Konak, Hakkari

Konak is the modern Turkish name for a village in the province of Hakkari, traditionally called Qodchanis (pronounced Ko-cha-niss; Syriac: ܩܘܕܫܐܢܣ‎ Qudshānes, also spelt Qudshanes, Kotchanes, Qochanis or Kocanis). It was the seat of the Patriarchs of the Assyrian Church of the East until 1918.

The village is situated about 20 km northeast of the provincial capital Hakkâri of Hakkâri Province in the southeastern corner of Turkey, near the borders of Iran and Iraq.

The village was founded in 1672 by Chaldean Catholics from the city of Amida, who upon settling here broke off with the Catholic church and founded a new branch of the Assyrian Church of the East in 1692, ruled by the Shimun line. From that point on the village functioned as the de facto capital of The Assyrian tribes in the region. The Government of the Hakkari mountains was that of a tribal confederation, with Assyrian tribes such as the Tyari and Nochiya living in villages across the region, with their own leaders known as Maliks (ܡܠܟ). The Tribes were subservient to the Patriarch, based in Qochanis, and paid him taxes, with which the patriarch then gave to the Ottomans. Therefore, the patriarch functioned as a king of sorts for the Assyrians of the mountains, and therefore his See in Quochanis functioned as the capital of their confederation. The Confederation was in effect almost like a vassal state ruled by the Ottoman Empire, and even then the Assyrians were not subservient to the Sultan, but rather the Patriarch. Hence why upon his declaration of war in 1915 the tribes of the region immediately went into open rebellion against the Turks. 3 years into this war in 1918, they were forced off of their ancestral lands in the Assyrian Genocide, never to return again. After the forced expulsion of the Assyrian inhabitants of the village, from the 1920s until the war between the Turkish government and the PKK in the 1990s, the village was inhabited by Kurds. Now, the village is uninhabited, and largely in ruins. One of the only buildings still standing is the Patriarchal church of Mar Shalita.

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