Strategies of making and unmaking ethnic boundaries: Evidence on the Laz of Turkey

Boundary crossing by economic mobility

Lazistan has been shaped by geographical constraints, a formidable range of mountains forms a fertile but narrow coastland, which traditionally made Laz men seafarers, and probably protected their language despite its small population. According to Meeker (2002), the people of Black Sea, including the Laz, have had a tendency to integrate with the world beyond their native homeland since the premodern period. Because, in this region, the topography is characterized by a valley system which did not allow any sort of autonomous or self-sufficient prosperity, its people were attracted to “universal projects of power and truth … became partisans first of Romanism and Byzantinism, then of Ottomanism and Nationalism” (Meeker, 2002: 97–98). The Laz people, “wedded to the sea” and “confined to the fishing villages and the narrow literal” (Allen, 1929: 140), sought to find work outside of Lazistan. Thanks to Nikolay Marr's visit to Lazistan, that seems to have taken place in 1909, we have lively accounts of the Laz men who were seasonally migrating to find work to Russia or to Istanbul (Marr, 2016). However, the Cold War conditions and extreme policing of the Soviet–Turkish border prevented Laz access to the Russian and Caucasian outlets and the opportunities that they used to exercise in the imperial period. According to the last British Consul who served in Trabzon consular area in the 1950s, this led to “a great deal of hidden resentment and anger” among the Laz, which could be appeased by the rapid development of a state-sponsored tea crop industry launched in the 1950s (Harris, 2005). Generous state policies created sources of employment and prosperity for the Laz peasants. The consul, who foresaw speedy assimilation for the Laz, defined them as “happy, contented and prosperous community” and said that, although they still speak their language at home and coffee houses, particularly the young educated segments are not so ardent to admit to strangers that they are Laz and seem to prefer to be considered as Turks and not as a minority (Harris, 2005: 354).

Beginning with the 1950s, by means of the state-sponsored tea cultivation, the state worked deeply into this peripheral region and fostered a “state-oriented” attitude in the Laz people. “The prosperity of the small region” was totally dependent on state investment in the area, which made Turkey the fifth biggest tea producer in the world in the 20th century (Bazin, 2009: 393). The excessive production of this new industrial crop replaced substance agriculture and fishing and rapidly changed the socioeconomic conditions of the Laz peasants (Hann, 1990). The tea industry enabled a collective upward mobility and out-migration of the Laz, who permanently settled down in the Western cities of Turkey and began visiting their homeland only for the harvest time. These economic opportunities provided another avenue of participation in the wider Turkish community.

Boundary crossing by language shift

I argue that the language shift that enables boundary crossing takes place through three fundamental mechanisms: first, economic integration; second, the educational system along with other assimilationist tools; and third, encounters with non-Laz. All these three elements caused the loss of the linguistic capital of Lazuri.

Minority ethnicities tended to abandon their parochial patois in order to access the linguistic capital which is convertible into economic resources or benefits such as climbing occupational ladders (Berger, 1972; Bourdieu, 1991; Brubaker, 2015; Eidheim, 1969; Laitin, 2007; Schnapper, 2004; Weber, 1976). Likewise, Lazuri lost its linguistic capital and rapidly turned into a patois not sufficient to communicate with the non-Laz world or be successful at schools steadily penetrating into the isolated rural lives of the Laz. ¹³ Until the middle of the 20th century, foreign travelers and scholars who visited Lazistan noted the distinct ethnic characteristics of its people (Allen, 1929; Bryer, 1988; Harris, 2005; Marr, 2016; Meeker, 2002; Rickmers, 1934). In the first decade of the 20th century, Marr (2016) observed that almost all of the Laz living in the Ottoman Lazistan were already bilingual and could not speak Lazuri without mixing it with Turkish words. ¹⁴ However, as a result of the far-reaching intergenerational language shift that occurred in the last five decades of modern Turkey, a situation of bilingualism was replaced by increasingly dominant monolingualism in Turkish. As a result of the drastic language shift, Lazuri is now classified by UNESCO as a definitely endangered language, meaning that the rate of its acquisition as a native language is very low among younger generations (Bianet, 2009; Kutscher, 2008). ¹⁵

