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State of Assyria
ܡܕܝܢܬܐ ܐܬܘܪܐ
Timeline: Cherry, Plum, and Chrysanthemum
OTL equivalent: Assyrian Triangle in Iraq
Flag of Assyria (CPC) Gold and blue Assur
Flag Emblem
Anthem: 
Etir Bar Othur

Location of Assyria (Myomi)
Location of Assyria
CapitalTel Keppe
Official languages Syriac
Other languages Arabic; Kurdish
Ethnic groups  Assyrians; Arabs; Kurds
Religion Christianity; Islam; Judaism
Demonym Assyrian
Government Unitary state; parliamentary republic
Legislature Parliament of Assyria
Establishment
 -  Assyrian Declaration of Independence December 12, 1947 
Currency Assyrian pound
Time zone UTC+3
Internet TLD .aa
Calling code +965
Membership international or regional organizations United Nations

Assyria (Syriac: ܐܵܬܘܿܪܵ Ātûr), officially the State of Assyria (Syriac: ܡܕ݂ܝܼܢ݇ܬܵܐ ܐܵܬܘܿܪܵܐ Madīntā Ātûrā), is a small landlocked country located in the Middle East. It is bordered with the United Arab Republic to the northeast, Turkey to the north, and Iraq to the south. It is only one of the two Christian-majority nations in the Middle East alongside Lebanon. Assyria is a member of the Commonwealth Confederation.

Politics and government[]

History[]

Ottoman Mesopotamia (1514–1918)[]

SyriacChurch-Mosul

Celebration at a Syriac Orthodox monastery in Mosul, early 20th century.

The Ottoman Empire under Selim I defeated the Safavids in 1514 and gained Upper Mesopotamia which then included the Assyrian homeland. Under Murad IV, the Ottomans secured their control over Mesopotamia in the first half of the 17th century following the Ottoman–Safavid War (1623–39). The Ottomans then reorganized Mesopotamia into several large provinces or eyalet. In 1639, under the Treaty of Zuhab, modern territories of Assyria became part of the Eyalet of Mosul and later of the Vilayet of Mosul after the Tanzimat reforms in 1864.

The Mesopotamian Assyrians mostly concentrated in northern part of Mosul Vilayet and the southern part of Van Vilayet in which they maintained their cultural and religious autonomy under the Ottomans. Ottoman administration also fostered a peaceful coexistence among the different sections of Mesopotamian society for over 400 years. Each religious minority was organised as a millet. Syriac Christians, however, were often considered one millet alongside Armenians until the 19th century, when the Nestorians, the Syriac Orthodox and the Chaldeans gained that right as well.

Outside of the Assyrian homeland in Mesopotamia, the Assyrians had also populated the northwestern part of Iran, especially in the western part of Velayet of Azerbaijan. During the 19th century, the Persian Assyrians experienced a short-lived cultural and literary renaissance with many books and newspapers being published in Syriac language. By 1900, the Assyrians constituted over a quarter of the population of Azerbaijan Velayet and were the largest non-Muslim majority in the Urmia region. Before 1918, there were over 115 Assyrian settlements to the west of Lake Urmia.

Assyrian Volunteers Agha Petros 1918

Assyrian troops led by Agha Petros Elia (saluting) with a captured Turkish banner in the foreground, 1918.

Nevertheless, the Assyrians had to suffer from a number of religiously and ethnically motivated massacres under the Ottoman and the Persian rules. The Assyrians experienced a further catastrophic series of events during World War I in the form of the religiously and ethnically motivated Assyrian Genocide (ܫܥܬܐ ܕܣܝܦܐ shatā d-saypā, "year of the sword") at the hands of the Ottomans and their Kurdish and Arab allies from 1915 to 1918. This led to a large-scale migration of Assyrian people from Mesopotamia to Syria and from Persia to Russia. In response to the genocide, the Assyrian Volunteers was formed to fight the Ottomans.

