Kozan, Adana

Names

The oldest known name is Sis or Siskia. Under the Roman Empire, it was for a time named Flavias or Flaviopolis. The Greek version of the older name, Σίσιον Sision, came back into use in the later Byzantine period. In Armenian, it is called Sis Սիս or Sissu.

Kozan () was originally the name of the administrative division the town Sis was a part of. This name originates from the Qōzānoğlu dynasty of derebeys that controlled the region from 1689 to 1865.

History

Middle Ages

In 704, Sis was besieged by the Arabs, but relieved by the Byzantines. The Abbasid caliph al-Mutawakkil took it and refortified it, but it soon returned to Byzantine hands. It was rebuilt in 1186 by Leo II, king of the Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia, one of the Rupenide dynasty who made the city the capital of his Kingdom (from 1186 until 1375). During the Crusade the catholicate returned to Sis in 1294, and remained there 150 years.

In 1266 Sis, the capital of the Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia, was captured and damaged by the Egyptian Mamluks led by Baibars. al-Said Barakah sent Qalawun to attack the city in 1277, but in 1375, Sis was taken and demolished by the Ramadanids, under the flag of the Mamluke Sultan of Egypt. The town never recovered its prosperity, not even when it passed into the power of the Ottomans in 1516.

Ecclesiastical history

Sis had an important place in ecclesiastical history both the Armenian Apostolic Church and as a Roman Catholic titular see. It is first mentioned in Theodoret's life of St. Simeon Stylites.

In the Middle Ages, Sis was the religious center of Christian Armenians, until the Armenians moved the seat of Catholicos back to Vagharshapat (Echmiadzin), in Armenia. Lequien (II, 899) gives the names of several bishops of Sis, before and after Gregory IX.

Even prior to the Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia, Sis was an episcopal see and several names of bishops and patriarchs can be found in the literature:

• Alexander, later Bishop of Jerusalem and founder of the famous library of the Holy Sepulchre in the third century
• Nicetas, present at the First Council of Nicaea in 325
• John, who lived in 451;
• Andrew in the sixth century
• George (681)
• Eustratus, Patriarch of Antioch about 868

In 1441, Sis having fallen from its high estate, the Armenian clergy proposed to remove the see, and on the refusal of the Catholicos of the day, Gregory IX, installed a rival, namely Kirakos I Virapetsi (Kirakos of Armenia) at Echmiadzin, who, as soon as Selim I had conquered Greater Armenia, became the more widely accepted of the two by the Armenian church in the Ottoman Empire.

The Catholicos of Sis (of the Holy See of Cilicia) maintained himself nevertheless, with under his jurisdiction several bishops, numerous villages and convents, when the patriarch Nerses, declaring finally for Echmiadzin, carried the government with him. In 1885, Sis tried to declare Echmiadzin schismatic, and in 1895 its clergy took it on themselves to elect a Catholicos; but the Porte annulled the election, and only allowed it six years later upon Sis renouncing its pretensions to independence. That Catholicos had the right to prepare the sacred myron (oil) and to preside over a synod, but was in fact not more than a metropolitan, and regarded by many Armenians as schismatic.

Ottoman period

In the Ottoman period, Kozan was in the sanjak of Adana, and the seat of the kaza of Kozan. Ottoman archives show that Devşirme system was implemented in Kozan. However there is evidence that the locals resisted the practise. In 1564, for example, villagers from Sis came to the Ottoman capital Istanbul and kidnapped their children back. From 1689 to 1865, the region was under the control of Kozanoğulları, a family of feudal lords. While there are various theories about their history and origin, they claimed descent from Turkmen tribes, and Ahmed Cevdet Pasha wrote that they were descended from the Arık tribe of Warsaks.

Modern

At the turn of the twentieth century, the town's population was 8,000, about 5,600 of which were Armenians. They were all deported during the course of the Armenian genocide. Kozan was occupied by France between March 8, 1919 - June 2, 1920 during the Turkish War of Independence. After Turkey was declared a republic, Kozan was a province, compromising the districts of Kozan, Kadirli, Feke and Saimbeyli between 1923 and 1926.

Composition

There are 103 neighbourhoods in Kozan District:

