The Laz people, or Lazi ( Lazi; , lazi; or ჭანი, ch'ani; ), are a Kartvelian ethnic group native to the South Caucasus, who mainly live in Black Sea coastal regions of Turkey and Georgia. They traditionally speak the Laz language but have been subjected to a process of deliberate Turkification under the lengthy Turkish rule.Nimet Kirac. Lost words: The struggle to save Turkey's disappearing languages, Middle East Eye, 19 March 2019. Retrieved 14 March 2026
Of the 103,900 ethnic Laz in Turkey, only around 20,000 speak Laz and the language is classified as threatened (6b) in Turkey and shifting (7) in Georgia on the Expanded Graded Intergenerational Disruption Scale.
Etymology The ancestors of the Laz people are cited by many classical authors from Scylax to Procopius and Agathias, but the word Lazi in Latin language () themselves are firstly cited by Pliny around the 2nd century BC.Pliny, NH 6.4.12.Braund (1994), p. 157, fn. 24.Pliny, C. (1989). Natural history: Books 3-7 (H. Rackham, Trans.). Cambridge: Harvard. p. 346-347.
Identity Self-Identification Vladimir Minorsky, Russian scholar of Kartvelian Laz studies, observed in 1913 that the Laz living in Turkey and Georgia have developed different understandings of what it means to be Laz. The Laz identity inside Georgia has largely merged with the national Georgian identity, with "Laz" being seen merely as any other regional category of Georgians.Minorsky, V. "Laz." Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition. Edited by: P. Bearman, Th. Bianquis, C.E . Bosworth, E. van Donzel and W.P. Heinrichs. Brill, 2010., Georgian Orthodox believers also commemorate Three Hundred Laz Martyrs, who are credited with sacrificing their lives rather than give up their identity under Ottoman persecution.Zacharia Machitadze. Lives of the Georgian saints. 2006, p. 158.
Identification by non-Laz In a stereotyping manner, non-Laz often use the exonym Laz for groups that are mostly not ethnic Laz: In Turkey, the term Laz is a 'folk' definition and exonym for anyone originating in the eastern Black Sea coast of Turkey. Sometimes, the term is extended to the western portion of the coast as well. Therefore, this term is often used mostly for ethnic Pontic Greeks, Turks in addition to Laz in Turkey. The residents of the northwestern portion of the Gümüşhane are viewed as Laz by other people from Gümüşhane. The residents of Posof are named as Laz by neighboring communities. The Pontic Greek-speakers from the villages of Emek and Dönerdere in Van are called as Laz by the neighboring communities. A small community living in the Caspian coast of Iran is called as Laz.
History
Origins The Lazuri-speaking ancestors of the modern Laz originally hailed from the northeast, around Abkhazia and Samegrelo-Zemo Svaneti and settled in the present homeland of the Laz in antiquity.
Modern theories suggest that the Colchian tribes are direct ancestors of the Laz-Mingrelians, they constituted the dominant ethnic and cultural presence in the south-eastern Black Sea region in antiquity, and hence played a significant role in the ethnogenesis of the modern Georgians.Cyril Toumanoff, Studies in Christian Caucasian History, p 80
Antiquity
In the thirteenth century BC,Morritt, R.D. (2010) Stones that Speak. EBSCO ebook academic collection. Cambridge Scholars Pub.(9781443821766) p.99Nodar Asatiani, Otar Janelidże (2009) History of Georgia: From Ancient Times to the Present Day. University of Michigan. Publishing House Petite 9789941906367 page 17. the Kingdom of Colchis was formed as a result of the increasing consolidation of the tribes inhabiting the region, which covered modern western Georgia and Turkey's north-eastern provinces of Trabzon, Rize and Artvin. Colchis was an important region in Black Sea trade – rich with gold, wax, hemp, and honey. In the eighth century, several Greek trading colonies were established along the shores of the Black Sea, one of them being Trebizond () founded by Milesian traders from Sinope in 756 BC. Trebizond's trade partners included the Proto-Laz tribes of Mossynoeci.
By the sixth century BC, the tribes living in the southern Colchis (Macrones, Mossynoeci, Marres etc.) were incorporated into the nineteenth satrapy of Persia. The Achaemenid Empire was defeated by Alexander the Great, however following the Alexander's death a number of separate kingdoms were established in Anatolia, including Pontus, in the corner of the southern Black Sea, ruled by the Persian nobleman Mithridates I. Culturally, the kingdom was Hellenized,Children of Achilles: The Greeks in Asia Minor Since the Days of Troy, by John Freely, p. 69–70 with Greek as the official language.The Foreign Policy of Mithridates VI Eupator, King of Pontus, by B.C. McGing, p. 11 Mithridates VI conquered the Colchis, and gave it to his son Mithridates of Colchis.
As a result of the Roman campaigns between 88 and 63 BC, led by the generals Pompey and Lucullus, the kingdom of Pontus was completely destroyed by the Romans and all its territory, including Colchis, was incorporated into the Roman Empire. The former southern provinces of Colchis were reorganized into the Roman province of Pontus Polemoniacus, while the northern Cholchis became the Roman province of Lazicum. Roman control remained likewise only nominal over the tribes of the interior..
The first-century historians Memnon and Strabo remark in passing that the people formerly called Macrones bore in his day the name of Sanni, a claim supported also by Stephanus of Byzantium. The second-century historian Arrian notes that Tzanni, same as the SanniProcopius, History of the Wars, I-II [21-25] are neighbours of the Colchians, while the latter were now referred to as the Lazi. By the mid-third century, the Lazi tribe came to dominate most of Colchis, establishing the kingdom of Lazica.
