Kurdish society and history by Martin van Bruinessen
Peuples Méditerranéens, no. 68-69, 1994
Bulletin critique des Annales islamologiques 37, 2023
International Review of Social History , Volume 67 , Issue 3 , pp. 581 – 584, 2022
Tuncay Şur & Yalçın Çakmak, eds, Aktör, Müttefik, Şaki: Kürt Aşiretleri (Istanbul: İletişim, 2022), 2022
Almost a century after Ziya Gökalp completed his interesting but relatively unknown study of Kurd... more Almost a century after Ziya Gökalp completed his interesting but relatively unknown study of Kurdish tribes, 1 Yalçın Çakmak and Tuncay Şur have brought together this fascinating collection of detailed studies of some of the major tribes of North and South Kurdistan. The essays collected in this volume bring out clearly that Kurdish tribes are not all of one type, and that there have been wide variations have in size and internal organization of the tribes, and in the nature of their relations with the natural environment, with the city, and with the state. Each of the chapters deals with a tribe that is unique in at least some respects, and yet all are Kurdish. All of these tribes are still existing and remain important in shaping their members' lives and political choices, but there is also a widespread perception that tribalism (aşiretçilik) is a thing of the past and remains only relevant to increasingly marginal segments of Kurdish society. Most of the essays in this volume focus on the history of the tribes concerned and do not engage with the question of how the process of modernization and the consolidation of the new post-Ottoman states-with formal education, urbanization, participation in party politics-has transformed them in the course of the past century. It may be useful to dedicate a few thoughts to these questions.
Third International Conference on Faylee Kurds, 2018
Kurdish Studies 9(2), 247-250, 2021
Kurdish Studies 9(2), 243-245, 2021
Reviewed by Martin van Bruinessen This handsomely produced coffee table book celebrates the Russi... more Reviewed by Martin van Bruinessen This handsomely produced coffee table book celebrates the Russian contribution to Kurdish studies and was produced as a public relations gesture by the Russian oil industry, apparently in the context of the signing of significant investment contracts with the Iraqi Kurdistan Regional Government. Gazprom Neft, one of the two companies involved (the other is Rosneft) asserts copyright. What makes the book of more than incidental interest is the involvement of Russia's academic establishment. Vitaly V. Naumkin and Irina F. Popova, who put their names on the book, are the directors of the Russian Academy of Sciences' Institute of Oriental Studies (Moscow) and Institute of Oriental Manuscripts (St. Petersburg) respectively. The authors of the seventeen chapters in the book are members of the academic staff of these two institutes, specialists on Kurdish language and literature, history and culture. Many of the illustrations are from various Russian archives and have, to my knowledge, not been published before.
Kurdish Studies 9(2), 233-241, 2021
The Iraqi Kurdish historian Kamal Mazhar Ahmad (1937-2021) was probably the best-known and most p... more The Iraqi Kurdish historian Kamal Mazhar Ahmad (1937-2021) was probably the best-known and most productive historian of the Kurds. He belonged to the first generation of Iraqis to pursue postgraduate studies in the Soviet Union after 1958, and when he was allowed to return to Iraq in 1970, he played a crucial role in the institutionalization of academic institutions and disciplines there and acted as an intermediary between Iraqi Kurdish and Soviet academic circles. As a lecturer and later professor at Baghdad University, he trained thousands of (Arab and Kurdish) students.
Ahmet Kerim Gültekin and Çakir Ceyhan Suvari, eds, The Ethno-Cultural Others of Turkey: Contemporary Reflections, 2021
Unlike its predecessor, the multi-ethnic and multi-religious Ottoman Empire, Turkey has long refu... more Unlike its predecessor, the multi-ethnic and multi-religious Ottoman Empire, Turkey has long refused to recognize its internal diversity. The Christian population had dramatically declined due to territorial loss, genocide, and a population exchange with Greece; almost all Arab lands had been lost in the Great War. The various Muslim population groups were subjected to a policy of cultural assimilation and Central Asian Turkish roots were invented for them, in an effort to create a homogeneous and ‘racially’ Turkish nation. The Kurds were the ethnic group that longest resisted assimilation; they were also the first among whom a modern national movement emerged, stimulating a cultural revival and mass participation in ethnic politics. This generated a broader interest in the ethnic and religious heterogeneity hidden behind the façade of monolithic Turkishness. Various other groups began asserting their distinct identities, through language, music, folklore and historiography, and a growing number of academic studies on ethnic communities and cultures appeared. Different types of ethnic or religious identity, with different forms of social organization and degrees of societal recognition, came to be distinguished, ranging from the ‘legal’ minorities, whose rights are guaranteed by international agreements, through large groups associated with a distinct territory, to immigrant communities and other dispersed groups.