Led by Agha Petros Elia, Mar Benyamin Shimun XIX and Malik Khoshaba Yousip, the Assyrian Volunteers fought alongside the Allies against the Ottomans. Despite being heavily outnumbered and outgunned, the Assyrians scored a number of victories over the Turks and the Kurds. However, due to the collapse of the Russian Empire after the 1917 Revolution and of the Armenian Defense as well as the murder of Shimun XIX, the Assyrians were thrown into chaos and left without allies, leaving them surrounded and cut off from lines of supply. They had to flee to northwest Iran and fight their way to British train lines going to the Mosul region.

British Mandate for Mesopotamia (1918–1947)[]

Post-war resettlement (1918–1925)[]

Assyrian refugees Tabriz 1922

Persian Assyrian refugees fled from their settlements in Urmia and were on their way to northern Mesopotamia, 1922.

The British government agreed in the Hussein–McMahon Correspondence that it would support Arab independence if they revolted against the Ottomans. The two sides, however, had different interpretations of this agreement. Under the secret Sykes–Picot Agreement of 1916, the British and the French divided each others' spheres of influences at the Middle East into several League of Nations mandates, which became the real cornerstone of the geopolitics structuring the entire region. The agreement gave Britain control over Southern Syria and Mesopotamia.

After the war, the British resettled 20,000 Assyrians from southeast Turkey and northwestern Iran to Mesopotamia in 1918, joining them with the already existing indigenous Assyrian communities of both Eastern Orthodox and Catholic rites in the north. Approximately three-fourths of the Assyrians who had sided with the British found themselves living in northern Mesopotamia which roughly corresponding with their ancient homeland but had now been populated by the Kurds. Throughout the Mandate era, the Assyrians were proved to be the most loyal British subjects as the former believed that only the latter that can protect them from the Arabs and the Kurds.

Naum Faiq

Naum Faiq (1868–1941), the father of Assyrian nationalism.

Thousands of Assyrian men had seen service in the Mesopotamian Levies, a force that employed to protect the Turkish and Iranian borders of Mesopotamia from invasion. Excellent, disciplined and loyal soldiers, the Assyrians were soon able to dominate it. In 1920, the Arabs, both the Sunnis and the Shias, joined by the Kurds, revolted against the British. Though the revolt achieved some initial success, by the end of October 1920, the British and the Levies had crushed it. After the revolt ended, the British Mandate for Mesopotamia (ܐܬܦܩܕܐ ܕܒܪܝܛܐܢܝܐ ܥܠ ܒܝܬ ܢܗܪ̈ܝܢ‎ Itpaqidhā d-Briṯānyā ēl Bêt Nahrain) was confirmed by the League of Nations in 1922.

While the Assyrians in Mesopotamia were in disarray and almost leaderless, nationalism flourished among the Assyrian Diaspora. In 1924, Naum Faiq formed the Denkha Sureta (ܕܢܚܐ ܣܘܪܝܬܐ "Syriac Awakening") in the United States to revive the Syriac language. The World Syriac Conference was convened by the Denkha Sureta on August 3-5, 1925 in Beirut, Lebanon. It declared "Assyrian" as the official designation for Syriac-speaking peoples, replacing of "Syriac Christian", "Chaldean" and "Aramean". After the death of his wife in 1927, Faiq immigrated to Mosul and founded the Syriac Institute (ܕܪܝܫܬܐ ܣܘܪܝܬܐ Daristā Sūretā) with Alphonse Mingana and George Lamsa in 1929.

Freydun Atturaya

Freydun Atturaya (1891–1977), the first Prime Minister of Assyria (1947–1968)

In 1925, Freydun Atturaya, who escaped from the Soviet Union in 1924, founded the Amale Qaleta (ܥܡܠܐ ܩܠܥܬܐ "Workers of the Fort", later renamed ܦܥܠܐ ܩܠܥܬܐ Pa'alē Qalētā) in Tel Keppe with Yousip Salman Yousip and Petros Vasili. Inspired by Labour Zionism, Atturaya saw northern Mesopotamia as a "fort" to protect the Assyrians from persecutions and called for a large-scale immigration of the Aramaic peoples, including the Assyrians, the Arameans, the Mandaeans and even the Syriac Indians. He believed the independence could only be achieved by the efforts of Aramaic working class rather than appealing to the international community.

