Ossetians


The Ossetians also known as Ossetes, Ossets and Alans, are an Iranian ethnic group who are indigenous to Ossetia, a region situated across the northern and southern sides of the Caucasus Mountains. They natively speak Ossetian, an Eastern Iranian language of the Indo-European language family, with most also being fluent in Russian as a second language.
Currently, the Ossetian homeland of Ossetia is politically divided between North Ossetia–Alania in Russia, and the de facto country of South Ossetia. Their closest historical and linguistic relatives, the Jász people, live in the Jászság region within the northwestern part of the Jász-Nagykun-Szolnok County in Hungary. A third group descended from the medieval Alans are the Asud of Mongolia. Both the Jász and the Asud have long been assimilated; only the Ossetians have preserved a form of the Alanic language and Alanian identity.
The majority of Ossetians are Eastern Orthodox Christians, with sizable minorities professing the Ossetian ethnic religion of Uatsdin as well as Islam.

Name and etymology

Origin

The name Ossetians and Ossetia come from Russian Osetin, which in turn borrowed the Georgian term Oseti, a toponymic formation meaning 'the land of the Osi'.
In Georgian, Osi has been used since the Middle Ages to refer to the Iranian-speaking population of the central Caucasus, ancestors of the modern Ossetians. The term ultimately derives from the Sarmatian ethnonym As, the self-designation of an eastern Iranian tribe belonging to the Alanic branch of the Sarmatians.
The root os/as- is thought to descend from an earlier form *ows/''aws-. This is supported by several parallels: the archaic Georgian root ovs-, recorded in the Georgian Chronicles; the gemination of s'' and/or lengthening of the preceding vowel in related forms ; and the Armenian ethnic name Ōsur-, which appears to be connected to the Jassic term *Jaszok, reflecting descendants of an Alanic branch of the Sarmatians attested near the Caucasus by the 7th century AD.
The ethnonym Iasi, cognate with Hungarian Jász, stems from the Latin Iazyges, itself a rendering of the Sarmatian tribal name *Yazig, used among among western groups related to the Alans. The name is generally traced to the Proto-Iranian root *yaz-, perhaps originally signifying 'those who perform sacrifices'. In contrast, the broader Sarmatian confederation is thought to have called themselves Arii-tai, a term preserved in modern Ossetian as Irættæ.

Modern use

Since Ossetian speakers lacked any single inclusive name for themselves in their native language beyond the traditional Iron–Digoron subdivision, these terms came to be accepted by the Ossetians as an endonym even before their integration into the Russian Empire.
This practice was put into question by the new Ossetian nationalism in the early 1990s, when the dispute between the Ossetian subgroups of Digoron and Iron over the status of the Digor dialect made Ossetian intellectuals search for a new inclusive ethnic name. This, combined with the effects of the Georgian–Ossetian conflict, led to the popularization of Alania, the name of the medieval Sarmatian confederation, to which the Ossetians traced their origin and to the inclusion of this name into the official republican title of North Ossetia in 1994.

Subgroups

  • Iron in the east and south form a larger group of Ossetians. They speak Iron dialect, which in turn is divided into several subgroups: Alagirs, Kurtats, Tagaurs, Kudar, Tual, Urstual and Chsan.
  • *Kudar are the southern group of Ossetians.
  • *Tual are in the central part of Ossetia.
  • *Ksan are in the east of South Ossetia.
  • Digor people in the west. Digors live in Digora district, Iraf district and some settlements in Kabardino-Balkaria and Mozdok district. They speak Digor dialect.
  • Iasi, who settled in the Jászság region in Hungary during the 13th century. They spoke the extinct Jassic dialect.
  • Asud, a nomadic clan from Mongolia of Alanic-Ossetian origin. They, like the Iasi, thoroughly assimilated, and it is unclear what type of Ossetian dialect they used to speak before adopting the Mongolian language.

    Culture

Mythology

The native beliefs of the Ossetian people are rooted in their Sarmatian origin, which have been syncretized with a local variant of Folk Orthodoxy, in which some pagan gods have been converted into Christian saints. The Narts, the Daredzant, and the Tsartsiat, serve as the basic literature of folk mythology in the region.

Music

Genres

Ossetian folk songs are divided into 10 unique genres:
  • Historic songs
  • War songs
  • Heroic songs
  • Work songs
  • Wedding songs
  • Drinking songs
  • Humorous songs
  • Dance songs
  • Romantic songs
  • Lyrical songs

    Instruments

Ossetians use the following Instruments in their music:

Pre-history (Early ''Alans'')

The Ossetians descend from the Iazyges tribe of the Sarmatians, an Alanic sub-tribe, which in turn split off from the broader Scythians itself. The Sarmatians were the only branch of the Alans to keep their culture in the face of a Gothic invasion and those who remained built a great kingdom between the Don and Volga Rivers, according to Coon, The Races of Europe. Between 350 and 374 AD, the Huns destroyed the Alan kingdom in the Battle of the Tanais River and the Alan people were split in half. A few fled to the west, where they participated in the Barbarian Invasions of Rome, established short-lived kingdoms in Spain and North Africa, and settled in many other places such as Orléans, France, Iași, Romania, Alenquer, Portugal and Jászberény, Hungary. The other Alans fled to the south and settled in the Caucasus, where they established their medieval kingdom of Alania.

Middle Ages

In the 7th century, in the well-known chronicle, Ashkharhatsuyts, the Alans were mentioned under the ethnonym Alanac, As-Digor
In the 8th century, a consolidated Alan kingdom, referred to in sources of the period as Alania, emerged in the northern Caucasus Mountains, roughly in the location of the latter-day Circassia and the modern North Ossetia–Alania. At its height, Alania was a centralized monarchy with a strong military force and had a strong economy that benefited from the Silk Road.
File:Possible Alan king, Senty.jpg|thumb|upright=0.9|Possible depiction of an 11th-century Alan king, perhaps Durgulel, in the Senty church
Alania reached its peak in the 11th century under the Alanian ruler Durgulel, who established relations with the Byzantine Empire.
Before the Mongol invasion, the Alans lived in the territory from the Laba to the Argun River.
In 1220, Genghis Khan sent his commanders Subutai and Jebe on a campaign, ordering them to reach "eleven countries and peoples", among whom were the "Kibchaut", "Orusut", "Machjarat", "Asut", "Sessut", "Serkessut" and others
The Mongols, led by the generals Jebe and Subutai, met the Alans for the first time in 1222 after passing through Shirvan and Dagestan. They were confronted by a Kipchak-Alan alliance, which they defeated by scheming with the Kipchaks.
As a result of the second campaign of 1238-1239, a significant part of the Alania plain was captured by the Mongol Empire, and Alania itself ceased to exist as a political entity.
After the Mongol invasions of the 1200s, the Alans migrated further into Caucasus Mountains, where they would form three ethnographical groups; the Iron, the Digoron and the Kudar. The Jassic people are believed to be a potentially fourth group that migrated in the 13th century to Hungary.
In 1292, the Alanian king Os-Bagatar attacked the territory of Georgia and captured the territory of Gori, and a significant part of Shida Kartli. He tried to restore the statehood of Alania. But in 1306, Os-Bagatar died, and in 1326, George V of Georgia, after several attempts, was able to take Gori and drive the Alans out of the South Caucasus and Dvaletia.

Modern history

In more-recent history, the Ossetians were involved in the Ossetian–Ingush conflict and Georgian–Ossetian conflicts and in the 2008 South Ossetia war between Georgia and Russia.
Key events:
Ever since de facto independence, there have been proposals in South Ossetia of joining Russia and uniting with North Ossetia.