As noted above, economic integration played a role in the language shift through the penetration of market forces into the Laz periphery (Bellér-Hann and Hann, 2001) and causing out-migration of the Laz in search of work. A male engineer in his 50s, thinks that, in addition to the role of state policies, economic necessity was an effective result of the language shift. In the past, while producing their own crops, the self-sufficient local economy had allowed the Laz to speak in Lazuri, but when Laz men sought to find work outside of their homeland (like his father), they picked up Turkish and “when they were returning their homes, they were acting as a new element of that [Turkish] culture.”

According to Gellner (1983: 35), in the age of modern industrial society, “the employability, dignity, security and self-respect of individuals” now become dependent on school-transmitted culture. Also, in the case of Turkey, since the entire education program and high culture are based exclusively on Turkish, the national education system proved an enormous stimulus for the language shift. The empirical evidence of this study confirms the common tendency that a language spoken by a peripheral minority is replaced by the official language by means of the education system. In the early Republican era, when most Laz children were starting their education without knowing any Turkish, speaking in their mother tongue at school was forbidden and punished by both symbolic and physical violence. These stories are still part of the collective memory among elderly generations. My informants also explained how they were strictly policed by their fellow classmates and native teachers so that they did not speak Lazuri at school or at home. The first literate generation, but particularly those who achieved middle-class status by working for the state bureaucracy, strongly embraced Turkish, identifying it with being modern and civilized. Hence, they convinced themselves of the necessity of replacing their mother tongue with Turkish and erased it in their family settings. Laz teachers were colloborating in, what Bourdieu described as, “the destruction of their instruments of expression” and they were doing so “with more or less explicit intention of increasing their value in the educational market” (Bourdieu, 1991: 49). As a representative of this generation, a retired male primary school teacher in his late 70s described why he prevented students from speaking in Lazuri at school. He said he sought to make them to speak proper Turkish. Similarly, he did not speak to his own children in his mother tongue in order to protect their Turkish accent. By implying a sense of discomfort about being marked in encounters with non-Laz he said, “if you are a Lazuri speaker, no matter how much you try to speak Turkish perfectly, they would figure [it] out and tell you that you are Laz.” Today, he teaches some words in his mother tongue to his grandchildren, and says that “the kids should learn and not forget it, but I don't want them to speak it.” Hence, he hopes to transmit a little grip of his ethnic language sufficient to mark boundaries yet not so much as to disrupt their flawless identification with Turkishness. Another male informant, an engineer in his 60s, remembering the deprivation and meagre education they suffered from in the past, explained why he did not speak to his children in Lazuri by saying that “we just wanted our children to be successful, and not to be humiliated.” In the account of a primary school graduate waiter, the negative relationship between economic mobility and Lazuri is established. The informant, who has never left his hometown except for military service exemplifies an indifferent attitude to Lazuri, not exceptional among the Laz. Raised in an upper valley village, he did not study beyond primary school and started working immediately after this. As a bilingual in Lazuri and Turkish, not so common for his generation, he regrets not speaking a foreign language such as English which would allow him to find work in tourist towns of western Turkey. He was not so excited about teaching of Lazuri at schools and says “let the Laz parents teach Lazuri to their children [as part of our culture], but also tell children that it is no[t] so useful, don't tell them that Lazuri would provide anything to them in the future.”

Language skills in Turkish, therefore, are rendered both indispensable for success in the education system and to avoid stigmatization by the society at large. Feelings of humiliation may be experienced because of variations in accent commonly associated with ethnic groups and stereotypes (Giles, 1979: 255). Among the Laz, since bilingualism is considered to be responsible for having an accent, many Laz stopped speaking with their children in Lazuri. Encounters with non-Laz have become more common, particularly for those who migrate to cities. Accentuated Turkish renders the Laz “marked” in such public encounters by both revealing their ethnic difference and by evoking ethnic jokes that reproduce popular Laz stereotypes and cause ethnic embarrassment. Many of my informants explained that they tried hard to eliminate their accent because of the humiliation they felt based on these stereotypes. ¹⁶ A male dentist in his 50s says that, during his university education in the 1970s in Istanbul, in his left-wing environment he could hide his rural roots thanks to the common, left-wing style outfit that everybody could afford, but he could not escape from identity stigma because of the strong accent he had.

