Kazivera is a Turkish community in the occupied part of the Lefkosia district. It lies 8 kilometres west of Morfou, at an elevation of 20 metres, in the geographical region of Morfou, on the east bank of the Elia river.¹ In the 1960 census it had 469 inhabitants, all of them Turks.

Name

The official gazetteer of Cyprus writes the name “Kazivera”. In a Venetian list of the late 15th century the village is written “Casivera”.² On the land of the village the Gazetteer records, among others, the place-names Papadia, Piteron, Toumba, Mosfilia and Penintaskali.³

Frankish rule, Venetian rule

At the end of the 15th century Kazivera was a royal village, that is, it belonged directly to the state and not to a feudal lord. In a Venetian statistical memorandum of the period, published by the 19th-century French historian Louis de Mas Latrie, “Casal Casivera” is listed among the royal villages of the bailiwick of Morfou, the administrative district to which it belonged, together with Morfou, Peristerona, Akaki, Lefka and the two Zodeia.⁴

Turkish rule

In the land survey carried out by the Ottoman administration in 1832/33, which recorded only those who held property, Kazivera belonged to the district of Morfou and is described as a mixed village, with 13 households holding property. The owners had mainly fields and gardens, and two large deserted fields. 60 trees are recorded, olives, mulberries, figs and one almond, as well as almost 300 sheep, a few oxen and cows and two beehives.⁵

Economy and society

According to the Great Cyprian Encyclopaedia, before 1974 mainly citrus fruit, oranges, grapefruit and mandarins, and to a lesser extent vegetables and cereals, were grown on the land of the village. Most of the land was irrigated with water from the Elia river or from boreholes. The village lay on the coastal road Pyrgos–Karavostasi–Morfou, and the proximity of the mining installations at Xeros helped the population to grow.⁶

Population

According to the Great Cyprian Encyclopaedia, the village had 116 inhabitants in 1881, 121 in 1891, 123 in 1901, 146 in 1911 and 143 in 1921.⁷ In 1931 Kazivera had 158 inhabitants, all of them Muslims, and in 1946 235, also all Muslims (the 1931 and 1946 censuses recorded only religion). In 1960 it had 469 inhabitants, all of them Turks, and in 1973 around 600 Turks (estimate).

The Turkish invasion of 1974

During the Turkish invasion of 1974 Kazivera was occupied by the Turkish army. According to the Great Cyprian Encyclopaedia, there was heavy fighting in the area of the village in the summer of 1974.⁸ Four soldiers were killed in the area of Kazivera.