Tayk () was a historical province of the Kingdom of Armenia, one of its 15 (worlds). Tayk consisted of 8 cantons: Kogh Berdats por Partizats por Tchakatk Bokha Vokaghe Azordats por Arsiats por
There was a proto-Armenian confederation, Hayasa-Azzi, in this area in the 2nd millennium BC. It was probably the same as (and with a name likely related etymologically to) the Daiaeni and Diauehi of Assyrian and Urartian sources. From the 2nd century BC to the 9th century AD Tayk was a part of Armenian kingdoms or "autonomies": Greater Armenia, Marzpan Armenia and Bagratid Armenia.
In the 999 A.D., Tayk or Tao became part of the Georgian Bagratid principality of Tayk-Kharjk or Tao-Klarjeti. The Tayk province covered the contemporary Turkish districts of Yusufeli (Kiskim) in Artvin Province and Oltu, Olur (Tavusker), Tortum and Çamlıkaya (Hunut) to the north of İspir in Erzurum Province. To its southwest is found the ancient region of Sper. After World War I, Armenia and Georgia contested the region, with particular conflict over Oltik. As a result, in 1920, after the Russo-Turkish attacks Armenia lost the region of Oltik, which become a part of Turkey.
History Antiquity Tayk is mentioned in the earliest sources under the names Daiaeni and Diauehi in Assyrian and Urartian cuneiform inscriptions. After the 760s BC, the name Diauehi no longer appears in cuneiform sources, but it was apparently preserved among ancient authors as the land of the Taochi, in the Georgian tradition as Tao, and in the Armenian environment as Tayk. According to A. Novoseltsev, in antiquity the region was inhabited by a distinct people who were later assimilated by Armenians and Georgians.
In 401 BC, while passing through Armenia, the Greek commander Xenophon mentioned the land of the Taochi. In the 4th century BC, in his Anabasis, he described the local tribes, the Taochi, Chalybes and Phasians, as free peoples who did not submit to the Persian king. According to R. Edwards, the Taochi, probably connected with the pre-classical Daiaeni, mainly lived in the valleys of Olti, Narman and Tortum. During this period, like the Carduchi and the Chaldi, they preserved their independence from Persian rule, although later they came under the sphere of influence of the Iberians.
According to C. Toumanoff, already in the 4th-3rd centuries BC the region was part of the ancient Georgian kingdom of Iberia. According to Strabo, at the beginning of the 2nd century BC, Artaxiad Greater Armenia took from Iberia the region of Pariadres, which researchers usually identify with Tayk. Thus, during the reign of Artaxias I, Tayk was restored to the Armenian state. Until the 3rd century, Tayk remained a royal estate and an important military district.
The Mamikonians and the early Middle Ages In the 230s, the Armenian king Khosrov I the Great transferred most of Tayk to the Mamikonians as a hereditary estate. In the early Middle Ages, Tayk became one of the main domains of this nakharar house. According to Faustus of Byzantium, the Mamikonians ruled Tayk already from the 4th century. In scholarly literature, there are different hypotheses about their origin: R. Edwards associated them with the Kartvelian Chan tribe, while C. Toumanoff suggested a Chan or Laz origin for the Mamikonians. Their integration into the Armenian political system took place gradually, through military alliances, marriages and the acquisition of hereditary offices from the Armenian monarchy.
After the first partition of Armenia in 387, Tayk came under the Persian sphere of influence, but its western border simultaneously became a political, strategic and ideological dividing line between the Byzantine Empire and Sasanian Persia. Tayk remained within the borders of the Armenian kingdom, which had become a vassal of the Sasanians, and later within the Armenian Marzpanate.
After the abolition of Armenian royal authority in 428, the Mamikonians, whose main rivals were the Bagratunis, continued to defend their interests independently in relations with Byzantium and Persia. In 450-451, Tayk took part in the Armenian uprising against Sasanian Persia, known as the Vardanants War or the Avarayr uprising. During this period, Hmayak Mamikonian, relying on the support of local mountaineers, nobles, townspeople and peasants, organized resistance against the Persian troops. Fortified in the forested mountains of Tayk, the Mamikonians and their allies successfully fought against the Persian detachments, but later suffered defeat at the hands of Vasak Siwni, who led a punitive expedition in the region.
The acts of the ecclesiastical council of Dvin of 555 are among the last known documents mentioning an Armenian bishop from Tayk. According to N. Aleksidze, in the late 6th and early 7th centuries Tao gradually adopted the Chalcedonian tradition and ceased to be subordinate to the Church of Persarmenia, which may indicate a possible strengthening of Georgian ecclesiastical jurisdiction in the region.
