christians, and there were only regular services in one church.

Documentation of language and oral tradition

The orientalist Shabo Talay , who was born in Midin ( Öğündük , Province of Şırnak ), carried out field research at Chabur in the 1990s as part of his habilitation in 2006 at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg , which he described in his habilitation thesis “The New Aramaic Dialects of the Assyrians at the Khabur in Northeast Syria “Evaluated. The author has published The New Aramaic Dialects of the Khabur Assyrians in Northeast Syria: Introduction, Phonology and Morphology (2008) as well as New Aramaic Texts in the Dialects of the Khabur Assyrians in Northeast Syria (2009).

Villages of the Chabur Assyrians

Aramaic dialect Assyrian tribe Village name Arabic Village name Assyrian River L / R Assyrian residents 1998 Population according to the 2004 census Assyrians 2010 Assyrians 2019
Tiyari (related: Chal)
Upper Tiyari Tell Tawil Bnerumta L. 273 669 250 11
Tell Tamer Tell Tamer L. 3000 7285 3000 400
Tell Ahmar Tell Tamer L. 75 k. A. 40 0
Tell Ashnan Tell Tamer L. 72 k. A. k. A. k. A.
Tell Nasri Walto L. 1000 650 1000 5
Lower Tiyari Umm Waghfa Sarspido L. 600 k. A. 600 27
Chal Tell Bureij Chal L. 100 109 75 5
Txuma (related: Arbush, Tal)
Txuma Tell Hermez Txuma-Gawaya R. 800 575 700 0
Umm Ghargan Txuma-Gawaya L. 350 275 250 30th
Tell Ruman Tahtani Mazra L. 35 k. A. 20th 0
Tell Wardiat Mazra L. 25th k. A. 20th 5
Tell Shamah Gundekta L. 135 162 75 1
Tell Sakra Gundekta L. 380 307 200 8th
al-Kharitah Gessa R. 215 111 150 1
Tell Makhadah Beregnaye R. 70 72 50 1
Arbush Tell Arbush Arbush L. 340 229 250 0
valley Tell valley valley R. 250 314 300 16
Hakkari
Baz Tell Baz Baz L. 300 251 350 1
Tell Ruman Foqani Baz L. 250 354 200 13
Diz Qaber Shamiyah Diz R. 320 734 150 0
Tell Balouaah Diz R. 270 443 40 2
Jilu Abu Tinah Jilu R. 300 301 250 0
Tell Goran Jilu R. 180 150 30th 0
Upper barwar Tell Massas Barware L. 350 231 150 5
Gawar Tell Maghas Gawar L. 250 194 150 10
Tell Jedaya Gawar L. 150 301 75 4th
Qodchanis Tell Hefyan Qodchanis L. 150 1132 150 1
Tell Damshij Qodchanis L. 100 153 50 0
Timar Umm al-Keif Timar L. 200 1072 150 21st
Sara Tell Talaah Sara R. 300 800 100 0
Tell Najma Sara L. 10 k. A. k. A. k. A.
Shammesdin
Bne-Shammesdin Tell Fuweidat Nochiya L. 400 k. A. 350 14th
Tell Jazira Eiel L. 220 190 200 0
Tell Shamiram Marbisho R. 375 811 350 2
outer dialects
Halmun Tell Jemaah Halmun L. 3000 1260 3000 50
Liwan Tell Kifji Liwan L. 450 k. A. 200 15th
For comparison: Assyrians in surrounding cities
city Population according to the 2004 census Assyrians 2010 Assyrians 2019
ath-thaura (at-tabqa) 69,425 600 0
al-Hasakah 188.160 5000 300
al-Qamishli 184.231 700 40
For comparison: Muslims in the Assyrian villages
Group, location Population according to the 2004 census in group 2010 in group 2019
Muslims in Tell Tamer 7285 majority 0
For comparison: other Christians in al-Hasakah and al-Qamishli
Group, location Population according to the 2004 census in group 2010 in group 2019
Armenian - Apostolic in al-Hasakah 188.160 750 550
Armenian - Catholic in al-Hasakah 188.160 1325 1250
Chaldean Catholics in al-Hasakah 188.160 1250 450
Syrian Catholics in al-Hasakah 188.160 1000 600
Armenian - Apostolic in al-Qamishli 184.231 5000 2000
Armenian - Catholic in al-Qamishli 184.231 1250 500
Chaldean Catholics in al-Qamishli 184.231 750 1250
Syrian Catholics in al-Qamishli 184.231 800 630
Armenian - Apostolic in al-Malikiyah 26,311 350 200
Chaldean Catholics in al-Malikiyah 26,311 1500 800