In short, the language shift is a process driven, not only by state coercion, but also by inextricably linked economic and symbolic rewards. As Gellner (1983) says, language is not a deeply embedded asset and if it is the only obstacle in front of entropy resistance, language shift smooths the process of assimilation. In Gellnerian terminology, having quit Lazuri, the Laz is no longer “blue-skin colored” and can easily pass and perform as an unmarked Turk. Among the Laz, the more educated, and urbanized, the more Turkish and the less Lazuri is spoken. All the informants agree on the fact that, in Laz towns, coastal areas largely shifted to Turkish, while Lazuri retreated to the mountainous, rural and peasant segments. Therefore, Turkish came to be seen as being modern, cultured, and urban. What a bilingual female informant, a high school graduate homemaker in her 40s remembers about her school years in her village demonstrates the relationship established between mastering Turkish skills and becoming a more prestigious Laz.

We did not make much of an issue of speaking in Lazuri. Well, actually not speaking it was thought as something much better. Knowing Turkish was something more privileged, more distinctive. But, the other, ‘it's just your language’, right? If you know Turkish, you were at a higher status. You know the Laz do love praising themselves [giggling]. So, they have begun to get even more assimilated. They began to forget Lazuri even more. What did they do? They just started not teaching it to their children.

Once the correlation between status and Turkish is set up, Lazuri is confined to a limited and informal area. Bilingual informants said that they tend to switch to their mother tongue in informal and intimate settings, to make jokes or when they feel angry, outside of spaces of authority and power quite often mixed with Turkish words. Lazuri is spoken for explicit exclusion of children from conversations among parents and adults. Evidence indicates that bilinguals never speak in Lazuri in official places where they always deactivate their ethnic boundaries. Accordingly, for the majority of later generation Laz, whose practical mother tongue is Turkish, being Laz is experienced differently from the earlier generation whose mother tongue was Lazuri because the accentuated Turkish functions as an observable boundary marker. Since the language is extremely fundamental in delineating boundaries, ethnic boundaries of Turkish monolingual Laz tend to be symbolic or nominal (and indeed, invisible) when they encounter non-Laz people. The desired language shift is the most important consequential aspect of the boundary unmaking because Lazuri is the ultimate marked peculiarity capable of making boundaries of Lazness more visible than any other trait.

Boundary contraction by recalling ancestors: Laz as “converted Mingrels”

Derived from the “Turkish History Thesis,” from the 1930s to the 1990s, the Turkish state refused to recognize non-Turkic ethnic origins of Muslim non-Turks and claimed that Kurds, Laz, Circassians, Adjara's Muslim Georgians, the Hemshin were all Turkish in origin and that they had forgotten their roots and adopted languages spoken by their foreign neighbors. Those who were speaking of a separate Lazness or Kurdishness were accused of “dividing” the nation by treacherously inventing ethnic distinctions. Non-Turkic ethnicities were expected to confirm that they are actually ethnic Turks accidentally speaking a foreign language.

A state-sponsored historical narrative was coined by Kırzıoğlu (1986), who claimed that the Laz and Muslim Georgians of Turkey did not have any ancestral connection to Southern Caucasian non-Turkic ethnicities. The origins of the Laz were linked to some Turkic groups, who had adopted Christianity but converted to Islam after the Ottoman conquest of their homeland. Thus, the argument goes that, even if there was a religious conversion from Christianity to Islam, the Laz have always been Turks. ¹⁷ The denialist rhetoric disseminated by official publications certainly affected people's opinions and forcefully imposed the normative position of the state on non-Turkish ethnicities. ¹⁸ Also, those who are willing to be members of the “state-bearing” ethnicity, tended to count on the official thesis that the Laz were, in fact, ethnic Turks regardless of their distinctive language.

