12 Facts About Zazas

Zazas are a people in eastern Turkey who traditionally speak the Zaza language, a western Iranian language written in the Latin script.

Zazas generally consider themselves Kurds, and are often described as Zaza Kurds by scholars.

Kurmanji-speaking Kurds and Zazas have for centuries lived in the same areas in Anatolia.

Arakelova states that Zazas had not claimed a separate ethnic identity from Kurds and were considered a part of the Kurds by outsiders through history, despite "having a distinct national identity and ethnic consciousness".

Zazas participated in the Kocgiri rebellion in 1920, and during the Sheikh Said rebellion in 1925, the Zaza Sheikh Said and his supporters rebelled against the newly established Republic because of its Turkish nationalist and secular ideology.

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Many Zazas subsequently joined the Kurmanji-speaking Kurdish nationalist Xoybun, the Society for the Rise of Kurdistan, and other movements, where they often rose to prominence.

Sakine Cansiz, a Zaza from Tunceli, was a founding member of Kurdistan Workers Party, and like many Zazas joined the rebels, including the prominent Bese Hozat.

Exact number of Zazas is unknown, due to the absence of recent and extensive census data.

Politically, Zazas belonging to Alevism and Sunnism generally hold widely different views from each other.

Since 2002 elections Sunni Zazas mostly voted for ruling Justice and Development Party both nationally and locally, meanwhile Alevi Zazas have shown wide support for left-wing or Kurdish-oriented parties, namely HDP and CHP.

In some cases in the diaspora, Zazas turned to this ideology because of the more visible differences between them and Kurmanji-speakers.

Zaza nationalism was further boosted when Turkey abandoned its assimilatory policies which made some Zazas begin considering themselves as a separate ethnic group.