User talk:Zoupan/Assyrians (Nestorians)

The Assyrians (Atoraye), known as Nestorians, is the ethno-religious community adhering to the East Syrian Rite Assyrian Church of the East in the Middle East, numbering between X and X people according to estimations.

The community formed and developed in the Near East in the Middle Ages. They speak Neo-Aramaic (their original and liturgical language) and Arabic. The traditional community of Nestorians is Hakkari, regarded the homeland, in southeastern Turkey and northern Iraq. Significant diaspora communities exist in Western Europe and North America.

The Syriac Orthodox community is regarded a subgroup of Syriac Christians.

Names
The followers of the Assyrian Church of the East today identify as Assyrians (Atoraye or Oturoye), and are known in history (and historiography) as Nestorians. In Arabic, they were known as al-Nastariyun and al-Nasara al-Nastariyah. In Ottoman Turkish, they were known as Nesturi or Nasturi. The Nestorian name stems from Nestorianism; the Assyrian Church of the East claims continuity with the historical Church of the East (also known as the Nestorian Church). In the past, the Chaldean name was used briefly for both Nestorians and Chaldean Catholics, but never became attached to the Nestorians. The name Aturaye ("Assyrians") was gradually adopted by the community after World War I, replacing Suraye ("Syrians"). They are also known as "East Syrians" or "East Syriacs" in scholarship, although that term may also include Chaldean Catholics. As a whole, the Syriac Christians in the Middle East are collectively grouped as Syriacs, 'divided into diverse confessional, regional, and sub-ethnic groups'.

As evident from American evangelical missions in the 19th century, the Nestorians did not call themselves "Assyrians". When making a distinction from other (non-Syriac) ethnoreligious groups, the general name applied by themselves was Suryaye ("Syrians"), but on a day-to-day basis their village or tribal affilation was more common. When differentiating from other Syriac groups, they called themselves "Easterners".

The Jacobites (Syriac Orthodox) and Nestorians had up until after World War I called themselves "Syrians" (Suraye/Suroyo), after which the Nestorians gradually adopted Aturaye (ancient Assyrian name in Syriac) while the Jacobites continued calling themselves Suroyo. 19th-century Western travel and missionary writers had popularized the Assyrian name, which was first adopted by a few educated Nestorians (especially immigrants in America) in the late 19th century. As such, the modern Assyrian name as used for the Assyrians (the Syriac Christians) is an 'invented tradition'.

16th century
In the 1550s the Church of the East split, with a portion entering communion with Rome; these became the Chaldeans (Keldânî).

19th century
In the 19th century, the various Syriac denominations did not view themselves as part of one group.

In 1843 and 1846 Bedr Khan Bey, the Kurdish emir of Bohtan, led massacres of Nestorians in Hakkari leaving thousands of dead and devastating the valley. The Kurdish emirs had been concerned with the American and British missionaries among the Nestorians, who were subordinated him. The events made international news, and the Great Powers pressured the Ottomans to take action against Bedr Khan and his allies. After resisting, Bedr Khan surrendered and was exiled in 1847.

In 1870, there were X Nestorian settlements in the vicinity of Diyarbakır.

20th century
In October 1914, Talat Pasha ordered through decree the deportation of Nestorians in Hakkari to Konya and Ankara, aiming to remove their dominant position there. The Ottomans viewed the Hakkari Nestorians, as they did the Armenians, as untrustworthy. After the decree, conflict arose between the Hakkari Nestorians and Ottoman government. Ottoman military operations were conducted against Nestorians in Hakkari. After ethnic cleansing began, Assyrian Nestorian leader Malik Qambar, realizing resistance in Hakkari was impossible, led his people southeast for a safer place, to the north of Urmia. Nestorians were targeted in the Assyrian genocide.

Assyrians (Nestorians) had been expelled from their homeland of Hakkari in 1915 by the Ottomans and settled the Mosul vilayet; in the 1920s and 1930s Assyrian nationalists pushed for autonomy in British Iraq. They met opposition from the Iraqi government as they were not native Christians (as the Jacobites, Syrian Catholics, Chaldeans, Armenians).

Middle East

 * Iraq: second largest Christian group; in 1991 less than Chaldeans (750,000) and more than Syriac Orthodox (15–20,000).
 * Syria.
 * Turkey.

Diaspora

 * US.
 * Netherlands.
 * Germany.
 * Sweden.

History
During the Ottoman period, Nestorian-inhabited territory stretched from the eastern side of Tigris to what is today the border of Iran, including the Hakkari mountainous region and Bahdinan (centered at Amadiya in what is now northern Iraq). There was also a concentration of Nestorians in an area west of the Urmia lake (in Iran).

In 1869, J. G. Taylor, the consulate at Erzerum, estimated that there were 110,000 Nestorians in the vilayets of Van and Hakkari. Baker Pasha registered 61,778 Nestorians in those provinces in 1880. It is estimated that there were 40,000 Nestorians in Urmia in 1914.

Language
The Nestorians (and East Rite Syriacs) traditionally speak dialects of the Northeastern Neo-Aramaic dialectal group. All of these dialects are however not mutually intelligible. Today, most Nestorians speak Arabic, a result of progressive Arabization.

Notable people

 * Malik Qambar, leader in Hakkari during World War I.