Mahabad B. Qilorî & Nêçîrvan Qilorî (ed.), Ferhenga Kurdî – Holendî / Woordenboek Koerdisch – Nederlands, Amsterdam: Bulaaq, 2002, pp. 5-21., 2002
In this foreword to a Kurmanci-Dutch dictionary compiled by the Qilorî brothers, I survey earlier... more In this foreword to a Kurmanci-Dutch dictionary compiled by the Qilorî brothers, I survey earlier efforts to compile useful dictionaries as well as the various motivations of the lexicographers.
in Lourina de Voogd (ed.), Traditie en modernisme in de Turkse literatuur [Oriëntatie immigranten lektuur, 7], Den Haag: Nederlands Biblioteek en Lektuur Centrum, 1985, pp. 47-65., 1985
An early article that documents the beginnings of the Kurmanci literary revival in European exile... more An early article that documents the beginnings of the Kurmanci literary revival in European exile. After a brief overview of classical Kurdish literature and the beginnings of Kurdish publishing in the early 20th century, the article surveys mid-century and more recent publishing activity in Kurmanci (and, more marginally, Zazaki). For non-Dutch readers, the bibliography at the end may have some lasting value.
Kurdish Studies, 2016
Ramazan Aras is an anthropologist teaching at Artuklu University in Mardin. He grew up in the eth... more Ramazan Aras is an anthropologist teaching at Artuklu University in Mardin. He grew up in the ethnically mixed (Kurdish and Syriac) town of Kerboran in Mardin in the years of rapidly escalating violence between the PKK and Turkey's military and police forces during the 1980s. He studied sociology and history in Turkey and did a PhD in anthropology in Canada, specialising in the study of collective violence, emotions, pain and fear. He has carried out oral history research on communal violence between Muslims and Christians as well as state-society violence and trauma in Kurdistan. In this book, which is based on his Ph.D. dissertation (at the University of Western Ontario), he investigates how Kurdish subjectivities in Turkey have been shaped by the experience of violence (both from the side of the state and the PKK) and memories of suffering and fear. He writes from the position of those who were caught in the middle and were fearful of the military as well as the guerrillas. If his narrative takes sides, it is with Islam, the primary identity of many Kurds, rather than secular nationalism. This study is informed by Aras's own experience of witnessing violence, knowing fear and feeling threatened as a Kurd and a Muslim.
Faleh A. Jabar & Hosham Dawod (eds), The Kurds: Nationalism and Politics, London: Saqi., 2006
International Conference on ‘Turkey and the Surrounding World: Historical and Present Perspectives’, Shaanxi Normal University, Xi’an, China, 2018
The former Ottoman province of Mosul, which comprises what is now the Kurdish Autonomous Region i... more The former Ottoman province of Mosul, which comprises what is now the Kurdish Autonomous Region in Iraq as well as a broad zone of ethnically and religiously mixed population whose status is still contested, has for more than a century been an important factor in debates on the ‘national’ identity of Turkey and in Turkey’s international relations.
In the wake of the First World War, when the victorious allies France and Britain carved the new states of Syria, Palestine, Transjordan and Iraq out of the Arab-inhabited provinces of the Ottoman Empire, the status of Mosul remained undefined until it was finally made part of Iraq in 1926. Mosul had been one of the most diverse provinces of the Empire, with large Kurdish, Arab and Turkish (Turcoman) populations and numerous religious and ethnic minorities.