Despite the fact that the denialist rhetoric of the state lasted for decades today, most of the Laz, when asked, openly expresses their Southern Caucasian roots and maintain a particular belief in their common origin. Weberian understanding of ethnicity, belief in a common descent, without a doubt can be found among the Laz. ¹⁹ Many are not so well informed about the historical details of an ethnic past, but still, a belief that they were not ethnically related to Turks persists despite the state's efforts in the past. Those who say that the Laz were converted to Islam from Christianity make a connection with the transborder kin of the Laz called Mingrel, a Christian ethnic group in present-day Georgia. ²⁰ A primary school graduate female informant in her late 60s describes the ancestors of the Laz and the Hemshin in a very typical way:

Those who are called the Hemshin are just Armenians. They are converted Armenians. And we also are converted from Mingrels. We hire people from Georgia [during tea harvest], we talk to them [Mingrels] in Lazuri. They also speak it. They speak the real Lazuri.

Being ethnically non-Turk and having converted to Sunni Islam from Christianity serve as repertoires occasionally activated to draw boundaries of Lazness; however, the degree and form of associating these narratives to present-day Lazness depend on a person's or families' ideological orientation and habitus. For those who self-identify themselves “first as Laz” embrace the Mingrelian connection as part of their ethnic roots and enjoy the fact that they can communicate with Mingrels. Some of the informants, who can be described as nominal Muslims or nonreligious, say that their grandparents told them the conversion was imposed by force, specifically calling their ancestors “Muslims by the sword” (kılıç Müslümanı), thus expressing a saliently unofficial historical narrative. For them, having been converted to Islam relatively later than other Muslim people, including Turks, is a trait that today makes Laz different, and more secularly oriented, people especially demonstrated by the absence of gender segregation among the Laz. In contrast, some other informants, including those who refer to Mingrels as their ethnic relatives, believe that the Laz were not forced to become Muslims, but that they became so voluntarily. At the end of the spectrum, those who define themselves as pious Muslims, and self-identify themselves “first as Muslim” tend to be remarkably indifferent to the issues of both their kinship with Mingrels and religious conversion. Those groups of Laz are inclined to blur boundaries between Turkishness and Lazness through a rhetoric of shared religion where Islam overrides ethnic particularisms.

Boundary contraction by dissociating from ascribed Lazness

The Eastern Black Sea region of Turkey is one of the most multilinguistic and multiethnic part of the entire nation. ²¹ It is inhabited by Turkish, Homshetsma (a dialect of Western Armenian), Georgian, Greek, and Lazuri speakers. Lowry's research (2009) indicates that, with the massive Islamization starting in the second half of the 16th century, a considerable number of Orthodox Greeks converted to Islam. Islamization, in the long run, rendered this diverse population to merge into Turkishness. Yet, in the 21th century, a small number of Muslim peasants in Trabzon still speak an archaic form of Greek, called Romeika. Their grandparents were exempted from the compulsory Population Exchange between Turkey and Greece in 1923, because it was carried out according to a religious criterion. Also, a small group of people, called the Hemshin are considered to be converted Armenians by most locals, although this has been a controversial issue. Meeker (1971: 337) says that, since the late Byzantium period, all these people of the region have been called Laz (Lazoi in Greek) regardless of ethnic or linguistic criteria. This naming reduces this historically multiethnic, multilinguistic character of the region into a vague cultural category of the “Laz,” who is stereotyped as naïve, stubborn, and funny in popular ethnic jokes. But, it is not necessarily an ascription of outsiders. Among both Greek-speaking Trabzonlu (people of the Trabzon province) and the Hemshin, calling oneself Laz especially outside the region is commonly observed; this blurs the distinction between Laz as ethnicity and Laz as regional-cultural identity. As I outlined in “Historical background: Constructing the boundaries of Turkishness” section, because Greeks and Armenians are defined as religious minorities and historically delineated from Muslim and Turkish millet by clear boundaries, off-springs of Turkified and Islamized Armenians and Greeks had their own motivations to self-identify with Turkishness as the supra-identity and Lazness as a regional identity as a safer form of otherness. ²² A male informant in his 40s, both a teacher and an independent activist working on Lazuri, explains this situation in relation to the chauvinistic political atmosphere in the country in the following way:

Though speaking Greek [Rumca], when asked, they say ‘I speak Lazuri’. A friend of mine had exactly such an encounter on a bus trip. My friend explains what Lazuri is to that guy [who speaks Greek], but he insists on that he is speaking Lazuri…Because the Laz do not have a bad image, they use it like a supra-identity, as a protective shield, because they cannot tell [others] openly that they speak Greek. Everybody sympathizes when you speak Lazuri, but they don't if you speak Greek. If you just say ‘I’m Armenian’ in Trabzon, just for this reason, you can be attacked. There are plenty of such guys in Trabzon. So, in such a society, how can one ever say I am speaking Greek or Armenian?

Boundary contraction by self-ascribed social manners

In addition to language and ethnic ancestors, the Laz tend to draw boundaries of ethnic groupness from other Karadenizli and ethnic Turks by self-ascribed moral or cultural traits. Presumed differences help to reproduce the ethnic boundaries at both the symbolic and cognitive levels from the Hemshin, and unmarked Turks of Rizeli (people of the Rize province), Trabzonlu, and Karadenizli in general. Informants refer to a distinct way of life and culture, such as the absence of women's seclusion; their tendency to adopt modern, cultured, and educated lifestyles; and not being “narrow-minded” like the Rizeli or Trabzonlu. ²³ A male retired teacher in his 60s gives a typical self-image of the Laz in comparison to Rizeli:

We [men and women] dine together. We sit together. We swim together in creeks. If a young bride hugs a male stranger, she is not blamed. We harvest tea together. Rize is completely different, where they always have two story-houses to segregate women and men.

Boundary contraction by interacting with the “ethnic-other”

The Laz and the Hemshin identities have historically been shaped by a Barthian (1969) sense of interaction constituting the necessary “other” in the formation of the ethnic self. In their shared homelands, local-ethnic identification has always been determined by the question whether one is Laz or Hemshin. They cohabitated adjacent territories and therefore developed interethnic relations partly autonomous from the influence of the nation-state. Bellér-Hann (2007) says that, despite the prevalence of mutual stereotypes serving to preserve group membership, the interethnic relation between the Laz and the Hemshin is mostly unranked rather than being hierarchal. They share most material culture, living standards, and migration strategies leaving the language difference as the most significant distinctive criterion. However, when we compare the relationship between the Laz and the Hemshin in the districts of the Western part of the Laz–Hemshin inhabited territories and the Eastern part (Hopa district), it appears that, until recently in the Eastern part, the Laz–Hemshin relationship was characterized by deeper social boundaries. In Hopa, the Hemshin retained their language—a Western Armenian dialect—occupied upper valley villages and could thus not access the benefits of state-sponsored tea cultivation. ²⁴ In contrast, the Hemshin in the Western section adopted Turkish, joined the middle class and state bureaucracy through migration, education, and commerce (Simonian, 2007; Toumarkine, 2007). In Hopa, boundaries between the Laz and the Hemshin were not only symbolic but were also social. Although hierarchies between the Laz and Hemshin were challenged by the opening of the Turkish–Georgian border, which offered new opportunities especially for Hemshin, ethnic boundaries are still influential and characterized by a sense of distinction (Akyüz, 2013: 167–202). A female informant, a homemaker in her 40s from the Hopa district describes an anecdote that represents how deep the social boundaries were in the past:

My grandfather used to say that they were betting on how many Hemshin they would beat in one day. I first thought it was a joke. But then I realized that it was true after knowing Hemshin friends. They were really bullying, beating the Hemshin who were coming down here from their villages to sell their cheese, milk and what not, and seizing their goods. It was pure banditry, you know. It was so sad to hear those stories. I hope this won't ever happen again.