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b c Alberto M. Fernandez: Dawn at Tell Tamir: The Assyrian Christian Survival on the Khabur River. Journal of Assyrian Academic Studies XII, No. 1 (April 1998), pp. 34-47, here pp. 37-39.
  2. Shabo Talay (2008): The Neo-Aramaic Dialects of the Khabur Assyrians in Northeast Syria: Introduction, Phonology and Morphology , pp. 5–7.
  3. Shabo Talay (2008): The New Aramaic Dialects of the Khabur Assyrians in Northeast Syria: Introduction, Phonology and Morphology , p. 8f.
  4. Shabo Talay (2008): The New Aramaic Dialects of the Khabur Assyrians in Northeast Syria: Introduction, Phonology and Morphology , pp. 10-17.
  5. Wilhelm Baum , Dietmar Winkler: The Apostolic Church of the East. History of the so-called Nestorians . Kitab publishing house, Klagenfurt 2000, ISBN 3-902005-05-X , p. 126.
  6. Sargon Donabed George: Reforging a forgotten history. Iraq and the Assyrians in the Twentieth Century . Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh 2015, pp. 109-122.
  7. Shabo Talay (2008): The New Aramaic Dialects of the Khabur Assyrians in Northeast Syria: Introduction, Phonology and Morphology , pp. 18-21.
  8. Shabo Talay (2008): The New Aramaic Dialects of the Khabur Assyrians in Northeast Syria: Introduction, Phonology and Morphology , pp. 18-21.
  9. a b The Syrian Christians in Northeast Syria. Mar Gabriel Association, 2006, accessed April 21, 2020.
  10. Jordi Tejel: Syria's Kurds: History, Politics and Society. Routledge, London 2009, p. 61.
  11. The Christians in Syria go into battle In: Die Welt. Retrieved October 23, 2013.
  12. a b Joseph Yacoub, Thierry Oberl: Details Emerge Of ISIS 'Mass Abduction Of Assyrians In Syria. Assyrian International News Agency (AINA), July 5, 2017 (after Le Figaro ).
  13. a b Ben Hubbard: 'There Are No Girls Left': Syria's Christian Villages Hollowed Out by ISIS. New York Times , August 15, 2018.
  14. ^ Assyrian Bishop writes to the jihadists: our Church does not identify itself with any armed group. Agenzia Fides, March 20, 2015.
  15. Otmar Oehring (2019): On the situation and perspectives of Christians in north and north-east Syria , pp. 32–35.
  16. Malte Henk, Henning Sußebach: The Exodus from Tel Goran. The time 52/2015, December 23, 2015.
  17. Oehring, p. 33f.
  18. ^ Christian Röther: Turkey and Northern Syria - "A disaster for Yazidis and Christians". Deutschlandfunk , October 28, 2019.
  19. Andreas Gutenbrunner: Christians in great concern after the Turkish invasion of northeast Syria - “We will have to pay the bill.” Domradio , October 11, 2019.
  20. ^ A b c Andrea Backhaus: The Christian fighters of Tell Tamer. Die Zeit , November 14, 2019.
  21. a b c d e f Otmar Oehring (2019): On the situation and perspectives of Christians in north and north-east Syria , p. 82.
  22. Habilitation award from the Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nuremberg to PD Dr. phil. Shabo Talay: on November 4, 2006 ( memento of October 4, 2007 in the Internet Archive ).
  23. Shabo Talay (2008): The Neo-Aramaic Dialects of the Khabur Assyrians in Northeast Syria: Introduction, Phonology and Morphology , p. 48.
  24. Shabo Talay (2008): The Neo-Aramaic Dialects of the Khabur Assyrians in Northeast Syria: Introduction, Phonology and Morphology , p. 31.