Caucasian Avars
Portrait of a woman wearing festive Dagestani national clothing, by H. Mussayassul (artist and political emigrant), 1939
|
|
| Total population | |
|---|---|
| approx. 1 million | |
| Regions with significant populations | |
 Russia
|
912,090 |
 Azerbaijan
|
49,800 |
 Georgia
|
1,996 |
 Ukraine
|
1,496 |
 Kazakhstan
|
15,675 |
| Languages | |
| Avar | |
| Religion | |
| Sunni Islam | |
| Related ethnic groups | |
| Northeast Caucasian peoples | |
The Avars (Avar: аварал / магIарулал, avaral / maⱨarulal; "mountaineers") constitute a Caucasus native ethnic group, the most predominant of several ethnic groups living in the Russian republic of Dagestan. The Avars reside in a region known as the North Caucasus between the Black and Caspian Seas. Alongside other ethnic groups in the North Caucasus region, the Caucasian Avars live in ancient villages located approximately 2,000 m above sea level. The Avar language spoken by the Caucasian Avars belongs to the family of Northeast Caucasian languages and is also known as Nakh–Dagestanian. Sunni Islam has been the prevailing religion of the Avars since the 13th century.
According to 19th-century Russian historians, the Avars' neighbors usually referred to them by the exonyms Lezgins, which was a generic term at the time and/or Tavlins (tavlintsy). Vasily Potto wrote that those to the south usually knew them as Tavlins (tavlintsy) and their neighbors "on the other side of the mountains, in Georgia" referred to them as Lezgins. "The words in different languages have the same meaning ... [of] mountain dwellers [or] highlanders".
No single ethic group was known as Lezgins prior to the Russian Revolution, and the name was not usually used by the Lezgins themselves. Nikolai Dubrovin wrote: "Chechnya, with its rich mountain pastures, mountain slopes covered with dense forest, with its plain, irrigated by many rivers and rich vegetation, is a perfect contrast to the neighboring barren and rocky parts of Dagestan populated by an Avar tribe, mostly known by us as Lezgins". However, Lezgin was originally a Turkish term for "highland resident".
The name Tavlin is believed to be from the Turkic tau, meaning "mountain". Those known as Tavlins usually have origins in the upper parts of two tributaries of the Sulak River: the Andiyskoe Koisu and Avarskoye Koisu.
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