Boundary contraction by noncontentious ethnic repertoires

As a substitute for language, many Laz discovered a new and prestigious means to reinvent the boundaries of Lazness in a noncontentious way: Laz music. By means of recently popularized Laz folk music, Lazuri has reached a wider, non-Laz audience. Also, through the help of performing ethnic identity through music, the Laz could experience ethnicity in a trouble-free way. ²⁵ Taşkın's (2011) study analyzes the popularization of Laz folk music thanks to a young, charismatic, and sympathetic Rock musician, Kazım Koyuncu, who tragically passed away at a young age in 2005. His music in the Laz folk style and lyrics in Lazuri offered a new image for the Laz that found sympathy especially in urban youth. After his tragic death, several other musicians and bands continue to compose Laz music in a popular fashion while the traditional dancing horon has become increasingly popular among the Laz youth.

In the 20th century, Turkish and Turkified monoculture in the music industry intentionally limited the reach of Laz music while the rise of Islamist politics depopularized horon traditionally danced by men and women together. ²⁶ Laz identity has regained traditional cultural capital after Laz music became something fashionable that makes both language and identity visible without putting the Turkishness of the Laz at risk. Particularly young generation informants spoke to me about how, by virtue of Laz music, they feel themselves distinct, specifically underlining its role for the “discovery” of their Laz identity. A 16-year-old female informant says that her parents spoke in Lazuri at home when they wanted to exclude their children from the conversation, which is quite typical among bilingual Laz adults. She then says that she is not interested in “foreign languages,” including Lazuri, meaning that a language she did not learn as her mother tongue. Yet, she is fond of Laz music and especially enjoys the fact that her music class teacher (whom she respects and likes and who is non-Laz) enjoys it. Ethnic identity may be felt by many urban Laz, who cannot speak Lazuri, as something that enriches their personal life, something that is different from generic Turkish culture. It is not a thick, politicized ethnic boundary, so it can be combined with Turkishness without a boundary conflict. For example, a female PhD student in her 30s who considers herself as both Turk and Laz says that

Turkishness is for all of us, but the other [Lazness] makes me feel more special, different, it's something more authentic about me, but I accept the other one [Turkishness] … I am not only a Turkish citizen, yes, I am also a Turk, but I am not so passionate about it … Lazness, on the other hand, is in what I eat, what I drink, what I listen [to].

The Laz self-image as minority or majority? Lazes versus Kurds

On 21 March 2013, a CHP (People's Republican Party) MP, Uğur Bayraktutan from Artvin addressed the parliament in the following way:

Look my dear friends, to understand what Laz means we need to go back to Çanakkale [Battle of Dardanelles, 1915]. I brought a photocopy of a tombstone, dear friends. It was written down here ‘Artvin, Arhavi, Şerefoğlu Zihni, 20 years old’. They went there without a hesitation and never thought of coming back. Look, if we describe the Laz we do it by such feelings. The separatists are telling the Laz ‘don't you have another flag? Don't you have a claim for another flag?’. In this way, up until today, separatists asked to the Laz. Do you know what the Laz told them? The Laz turned them down and said ‘our flag [Turkish flag] is waving in Anıtkabir [Atatürk's mausoleum], our flag is waving in Anıtkabir. Look, our flag is right here’, they said. (Applause from CHP and MHP [Nationalist Action Party] desks). (TBMM, 2013)

