South Kipchakya

South Kipchakya () is a name coined by the Turkish historians Fahrettin Kırzıoğlu and Yunus Zeyrek to refer to the South Caucasus marchlands comprising the historical Georgian and Armenian lands that borders with or are now part of Turkey. According to these historians, these areas were allegedly inhabited, in the Middle Ages, by the Kipchak Turks recruited by the kings of Georgia in their armies and subsequently largely Christianized until the Ottoman conquest of the region converted them into Islam.

Historical theses to lay claims for a non-Georgian/non-Armenian or Turkic ancestry for these areas have been encouraged, to some extent, by the Turkish State, but have been heavily criticized by the Western, Georgian and Armenian scholars as "nationalist distortions of the history of the region".

References

• Black Sea: Encyclopedic Dictionary (Özhan Öztürk. Karadeniz: Ansiklopedik Sözlük. 2. Cilt. Heyamola Publishing. Istanbul. 2005. ISBN 975-6121-00-9.)
• Paul J. Magnarella (1979), The Peasant Venture: Tradition, Migration and Change among Georgian Peasants in Turkey. Schenkman Publishing Company: Cambridge, MA. ISBN ISBN 0-8161-8271-X.

he:דרום קיפצ'קיה tr:Güney Kıpçakya