Ingilos
Ingilos, an ethnographic territorial-local group of the Georgian ethnos. They live to the northeast of Kakheti in the Zaqatala, Kakh, and Balakan districts of modern Azerbaijan.
The name "Ingilo" was given to the ancient indigenous Georgian population of this country. The local Islamized Georgians living in this region were called "newly converted" ("Yangoli" in old Turkish), from which "Ingilo" and the name of this region, "Saingilo", originated.
According to the 1897 census, 12,394 people in the Zaqatala uezd considered the Georgian language as their mother tongue. Two groups of Ingilos are distinguished – Christian and Muslim. During the Soviet period and currently, the Azerbaijani authorities consider only Christian Ingilos to be Georgians. They also bear surnames with Georgian suffixes. In censuses, Georgians (Ingilos) were recorded in almost the same numbers (14 thousand). Muslim Ingilos are registered as Azerbaijanis and have surnames similar to Azerbaijani ones – by adding the Russian suffix -ev (-ov) to the father's name.
In eastern Kakheti, or Saingilo, Georgians became an ethnic minority in the seventeenth century, when Dagestani Avars and Tsakhurs settled on the former homesteads of the Georgians who had been exiled to Iran by Shah Abbas. In the eighteenth to nineteenth centuries, a significant number of Ingilos became assimilated with the Dagestanis (Lekians), as eastern Kakhetian peasants crossed over to the side of the "lordless communities" and settled among them.
During the Soviet period, the assimilation of Georgians living in Saingilo took place. Both Christian and Muslim Ingilos speak the Ingilo dialect of the Georgian language. Due to problems, Christian Ingilos from the village of Koraghani [Qoraghani] in the Kakh district resettled in Kakheti, in the village of Samtatskaro [Samtatsqaro] of the Dedoplistskaro [Dedoplistsqaro] district, in 1930.
Over the past few decades, the Georgians living in Saingilo no longer call themselves "Ingilo". They have adopted the name "Heri/Hereli", because this region bore the name "Hereti" until the fifteenth century.
R. Topchishvili