Turkey’s interests in Mosul have been manifold. The province has a substantial Turkmen population, mostly living in a string of towns from Tel Afar by Kirkuk to Tuz Khurmatu, and nationalist circles in Turkey have kept the protection of these ‘outer Turks’ on the political agenda. Turkey has insufficient energy resources, and the oil of Kirkuk constitutes the nearest and possibly most stable source of supply. Since the 1970s a pipeline has transported Kirkuk oil through Turkey to the Mediterranean port of Ceyhan. Thirdly, the Kurdish movement in Iraq, which succeeded in gaining autonomy and ultimately a semi-independent status, was eyed with concern by Turkish strategists for the impact this might have on the Kurdish population of Turkey. More recently, Ankara perceived that an alliance with the Iraqi Kurdish leaders might be the best way to contain the influence of the far more radical PKK.
The PKK, which emerged in Turkey in the 1970s and started a guerrilla war in 1984, has had base camps in northern Iraq since even before that date and has established itself ever more firmly there. Since the 1980s, the Turkish army has repeatedly carried out incursions into northern Iraq in attempts to capture or kill Kurdish guerrillas. In the wake of the American invasion of Iraq in 2003, Turkey increased its military presence in northern Iraq. It has several permanent bases, whose presence is grudgingly tolerated by the Kurdish Regional Government.
The rise of ISIS and its rapid conquest in 2014 of most of the contested zone between Arab Iraq and the Kurdish Autonomous Region made the Kurds – both the Iraqi Kurds and the Syrian Kurds closely affiliated with the PKK – into the West’s chief allies in the region. The increased profile of the PKK and its associates in Syria was a major factor in Turkey’s military expansion towards the south, in Syria as well as Iraq. Kurdish victories over ISIS also reignited demands to revise the 1926 settlement of the Mosul question, and placed the demand of Kurdish independence on the agenda.
Wiener Jahrbuch für Kurdische Studien, 2. Jahrgang 2014 (2015), pp. 18-96.
Fabian Richter (ed.), Identität Ethnizität und Nationalismus in Kurdistan. Festschrift zum 65. Geburtstag von Prof. Dr. Ferhad Ibrahim Seyder, Münster: Lit Verlag, 2016, pp. 13-61., 2016
One interesting variety of literature on the Kurds is the genre, usually produced by Turkish nati... more One interesting variety of literature on the Kurds is the genre, usually produced by Turkish nationalists, that attempts to prove that they do not exist, at least not as a distinct people with their own history and culture. The genre is almost as old as the Republic of Turkey itself, and semi-official publications of this kind have accompanied the various campaigns to assimilate the Kurds and to suppress Kurdish ‘separatism.’ Their authors are typically either retired military or civil administrators who spent part of their careers in the region, or men from the region itself, often belonging to tribes or communities of ambiguous ethnic identity, who made a deliberate decision to identify themselves as Turks rather than Kurds and attempted to provide ‘scientific’ evidence for the Turkish origins of the various Kurdish tribes and Kurdish dialects. Most of the authors of works in this genre published since the 1970s were associated with the far-right Nationalist Action Party (MHP).
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Kurdish society and history by Martin van Bruinessen
In the wake of the First World War, when the victorious allies France and Britain carved the new states of Syria, Palestine, Transjordan and Iraq out of the Arab-inhabited provinces of the Ottoman Empire, the status of Mosul remained undefined until it was finally made part of Iraq in 1926. Mosul had been one of the most diverse provinces of the Empire, with large Kurdish, Arab and Turkish (Turcoman) populations and numerous religious and ethnic minorities.
Turkey’s interests in Mosul have been manifold. The province has a substantial Turkmen population, mostly living in a string of towns from Tel Afar by Kirkuk to Tuz Khurmatu, and nationalist circles in Turkey have kept the protection of these ‘outer Turks’ on the political agenda. Turkey has insufficient energy resources, and the oil of Kirkuk constitutes the nearest and possibly most stable source of supply. Since the 1970s a pipeline has transported Kirkuk oil through Turkey to the Mediterranean port of Ceyhan. Thirdly, the Kurdish movement in Iraq, which succeeded in gaining autonomy and ultimately a semi-independent status, was eyed with concern by Turkish strategists for the impact this might have on the Kurdish population of Turkey. More recently, Ankara perceived that an alliance with the Iraqi Kurdish leaders might be the best way to contain the influence of the far more radical PKK.
