''Aznauri'' ( ka,
აზნაური, ; pl. ''aznaurni'', აზნაურნი, or ''aznaurebi'', აზნაურები) was a class of
Georgian nobility.
History
The word derives from
Middle Persian
Middle Persian, also known by its endonym Pārsīk or Pārsīg ( Inscriptional Pahlavi script: , Manichaean script: , Avestan script: ) in its later form, is a Western Middle Iranian language which became the literary language of the Sasania ...
''āznāvar'', which, in turn, corresponds semantically to Middle Persian ''āzād'' and
Avestan
Avestan ( ) is the liturgical language of Zoroastrianism. It belongs to the Iranian languages, Iranian branch of the Indo-European languages, Indo-European language family and was First language, originally spoken during the Avestan period, Old ...
''āzāta-'' ("nobility"). The term is related to
Pahlavi ''
āzāt-ān'', "free" or "noble", who are listed as the lowest class of the free nobility in the Hajjiabad inscription of King
Shapur I
Shapur I (also spelled Shabuhr I; ) was the second Sasanian Empire, Sasanian King of Kings of Iran. The precise dating of his reign is disputed, but it is generally agreed that he ruled from 240 to 270, with his father Ardashir I as co-regent u ...
(240-270), and parallels to the ''
azat
Azat (; plural ազատք ''azatkʿ'', collective ազատանի ''azatani'') was a class of Armenian nobility; the term came to designate the middle and lower nobility originally, in contrast to the '' naxarark'' who were the great lords. From ...
'' of
Armenia
Armenia, officially the Republic of Armenia, is a landlocked country in the Armenian Highlands of West Asia. It is a part of the Caucasus region and is bordered by Turkey to the west, Georgia (country), Georgia to the north and Azerbaijan to ...
. It first appears in "
The Martyrdom of Saint Shushanik", a 5th-century work of Georgian
hagiographic
A hagiography (; ) is a biography of a saint or an ecclesiastical leader, as well as, by extension, an wiktionary:adulatory, adulatory and idealized biography of a preacher, priest, founder, saint, monk, nun or icon in any of the world's religi ...
literature. A later chronicle, that of
Leonti Mroveli, derives "aznauri" from the semi-legendary ruler
Azon
AZON (or Azon), from "azimuth only", was one of the world's first guided weapons, deployed by the Allies and contemporary with the German Fritz X.
Officially designated VB-1 ("Vertical Bomb 1"), it was invented by Major Henry J. Rand and Tho ...
(Georgian –''uri'' is a common adjectival suffix), whose 1,000 soldiers defected him and were subsequently named aznauri by Azon’s victorious rival
Parnavaz. This etymology is patently false.
[Rapp, Stephen H. (2003), ''Studies In Medieval Georgian Historiography: Early Texts And Eurasian Contexts'', pp. 266, 276, 316. Peeters Bvba, .]
The stratification within the
feudal aristocracy of Georgia, generically known as "aznauri", already became apparent in the 9th-10th century. A higher substratum began to be distinguished by adding the title of "didebuli", i.e., the aznauri who held "dideba", an especially high courtier office. Later in the Middle Ages, a clearer distinction was made between an aznauri (now dependent noble), and a
tavadi
''Tavadi'' ( ka, თავადი, "prince", lit. "head/chief" an from ka, თავი ''tavi'', "head", with the prefix of agent ''-di'') was a feudal title in Georgia (country), Georgia first applied in the Late Middle Ages usually trans ...
and
mtavari (dynastic prince); from the 15th century, the aznauri was considered a ''qma'' (literally, "vassal") of his lord, either secular or ecclesiastic. This form of dependence was later subjected to a formal regulation under
Vakhtang VI’s Code of Laws which was codified between 1705 and 1708, and loosely governed a
Georgian version of feudalism (''batonq’moba'') even after the
Russian annexation of Georgia early in the 19th century. Subsequently, in the 1820s, the status of aznauri was equated to that of the (untitled)
dvoryanstvo of Russia.
[ Suny, Ronald Grigor (1994), ''The Making of the Georgian Nation'', pp. 22, 337. ]Indiana University Press
Indiana University Press, also known as IU Press, is an academic publisher founded in 1950 at Indiana University that specializes in the humanities and social sciences. Its headquarters are located in Bloomington, Indiana. IU Press publishes ...
, [Lordkipanidze, Mariam (1987; translated and edited by George B. Hewitt), ''Georgia in the XI-XII centuries'', p. 19, Ganatleb]
(Online version).
/ref>
References
{{italic title
Nobility of Georgia (country)
Noble titles of Georgia (country)
Georgian words and phrases