First, it reflects the average imagination of the relationship between the Kurds and the Lazes. Accordingly, it is assumed that, “separatists Kurds” try to incite the Laz, and yet, the Laz teaches a lesson to the Kurds by their patriotism and loyalty to the Turkish state. Second, “the solution process” disclosed some “objective similarities” between the Laz and the Kurds, and henceforth it was felt necessary to substantiate the patriotism of the Laz. In 2013, when “the solution process” was launched, in a relatively more open and democratic atmosphere, on the one hand, Laz–Kurd exchange was becoming more likely, while on the other hand, a possible change in the status quo was causing a reactionary action. For example, in 2013, the Laz Institute was established and, in their opening ceremony, an ethnic Kurd BDP MP was invited. The same year, in the massive Newroz gathering in the predominantly Kurdish city of Diyarbakır, a Laz singer, Niyazı Koyuncu, younger brother of deceased Kazım Koyuncu, took the stage and sang songs in Lazuri. ²⁷ Also in 2013 fall semester, one year after the beginning of the Kurdish elective courses, the first elective course in Lazuri was opened in three secondary schools in Laz-inhabited towns. ²⁸ These sorts of exchanges led to mixed reactions among the Laz. Some Laz, on the basis of objective symmetries, reflect on possible subjective similarities with the Kurds, some other Laz, without necessarily denying some objective symmetries, refuted any sort of subjective similarity.

I define “objective” symmetries as given situations or facts based on the long-term construction of ethnicities in the context of Ottoman and Turkish history: For example, both are autochthons of Anatolia, ²⁹ both still retain ethnic languages—at a much lower rate among the Laz—and maintain territorial concentration in a region—significantly smaller territory and population for the Laz without any big cities, both have native homelands that used to be called by their ethnicity's name, Lazistan and Kurdistan in the Ottoman imperial system and even before, and both lack an independent ethnic kin state—although the Iraqi Kurds have an autonomous government. Subjective conditions reflect how the Laz and the Kurds tend to handle the situation of being a minority in the Turkish nation. The common tendency among the Laz, as I analyzed earlier, has been to cross the boundaries of Turkishness and contract to the ethnic self in a depoliticized or personalized manner. They do not consider themselves as a subordinated ethnic minority but as part of the majority itself. On the other hand, the Kurdish national movement can be defined as an attempt at transvaluation (Wimmer, 2013) that challenges the Turkish national identity put forward by the state by politicizing the ethnic self and claims the right to an alternative Kurdish national identity with a right to self-rule. ³⁰ Even though at the individual level there are many Laz who are critical of the assimilationist policies of the Turkish nation building and of nationalism, there has never been a collective Laz movement that represented this critical stance. On the other hand, a substantial number of Kurds also crosses the boundaries of Turkishness by assimilation or blurs the boundaries with the Islamic discourse; however, the existence of the Kurdish national movement delineates a boundary between dominant forms of Lazness and Kurdishness.

Those Laz who perceive a subjective form of symmetry between two groups are likely to develop a Laz self-image as a subordinated or/and assimilated people/minority and an affinity between the Laz and the Kurds. Interactions with Kurdish acquaintances may transform and intensify their own ethnic awareness and, in such cases, they tend to emphasize that both groups have been subordinated to the assimilationist policies of the state. Some informants refer to the role of the Kurdish movement in their increasing interest in the situation of the Laz or emphasize their personal relations with Kurds to transform their views and feelings on Lazness. For example, a retired teacher in his late 50s says that he realized “the importance of language” thanks to his Kurdish brother-in-law:

He speaks Kurdish very well. He says “I think in Kurdish, I see my dreams in Kurdish, and they tell me forcefully ‘you must use Turkish’”. Then I wondered why I have to think in Turkish, why [cannot I] think in Lazuri?

First, a strong identification with the state by the rhetoric of “not spitting on the plate one eats from” and second, superiority of the Turkish national identity over ethnic Lazness by common expressions such as “I am first Turk, then Laz” are two pillars by which boundaries between Lazness and Kurdishness are delineated. The “state-oriented society” of the Black Sea area that Meeker (2002: 114) addresses takes the form of not seeing the self as a subordinated minority but as authority holders and fully fledged members of the dominant majority. ³¹ A white-collar male informant in his 30s, who is personally quite interested in the protection of Lazuri, explains to me that to save national unity during the War of Independence and its aftermath, the state had to build the nation on Turkishness, the dominant element of the society. He continues as follows:

The Laz people considered it their own homeland. From this perspective, we are statist. Being statist is something else [from being Laz]. Loving the state is something else … but only at the cultural level, the rights should be given so that it [Lazuri] survives and I can feel its unique meaning for me.