The PKK, which emerged in Turkey in the 1970s and started a guerrilla war in 1984, has had base camps in northern Iraq since even before that date and has established itself ever more firmly there. Since the 1980s, the Turkish army has repeatedly carried out incursions into northern Iraq in attempts to capture or kill Kurdish guerrillas. In the wake of the American invasion of Iraq in 2003, Turkey increased its military presence in northern Iraq. It has several permanent bases, whose presence is grudgingly tolerated by the Kurdish Regional Government.
The rise of ISIS and its rapid conquest in 2014 of most of the contested zone between Arab Iraq and the Kurdish Autonomous Region made the Kurds – both the Iraqi Kurds and the Syrian Kurds closely affiliated with the PKK – into the West’s chief allies in the region. The increased profile of the PKK and its associates in Syria was a major factor in Turkey’s military expansion towards the south, in Syria as well as Iraq. Kurdish victories over ISIS also reignited demands to revise the 1926 settlement of the Mosul question, and placed the demand of Kurdish independence on the agenda.
In the wake of the First World War, when the victorious allies France and Britain carved the new states of Syria, Palestine, Transjordan and Iraq out of the Arab-inhabited provinces of the Ottoman Empire, the status of Mosul remained undefined until it was finally made part of Iraq in 1926. Mosul had been one of the most diverse provinces of the Empire, with large Kurdish, Arab and Turkish (Turcoman) populations and numerous religious and ethnic minorities.
Turkey’s interests in Mosul have been manifold. The province has a substantial Turkmen population, mostly living in a string of towns from Tel Afar by Kirkuk to Tuz Khurmatu, and nationalist circles in Turkey have kept the protection of these ‘outer Turks’ on the political agenda. Turkey has insufficient energy resources, and the oil of Kirkuk constitutes the nearest and possibly most stable source of supply. Since the 1970s a pipeline has transported Kirkuk oil through Turkey to the Mediterranean port of Ceyhan. Thirdly, the Kurdish movement in Iraq, which succeeded in gaining autonomy and ultimately a semi-independent status, was eyed with concern by Turkish strategists for the impact this might have on the Kurdish population of Turkey. More recently, Ankara perceived that an alliance with the Iraqi Kurdish leaders might be the best way to contain the influence of the far more radical PKK.
The PKK, which emerged in Turkey in the 1970s and started a guerrilla war in 1984, has had base camps in northern Iraq since even before that date and has established itself ever more firmly there. Since the 1980s, the Turkish army has repeatedly carried out incursions into northern Iraq in attempts to capture or kill Kurdish guerrillas. In the wake of the American invasion of Iraq in 2003, Turkey increased its military presence in northern Iraq. It has several permanent bases, whose presence is grudgingly tolerated by the Kurdish Regional Government.
The rise of ISIS and its rapid conquest in 2014 of most of the contested zone between Arab Iraq and the Kurdish Autonomous Region made the Kurds – both the Iraqi Kurds and the Syrian Kurds closely affiliated with the PKK – into the West’s chief allies in the region. The increased profile of the PKK and its associates in Syria was a major factor in Turkey’s military expansion towards the south, in Syria as well as Iraq. Kurdish victories over ISIS also reignited demands to revise the 1926 settlement of the Mosul question, and placed the demand of Kurdish independence on the agenda.
I shall focus on two aspects of the Ahl-i Haqq religion: the place in their pantheon of seven angelic beings (haft tan) who appear in human incarnations in each cycle of history, and the social and ritual role of holy lineages (khānadān) in Ahl-i Haqq communities. Both suggest similarities or perhaps historical connections with other communities such as Yazidis and Alevis, as well as a possible connection with pre-Islamic Iranian religions. Some authors have claimed that the Ahl-i Haqq religion is, beneath a thin Islamic veneer, essentially a survival of Zoroastrianism or a “popular” variant of Iranian religion. I shall argue that there is a much more pervasive influence of early Islam in Ahl-i Haqq religion (as well as Yezidism and Alevism) than these scholars are willing to admit.