Birth of independence movement (1927–1939)[]

In 1927, nineteen-year-old Eshai Shimun XXI formally assumed his position as the Patriarch of the Assyrian Church of the East. Influenced by his aunt, Surma Shimun, the young patriarch viewed himself as the leader of all Assyrians, rather than of his church only. He put himself as a champion of Assyrian nationalism. On October 17, 1928, Patriarch Shimun XXI invited the leaders of other three Syriac churches for a conference in Mosul; it formally endorsed the Cairo Resolution which adopted "Assyrian" as the designation for all Syriac-speaking peoples regardless of religion. Shimun XXI advocated for an Assyrian autonomy under continued British rule, which making him at odd with Atturaya who favored independence.

Hadba-16200v

A general view of the city of Mosul, 1932.

In 1930, the Mosul Governorate gained autonomy from the British mandate. On August 14, 1930, the Dohuk Conference was attended by the Assyrian notables and tribal chiefs. The conference demanded the British to grant the Assyrians an autonomy in northern Mosul. Proposed Assyrian governorate comprised the lands between the Tigris and the Great Zab rivers, including the eastern portion of Mosul. The declaration angered the Kurds who viewed the lands claimed by the Assyrians were part of their own homeland.

As the proposal was responded positively by the Mandate government, the Kurds staged civil disobedience in November 1930, demanding Kurdistan as an administrative unit separate from the Arab lands within the Mandate. When the conflicts between the Kurds and the Assyrians sharpened, the Kurdish rebellions led by Ahmed Barzani erupted in late 1931. Assyrian settlements were attacked and pillaged by the Kurdish rebels, while the Arabs in northern Mesopotamia joined the Kurds in the attacks against the Assyrians and the British. As the Assyrians were attacked helplessly during the rebellions, the autonomy plan was no longer favored by the Assyrian nationalists.

George Lamsa

George Lamsa (1892–1975), the first President of Assyria (1947–1955)

In 1933, anti-Assyrian sentiments among the Kurds led to the outbreak of Mosul riots. Most of Assyrian inhabitants of the city were evacuated to Tel Keppe and Dohuk. By 1934, the Syriac immigration proposal had gaining foothold among the moderates which they saw as a way to strengthen their position in northern Mesopotamia. The Assyrian National Fund (ܨܢܕܘܩܐ ܐܘܡܬܐ ܐܬܘܪܐ Ṣandūqā Ūmtā Āṯūrā) was founded on February 14, 1936 and was financially supported by Syriac Lebanese notables, such as Michel Chiha and Philippe de Tarrazi, to acquire the lands to be settled by the Syriacs.

Yousip Salman Yousip, however, opposed the immigration plan and left the Paale to join the newly-founded Mesopotamia Communist Party (ܓܒܐ ܟܐܡܘܢܝܣܝܐ ܒܝܬ ܢܗܪ̈ܝܢܐ Gabā Kāmunisayā Bêt Nahrainā) in 1934 with other left-wing Paale members. Atturaya then founded democratic socialist Giliare Attura (ܓܠܝܪܐ ܐܬܘܪܐ "Soldiers of Assyria") in 1937. With the split of the Paale, the culturalist Denkha positioned themselves in the centrist position on immigration issue. George Lamsa, with Faiq's blessing, transformed the Denkha Sureta as the Denkha Suryaya (ܕܢܚܐ ܣܘܪܝܝܐ, also meant "Syriac Awakening") on May 14, 1938 to counter the political dominance of the Giliare.

World War II (1939–1945)[]

End of the British Mandate (1945–1947)[]

Independent Assyria (1947–present)[]

References[]

Further readings[]

This article is part of Cherry, Plum, and Chrysanthemum

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