“The solution process” that I referred earlier was crucial especially by revealing such tensions. The benefits of being classified as national citizens and symbolic owners of the nation provide a sense of security for people (Skey, 2011). Therefore, challenges to the given schemes of internalized hierarchies and changes in the existing ethno-national situation are perceived as threats against both status and agency (Skey, 2011: 105). They may lead to a dissonance in the individual habitus and be felt as an insult to their integrity (Todd, 2005). In this vein, specific episodes in the solution process and certain reforms that potentially affect both the Kurds and the Lazes have the capacity of challenging the status quo. Those Laz who endorse a state-centered, thick Turkish national identity tend to think that, if the Laz also benefit from these sort of reforms (such as elective courses in Lazuri or bringing back of the original Lazuri names of villages), it runs the danger of a possible disintegration of the Turkish nation imposed as part of a conspiracy that uses the Laz as a stepping stone for Kurdish demands. Any attempt to imply a symmetry between the status of Lazness and Kurdishness, in short, is perceived as a threat to the current privileged status of Laz as the fully fledged, respected, loyal members and owners of the nation, whose ethnic difference is reproduced in the nonpolitical, private, and informal realm. A male informant's perception of Kurdishness is illustrative in several aspects. A self-employed high school graduate in his 40s, he describes himself as a “proud Laz” by contracting from other Karadenizli. In the end, he compares the Laz with the Kurds by saying that “we are Turks and we have the faith [Islam]. We have no problem whatsoever with the state. We are not like the Kurds, you know, who don't call themselves Turks.” He thinks that ethnic language courses were imposed by the Kurds and having or not having it does not mean anything for the Laz, because, he says “after all we are Turks.” ³²

Some of the activists from the “Laz cultural movement” that I interviewed with also commented on the “state-oriented” attitude of the Laz. A male informant in his 30s who researches on Lazuri makes an observation about the fact that, in local Laz festivals, the Turkish flag is always displayed and says “when they address people, they always start with a unity and solidarity talk. They say ‘we are faithful to the state’. Because, they actually know that they are something else [not Turkish].” This sort of usage of the flag is what Çırakman (2011: 1898–1899) calls “mindfully flagging,” as something different from banal nationalism's mindless hanging of a flag. In the Turkish national context, where not hanging the flag is treated with suspicion (Aydın, 2009), these kinds of performances secure the Turkishness of the Lazes. Another activist, a female in her 40s, thinks that, for the Laz in the Laz region, “the state and Allah compete with each other” as the main source of faith and quotes a Laz villager, who asked her “please tell me how I can protect my creeks [against hydroelectric plants] without going against my state” (emphasis added). In other words, even for the state actions that negatively affect their traditional way of life, or the ecology of their hometowns, the Laz are hesitant to get organized to protest against the state. That also recalls the crucial role of the political economy of the region, dependency on the tea crop industry in shaping “state-oriented society,” but its empirical analysis is beyond the scope this study.

It is important to emphasize that, even though there are certain patterns of boundary contraction from Kurdishness, the general political atmosphere has potential to change established norms. I must point out that the Laz who do not have a thick Turkishness are likely to oscillate between developing affinity or distance with Kurds. In a focus group interview that I conducted during the “solution process” in Hopa with middle-aged female informants, I happened to observe the openness and flexibility of the women speaking on theoretically “off the line” political topics. The debate on Lazuri quickly turned into a comparison between the Laz and the Kurds, and some of the women started telling how they were moved by the Kurds' interest in their language, and then questioned their own indifference. Also, many said that because the Laz were not oppressed like the Kurds, there is no wish for a state among the Laz. The fact that the “solution process” was still under way seemed to let people to talk freely on ethnic issues. They oscillate between an affinity with the Kurdish subordination and a distancing from Kurdish ways of resistance. On the contrary, deteriorating relations between the state and the Kurdish national movement narrows the space for ethno-cultural activities of other groups, because both the state and majority society become less tolerant toward ethnicity-based mobilization (Kaya, 2012).