• Acarmantaş
• Ağlıboğaz
• Akarca
• Akçalıuşağı
• Akdam
• Akkaya
• Alapınar
• Andıl
• Arslanlı
• Arslanpaşa
• Aydın
• Ayşehoca
• Bağlar
• Bağözü
• Bağtepe
• Boztahta
• Bucakköy
• Bulduklu
• Çamdere
• Çamlarca
• Çanaklı
• Çandık
• Çelenuşağı
• Çobanpınarı
• Çokak
• Çukurören
• Çulluuşağı
• Cumhuriyet
• Çürüklü
• Damyeri
• Dikilitaş
• Dilekkaya
• Doğanalanı
• Duraluşağı
• Durmuşlu
• Düzağaç
• Enizçakırı
• Ergenuşağı
• Eskikabasakal
• Eskimantaş
• Faydalı
• Ferhatlı
• Gazi
• Gedikli
• Gökçeyol
• Gökgöz
• Görbeyaz
• Güneri
• Hacıbeyli
• Hacımirzalı
• Hacıuşağı
• Hamamköy
• İdemköy
• Ilıcaköy
• Işıkkaya
• Işıklı
• Kabaktepe
• Kahveli
• Kalkumaç
• Kapıkaya
• Karabucak
• Karacaoğlan
• Karacaören
• Karahamzalı
• Karanebili
• Kemer
• Kıbrıslar
• Kızıllar
• Kızlarsekisi
• Köseli
• Kuytucak
• Kuyubeli
• Kuyuluk
• Mahmutlu
• Mahyalar
• Marankeçili
• Minnetli
• Orçan
• Örendere
• Oruçlu
• Özbaşı
• Pekmezci
• Postkabasakal
• Salmanlı
• Şerifli
• Şevkiye
• Taş
• Tavşantepe
• Tepecikören
• Tufanlı
• Tufanpaşa
• Turgutlu
• Türkeli
• Turunçlu
• Varsaklar
• Velicanlı
• Yanalerik
• Yarımoğlu
• Yassıçalı
• Yeniköy
• Yukarıkeçili
• Yüksekören
• Zerdali

Kozan today

Today Kozan is a city surrounded by vineyards, gardens and groves of cypress, sycamore fig, orange and lemon trees. In summer the great heat (40 plus degrees Celsius or 104 plus degrees Fahrenheit) compels the inhabitants to desert Kozan, retreating to cool off in the wooded higher ground.

Climate

Kozan has a hot-summer Mediterranean climate (Köppen climate classification Csa). Kozan has mild, rainy winters and very hot, muggy and dry summers. The highest recorded temperature was on 13 August 2023 at 48.4 °C.

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Notable natives

• Nerses Balients (fl. early 14th century), Armenian ecclesiastical figure, politician, historian
• Grigor Khul (12th century), Armenian musician
• Manase Sevak (1897–1967), Armenian biochemist and public figure, member of New York Academy of Sciences and Soviet Armenia's Academy of Sciences
• Grigor Kyulyan (1912–1974), Armenian writer
• İmren Aykut (born 1940), Turkish female economist, trade unionist, politician and former government minister

Things to see

Today ruins of churches, convents, castles and palaces may be seen on all sides. The lofty castle and the monastery and church built by Leo II, and containing the coronation chair of the kings of Cilician Armenia, were still noteworthy up until the Armenian genocide.

Gallery

File:Street view, Kozan - Adana 01.JPG|Street view of Kozan File:Büyük Cami, Kozan 01.JPG|Grand Mosque of Kozan File:Kozan Castle view from middle to north end 3217.jpg|Kozan Castle File:Dilekkaya, Kocakışla, 01500 Dilekkaya-Kozan-Adana, Turkey - panoramio.jpg|Anavarza Castle File:Kozan Velicanlı Mahallesi Sin Manastırı.jpg|Kozan Velicanlı District Sin Monastery File:Kozan Barajı, Kozan - Adana 03.JPG|Kozan Dam File:Kozan 05.JPG|General view of Kozan

Notes

References

Bibliography

References

1. [https://www.e-icisleri.gov.tr/Anasayfa/MulkiIdariBolumleri.aspx Büyükşehir İlçe Belediyesi] {{Webarchive. link. (2015-07-06 , Turkey Civil Administration Departments Inventory. Retrieved 12 July 2023.)
2. "İl ve İlçe Yüz ölçümleri". General Directorate of Mapping.
3. "Address-based population registration system (ADNKS) results dated 31 December 2022, Favorite Reports". [[TÜİK]].
4. "Castles.nl - Sis Castle".
5. {{EB1911. David George. Hogarth
6. [[William Mitchell Ramsay]], ''The Historical Geography of Asia Minor'', [https://books.google.com/books?id=Y0sZAAAAYAAJ p. 385]
7. Houshamadyan. "Maps - Vilayet of Adana - Sandjak of Sis :: Houshamadyan - a project to reconstruct Ottoman Armenian town and village life".
8. Yılmaz, Gülay. (2015-12-01). "The Devshirme System and the Levied Children of Bursa in 1603-4". Belleten.
9. (1953). "Nomads and Farmers in Southeastern Turkey, Problems of Settlement". Brill.
10. Kévorkian, Raymond H. and Paul B. Paboudjian, ''Les Arméniens dans l’Empire Ottoman à la veille du génocide''. Paris: Editions d’art et d’histoire, 1992, p. 292.
11. [https://www.e-icisleri.gov.tr/Anasayfa/MulkiIdariBolumleri.aspx Mahalle] {{Webarchive. link. (2015-07-06 , Turkey Civil Administration Departments Inventory. Retrieved 12 July 2023.)