Chechen Kurds
Chechen Kurds or Kurdified Chechens are ethnic Chechens who went through a process of Kurdification after fleeing to Kurdistan during and after the Russian conquest of the Caucasus in the 1860s. Today, these Chechens are perceived as being of the "Chechen tribe" and "Lezgî tribe".
Hamidiye cavalry at Varto (1901) – Both Chechens and Kurds joined the cavalry. | |
| Regions with significant populations | |
|---|---|
| Following villages in Varto district: Bağiçi (Çaharbur) Kayalık (Zirinik) Tepeköy (Tepe) Tescilsiz (Doğdap) Ulusırt (Aynan) Aydıngün (Şaşkan), Çöğürlü (Arinç) and Kıyıbaşı villages in Muş district Kızıltepe Saidsadiq District | |
| Languages | |
| Kurdish (as mother tongue), Turkish, Chechen | |
| Religion | |
| Hanafi and Shafi‘i Islam |
Chechen families were first settled in other regions of the Ottoman Empire like the Balkans, but were since moved to Kurdistan by the Sublime Porte. The Ottomans planted Chechen refugees in Kurdistan and Western Armenia to change the demographics, since they feared Armenian separatism and, later on, Kurdish separatism.
Today, the Chechen population in Turkish Kurdistan is scattered among the Kurdish population and has been assimilated into it.
About 200 to 300 Kurdified Chechen families live in Saidsadiq District, some 100 families in Penjwen District and about 200 in Sulaymaniyah city in Iraqi Kurdistan.