Georgian-Turkish ethno-cultural relations (According to the ethnographic materials depicting the family relations of the native repatriates of Yaneti) (Part II)

Abstract

The following has been established as a result of the study of the ways of lives of repatriate Meskhetian families, residing in Ianeti: features of a household consisting of parents and children; who is a head of a household; about relations between and among family members; rights and duties, property issues of elder and younger brothers, of a would-be marrying sister and an unmarried sister; about the occurrence of three kinds of familial property, established by Ivane Javakhishvili: a family’s inherited property, dowry brought by a woman, and jointly acquired property; it was established that a household could contain several families, that is, a household was both divided and undivided.”

Social, economic, and moral changes, having occurred owing to Georgians’ political life, are reflected in a repatriate Meskhetian family, residing in Ianeti. It has been established that the Ottoman dominance in the Georgian historical province of Samtskhe-Javakheti for three centuries and later deportation of its residents have greatly influenced their way of family life, however, they could not totally change the traditional familial relations, having been conditioned by the Georgian way of life. “Respect to a head of a family” has been retained in a traditional, consisting of parents and children, family. The institution of a family head, that is, father, having been characteristic to the common Georgian custom, occurs in the way of life in the families of forcibly Muslimized Georgians, originating from Samtskhe-Javakheti and currently residing in Ianeti; in accordance to the established norm, after the decease of a head of a family, he was was substituted by his elder son: “elder, distinguished with personal features, smart, capable, provident, able to communicate with strangers, to tolerate neighbors, fair, should a personality who would meet all the demands for a a head of a family.”

The word mamuli is used to refer to one’s ethnic origin.                   

It is interesting that, despite Islamization and deportation, one’s surname is a basic unit of kinship association. A relative is a brother, child, cousin. An association, consisting of brother and cousins, is referred to as sabidzashvilo among the Meskheians, residing in Ianeti. An uncle’s wife is referred to as bitsola. A relatives, acquired after one’s marriage, are referred as the Georgian word moqvare. Mothers are addressed by an Uzbek term -ata; mother’s sister is referred to as -xala; her son or daughter is -xaladaz; an uncle is -emi; his son or daughter is emumoğli; a cousin’s child is emitorubi; bibi is a father’s sister.

The study of the ethnographic data has established: a. together with their ownprovincial ethnographic and common Georgian national-cultural features, the Meskhetians,  currently residing in Ianeti, have acquired a great and “blend” experience of of family relations owingto forcible Islamization and later deportation; b. repatriates consider it to be loyalty to their