As a result of the Byzantine-Sasanian War of 572-591, in 591 Tayk came under the control of Emperor Maurice. According to C. Toumanoff, it became part of the Byzantine province of “Deep Armenia”, which consisted of Tayk proper, Bolkha and Kogh. R. Edwards, however, noted that there is no direct evidence that Tayk was renamed “Deep Armenia”. In 607, the Synod of Dvin condemned the Council of Chalcedon, after which some Armenian Chalcedonians moved to Tayk, which was within the Iberian political sphere, while others moved to Byzantium. It was in Tayk that a particularly large Armenian-Chalcedonian population lived, since the Armenian and Georgian environments came into contact there. According to the testimony of Stepanos Syunetsi, at the turn of the 7th-8th centuries there also existed a Tayk dialect of the Armenian language. Arab rule and the decline of the Mamikonians From the middle of the 7th century, Tayk came under the conditions of the Arab conquests. During this period, when Byzantine troops had abandoned a number of Armenian districts, Tayk was part of Armenia, which had temporarily restored its autonomy under the leadership of Theodoros Rshtuni. In the late 7th and early 8th centuries, many Armenian princely houses took refuge in the mountainous regions of Tayk, escaping the persecution of the Arab conquerors. Tayk became one of the centers of anti-Arab resistance under the leadership of the Mamikonians.
The Arab campaigns of the 7th-8th centuries had severe consequences for the Mamikonians. Especially destructive were the campaign of the Arab commander Marwan the Deaf in 735 and the anti-Arab uprising of 774-775. The defeat of this uprising was catastrophic for the Mamikonians: they lost almost all their estates, including Tayk, as well as a significant part of their political influence. After this, their estates in Tayk passed mainly to the Bagratunis, and partly to Iberian forces. At that time, the Armenian Gnuni family also moved to Tayk.
According to V. Stepanenko, until the 8th century Tayk was part of Armenia and was a domain of the Mamikonians, while the overwhelming majority of its population were ArmeniansВ. П. Степаненко / Античная древность и средние века: Том 30 / Изд-во Уральского гос. университета, 1999 г. с. 133—134. At the same time, the political upheavals following the Arab conquests encouraged the influx of additional Georgian settlers, probably Laz or Chan people, into the valleys of the Chorokhi and Tortum.
According to C. Toumanoff’s hypothesis, after 772 Tayk, or Tao, which had previously belonged to the Mamikonians, was divided into two parts: Upper Tao passed to the Bagratids, while Lower Tao, together with Asispori, passed to the Guaramids. Approximately between 786 and 807, Lower Tao, together with Arseats Por in Upper Tao, passed to the Iberian Bagratids. In 813, all of Tao was finally united under the rule of the Georgian branch of the Bagratids, and from that time Tayk gradually passed from the Armenian political sphere into the Georgian one.
Georgian colonization and the transformation of Tayk into Tao The Life of Gregory of Khandzta testifies to the desolation of Tayk at the time when it was settled by Georgians. According to one interpretation, Georgian monks in Tayk lived among an Armenian population, and the first Georgian monasteries were founded on the sites of ruined Armenian monasteries. Wachtang Djobadze, however, objected to this interpretation and noted that the text primarily speaks about the destruction and depopulation of the region after the Arab invasions, because of which Gregory of Khandzta had difficulty finding workers to build a church.
According to V. Stepanenko, the Georgian colonization of Tayk led to the beginning of the process of assimilation of the local Armenian population. As a result, Tayk gradually turned into Tao. By the end of the 10th century, in his opinion, the Georgian population already formed the majority, although a significant Armenian population also remained in the region.
R. Edwards and R. Hewsen criticized the extreme approaches of both Armenian and Georgian historians who presented Tayk as either an exclusively Armenian or an exclusively Georgian region. In their opinion, the northern districts of Tayk probably had a more pronounced Georgian character, while the southern districts, especially Bolkha, Berdats Por and Partizats Por, may have been predominantly Armenian. Edwards also noted that the ecclesiastical and defensive architecture of northern Tayk was mainly Georgian, while that of southern Tayk was Armenian, and he considered the Arsiani Range to be the dividing line between these two zones.
Tayk in the 10th-11th centuries In the 10th century, in part of Tayk and neighboring Klarjeti, the Georgian Bagratids founded a principality that was in vassal dependence on the Byzantine Empire and was known as the Curopalate of Tao-Klarjeti. This principality was forced for a long time to conduct a complex diplomatic and military struggle against Byzantium, seeking to preserve its internal autonomy. The Bagratid branch of Tayk recognized Byzantine suzerainty and the Chalcedonian confession, while its rulers bore high titles granted by the emperors.
Tayk reached the height of its power in the 10th century under David Kuropalates. The district became an important center of Armenian-Georgian Chalcedonian culture and architecture. Notable monuments of Christian architecture belong to this period, including Oshki, Khakhuli and Ishkhan. Monastic centers actively developed here, where manuscripts were copied and a distinctive borderland cultural environment was formed.
According to S. Rapp, the region was among the possessions of the Georgian Bagratids, who had moved from their Armenian homeland to the western Armenian-Georgian frontier and over time assimilated into Georgian culture. The Georgian Church also found a considerable number of followers here, since many Armenian Chalcedonians lived in TaykStephen H. Rapp // Imagining history at the crossroads: Persia, Byzantium, and the architects of the written Georgian past, Vol. 2 // University of Michigan, 1997. p. 647..
According to R. P. Blake and S. Der Nersessian, in the 10th century a process of “de-Armenianization” took place in Tayk, connected with the Arab devastations, Georgian migration and the strengthening influence of the Georgian Church. Armenian influence gradually gave way to Georgian influence, while part of the Armenians underwent Hellenization or Georgianization.