Middle Ages
The warlike tribes of the Chaldia, called Tzanni, the ancestors of modern Laz people lived in Tzanica, the area located between the Byzantine and the Lazica. It included several settlements named: Athenae, Archabis and Apsarus; Tzanni were neither subjects of the Romans nor of the king of the Lazica, except that during the reign of the Byzantine emperor Justinian I (r. 527–565) they were subdued, Christianized and brought to central rule..Procopius Bell. Pers. i. 15, Bell. Goth. iv. 2, de Aed. iii. 6. The bishops of Lazica appointed the priests of the Tzanni, given they were now Christians. Tzanni began to have closer contact with the Greeks and acquired various Hellenic cultural traits, including in some cases the language.
From 542 to 562, Lazica was a scene of the protracted rivalry between the Eastern Roman and Sassanid empires, culminating in the Lazic War, where 1,000 Tzanni auxiliaries under Dagisthaeus participated. Emperor Heraclius's offensive in 628 AD brought victory over the Persians and ensured Roman predominance in Lazica until the invasion and conquest of the Caucasus by the Arabs in the second half of the seventh century. As the result of Muslim invasions, the ancient metropolis, Phasis, was lost and Trebizond became the new Metropolitan see of Lazica, since then the name Lazi appears the general Greek name for Tzanni. According to Geography of Anania Shirakatsi of the 7th century,Ashkharatsuyts, Long Recension, V, 19. Colchis (Yeger in Armenian sources, synonymous with Lazica) was subdivided into four small districts, one of them being Tzanica, that is Chaldia, and mentions Athinae, Rhizus and Trebizond among its cities. From the second half of the eight century the Trebizond area is referred to in Greek sources (namely of Epiphanius of Constantinople) as Lazica. The 10th-century Arab geographer Abul Feda regarded the city of Trebizond as being largely a Lazian port.
In 780, the kingdom of Abkhazia incorporated the former territories of Lazica via a dynastic succession, thus ousting the Pontic Lazs (formerly known as Tzanni) from western Georgia; thereafter, the Tzanni lived under nominal Byzantine suzerainty in the theme of Chaldia, with its capital at Trebizond, governed by the native semi-autonomous rulers, like the Gabras family,Hewsen, 47 of possibly "Greco-Laz" or simply Chaldian origin.A. Bryer and D. Winfield, The Byzantine Monuments and Topography of the Pontos, pp.300
With the Georgian intervention in Chaldia and the collapse of the Byzantine Empire in 1204, the Empire of Trebizond was established along the southeastern coast of the Black Sea, populated by a large Kartvelian-speaking population.Mikaberidze, A. (2015). Historical dictionary of Georgia. 2nd ed. Lanham, MD, United States: ROWMAN & LITTLEFIELD, p.634. In the eastern part of the same empire, an autonomous coastal theme of Greater Lazia was established.Thys-Şenocak, Lucienne. Ottoman Women Builders. Aldershot, England: Ashgate, 2006. Byzantine authors, such as Pachymeres, and to some extent Trapezuntines such as Lazaropoulos and Bessarion, regarded the Trapezuntian Empire as being no more than a Lazian border state.Bryer 1967, 179. Though Greek in higher culture, the rural areas of Trebizond empire appear to have been predominantly Laz in ethnic composition. Laz family names, with Hellenized terminations, are noticeable in the records of the mediaeval empire of Trebizond, and it is perhaps not too venturesome to suggest that the antagonism between the "town-party" and the "country-party," which existed in the politics of "the Empire," was in fact a national antagonism of Laz against Greek.ROYAL GEOGRAPHICAL SOCIETY (GREAT BRITAIN). (1893). The Geographical journal. London, Royal Geographical Society.
In 1282, the kingdom of Imereti besieged Trebizond, however after the failed attempt to take the city, the Georgians occupied several provinces,Miller, Trebizond, p. 30 and all the Trebizontine province of Lazia threw off its allegiance to the king of the 'Iberian' and 'Lazian' tribes and united itself with the Georgian Kingdom of Imereti.
Early Modern era
Laz populated area was often contested by different Georgian principalities, however through Battle of Murjakheti in 1535, Principality of Guria ensured control over it, until 1547, when it was finally conquered by resurgent Ottoman forces and reorganized into the Lazistan sanjak as part of eyalet of Trabzon.
The Ottomans fought for three centuries to destroy the Christian-Georgian consciousness of the Laz people. HOLY MARTYRS OF LAZETI (17TH–18TH CENTURIES) pravoslavie.ru Due to the Ottoman Islamization policy,Julie Crea Dunbar. "Exploring World History Through Geography From the Cradle of Civilization to a Globalized World", The Advance of the Ottomans, Bloomsbury Publishing, 2022, Quote: "[Non-Muslims] had to pay higher taxes and follow restrictions, including ensuring their homes were not as tall as those of Muslims, not carrying weapons without permission...The empire considered non-Muslims inferior." throughout of seventeenth century Lazs gradually converted to Islam. As the Ottomans consolidated their rule, the Millet system was brought to the newly conquered territories. Local Orthodox inhabitants, once subordinated to the Georgian Orthodox Church, had to obey Patriarchate of Constantinople,ქართველთა დენაციონალიზაცია XVII-XX საუკუნეებში; ლაზეთი-თრიალეთი (ქართველთა გაბერძნება) Metropolitan of Manglisi, Ananias Japaridze, nplg.gov.ge thus gradually becoming Greeks, the process known as Hellenization of Laz people. Lazs who were under the control of Constantinople, soon lost their language and self-identity as they became Greeks and learned Greek, especially Pontic dialect of Greek language, although native language was preserved by Lazs who had become Muslims.