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| Capital (and largest city) |
Tigranakert | ||||
| Language | Zaza, Kurdish, Armenia | ||||
| General | Ebubekir Malmîsanij | ||||
| Population | 1,053,850 | ||||
| Established | 1923 | ||||
| Currency | ZZP | ||||
Republic of Zazastan, Zazaria, Zazakistan, is a large republic in Eastern Anatolia. For historical reasons it is usually thought of as part of the Transcaucus region of Asia. It is bordered by Byzantine Empire to the north, Kurdistan to the South and has short borders with the Caliphate in its south-west and south-east. The capital is Tigranakert and the population around 1,053,000.
The Head of State is General Ebubekir Malmîsanij.
Zaza, Kurdish and Armenian are all given equal weight as the official languages of the country.
The currency is the Zaza Pyron (ZZP).
History[]
Roughly occupying the ancient province of Sophene the land now called Zazastan had been the southern part of numerous Armenian kingdoms in the early middle ages. The Zazas are said to have migrated into Eastern Anatolia around the 10-11th centuries during the Seljuk period settling in the border regions. After the collapse of the Ilkhanate the non-Muslim communities of Anatolia mostly appealed to Constantinople for assistance hence their occupation by Byzantine forces, though the Caliphate claimed all Ilkhanate lands. The two empires would fight repeatedly over the Zaza, Armenian and Kurdish lands for centuries.
Eventually in 1923 Byzantium would come to an agreement with the Caliphate regarding its Kurdish borders; both empires would grant independence to their respective Kurdish areas resulting in the creation of Zazastan, and Kurdistan to the south. The Hungarian diplomat Baron de Kissennye privately declared the new Zazastan 'less of a state, more a basket into which Byzantium has put all the peoples and places it no longer has the patience to deal with personally'. The new Zazastan almost immediately began a rivalry with its 'twin' to the south and wars between to the two broke out in the 1930s, 40s and 60s.
The long history of overlapping migrations and patchy attempts at converting the population to a major religion has left a pluralistic country behind. Though Zazas can claim to form an ethnic majority they and their Kurdish and Armenian neighbours are religiously divided. A slim Yazidi majority vies with Orthodox, Sunni and Shia in a mix which has constantly defied easy division. The original Emirs failed to build a nation state due to these divisions and civil war in the 1980s replaced them with a military-backed republican government.
The country is poor, relying almost completely on agriculture and has largely been ignored by Europe (aside from anthropologists eager to document the Yazidi faith and culture). The discovery of oil in Kurdistan has made Byzantium reassess relations with many of its neighbours and is beginning to seriously invest, for its own security if anything.
Government[]
Following the military coup in 1986, the country has been governed as a one-party state. There is a thin veneer of democracy in local elections but all real power lies with the military and its appointed figureheads.
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