Tokyo University of Foreign Studies,
5-6 December 2009
kayıtlara geçti, buna uygun bir muameleyle karşı karşıya kaldı. 18. yüzyılın ilk yarısına kadar geniş bir coğrafya üzerinde otonom ve yarı otonom bir şekilde hükümranlık sürüp imparatorluğun takdir, taltif ve terfilerine mazhar olan da yine bu Kürt aşiretleri oldu. Zaman içinde yoğunlaşan merkezileşme politikalarıyla beraber Kürt aşiretlerinin devletle ilişkisi, çeşitli biçimlerde değişse de ana eksen sabitti: II. Abdülhamit’ten İttihat ve Terakki’ye ve nihayet Cumhuriyet’e devreden ilişki karşılıklı çıkarlara dayalı, itaatle isyan arasında salınan bir politik düzlemde belirlendi. Her aşiretinse elbette kendi hususiyeti, tarihi, politik kabiliyeti ayrı ayrı şahsiyeti vardı.
Bir bütün olarak aşiret ilişkileri ve olgusunun işleyişine dair genel bir çerçeve sunan Tuncay Şur ve Yalçın Çakmak’ın derlediği Kürt Aşiretleri, birçok aşireti gerek kendi tarihleri, gerek tarihsel konumlanmaları çerçevesinde panoramik biçimde ele alıyor.
Aşiretler konusunda zengin bir bakış açısı sunan, kapsamlı bir derleme...
Suavi Aydın, Ali Haydar Bektaş, Burak Bektaş, Hasan Biçim, Hamit Bozarslan, Serhat Bozkurt, Safiye Ateş Burç, Yalçın Çakmak, Ercan Çağlayan, Gökhan Çetinsaya, Erdal Çiftçi, Berhan Aren Çoban, Fasih Dinç, Mehmet Rêzan Ekinci, Kamil Fırat, Mehmet Fiğan, Suphi İzol, Hakan Kaya, Yener Koç, İsmet Konak, Orhan Örs, Tuncay Şur, Gültekin Uçar, Sedat Ulugana, Martin van Bruinessen, Hiroki Wakamatsu ve Lale Yalçın-Heckmann’ın katkılarıyla...
Offering fascinating new insights into the pervasive Sufi influence on modern Islamic religiosity and contemporary political and economic life, this book raises important questions about Islam in the age of urbanism and mass communications."
Fevzi Bilgin and Ali Sarıhan (eds.), Understanding Turkey’s Kurdish Question, Lanham, Maryland: Lexington Books, 2013, 250 pp., (ISBN: 978-0-7391-8402-8).
Michael M. Gunter, Out of Nowhere: The Kurds of Syria in Peace and War, Hurst Publishers, London, 2014, 169 pp., (ISBN: 978-1-84904-435-6).
Mohammed Shareef, The United States, Iraq and the Kurds: Shock, Awe and Aftermath, New York and Oxon: Routledge, 2014, 234 pp., (ISBN-13: 978-0415719902).
Latif Tas, Legal Pluralism in Action: Dispute Resolution and the Kurdish Peace Committee, Farnham: Ashgate, 2014, 208 pp., (ISBN-13: 978-1472422088).
Galia Goran and Walid Salem (eds.), Non-State Actors in the Middle East: Factors for Peace and Democracy, Oxon: Routledge, 2013, 230 pp., (ISBN-13: 978-0415517058).
Mehmed S. Kaya, The Zaza Kurds of Turkey: A Middle Eastern Minority in a Globalised Society. London: I.B. Tauris, 2011, xii, 223 pp., (ISBN 978-1-84511-875-4).
Shanna Kirschner, Trust and Fear in Civil Wars: Ending Intrastate Conflicts, Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2015, 189 pp., (ISBN: 978-0-7391-9641-0).
van Bruinessen, M. (1998). A Kizilbash Community in Iraqi Kurdistan: The Shabak. Les Annales de la' Autre Islam, 5, 185-196.