Sasun or Sassoun (), also known as Sanasun or Sanasunkʻ (), was a region of historical Armenia, now located in the eastern part of modern-day Turkey.
In antiquity, Sasun was one of the ten districts () of the province of Aghdznikʻ (Arzanene) of the Kingdom of Armenia. Over time, Sasun came to denote a larger region than the original . In the 10th century, an independent Armenian principality based in Sasun and ruled by a branch of the Mamikonian dynasty emerged and existed until the 12th century. The region was conquered by the Ottoman Empire in the 16th century, and the district (kaza) of Sasun was made a part of different administrative divisions before finally being attached to the Mush sanjak of the Bitlis vilayet. Kurds settled in Sasun as early as the end of the 13th century, and an autonomous Kurdish emirate existed there until the 19th century. The region is now divided among the modern Turkish provinces of Muş, Bingöl, Bitlis, Siirt, Batman, and Diyarbakır, with the modern-day district of Sason in Batman Province encompassing only one part of historical Sasun.
The inhabitants of Sasun frequently enjoyed an autonomous or semi-independent status up to the modern era owing to the region's remoteness and inaccessibility, as well as to the armed resistance of its inhabitants. Sasun holds a significant place in Armenian culture, history and historical memory. The Sasun Armenians' reputation for courage and resistance to foreign rule is reflected in the Armenian national epic Daredevils of Sasun. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Sasun became a focal point of the Armenian fedayi movement and was the site of numerous clashes between Armenian militiamen, Kurdish irregulars and the Ottoman authorities. The Armenians of Sasun showed armed resistance during the Armenian genocide in 1915, during which most of them were killed. Some Armenians from Sasun managed to flee and settled in the territory of modern-day Armenia, while a small number remained in Sasun. Most of the Armenians that remained in Sasun after the genocide have since left the region, settling primarily in Istanbul, and the region is now populated primarily by Kurds.
Name
The exact etymology of Sasun is unknown, although various folk etymologies exist. The name is first definitely attested in the 7th-century Armenian geography Ashkharhatsʻoytsʻ, attributed to Anania Shirakatsi. Sanasun is the older form of the name, and both versions are also attested in the plural forms Sanasunkʻ and Sasunkʻ. The Greeks referred to the region in the plural, as Sanasounitai (), which is likely a direct translation of Sanasunkʻ and also refers to the inhabitants of Sanasun. In the Armenian tradition, the name of Sasun is traditionally associated with Sanasar (i.e., biblical Sharezer), the son of the Assyrian king Sennacherib who fled to Armenia after murdering his father․ Sanasar is said to have settled in the area around Mount Sim, which was called Sanasunkʻ (as if meaning "Sanasar's progeny") after him and his descendants that populated the region. The prominent Armenian noble house of Artsruni and the bdeashkhs of Tsopʻkʻ and Aghdznikʻ, the latter of which ruled over Sanasun until the fifth century, all claimed descent from Sanasar. It has been proposed that the placename is related to the town or fortress of Sassu mentioned in the cuneiform inscriptions of the Assyrian king Tiglath-Pileser III (8th century BCE). Nicholas Adontz connects Sasun/Sanasun with Ususuani, one of the conquered lands mentioned in the inscriptions of the Urartian king Menua (9th-8th century BCE).