Kurdish History Journal
Ahmet Türk (born 1942), Kurdish Turkish politician from Mardin, is the longest-serving and most respected Kurdish political figure in Turkey — a parliamentarian across multiple parties who has dedicated five decades to Kurdish democratic rights.
Read article →Tosinê Reşîd is a Kurdish Syrian poet and cultural figure from the Jazira region who has contributed to the Kurdish literary and cultural tradition in Syria and the Kurdish diaspora.
Read article →Eskerê Boyîk is a Kurdish Syrian poet from the Jazira region who has contributed to the Kurmanji Kurdish literary tradition in Syria — continuing the poetic legacy of Cigerxwîn and the Syrian Kurdish literary world.
Read article →Adel Karasholi (born 1936), Kurdish Syrian poet based in Leipzig, writes poetry in Arabic and German — one of the most celebrated Arab and Kurdish cultural figures in Germany and a bridge between East and West.
Read article →Yitzhak Mordechai (born 1944), Kurdish Israeli general and politician, served as Israel's Defence Minister (1996-1999) — one of the highest positions ever held by a person of Kurdish origin in the Israeli state.
Read article →Tahir Elçi (1966-2015), president of the Diyarbakır Bar Association, was shot dead while making a press statement about protecting a historic minaret — becoming a symbol of Kurdish legal advocacy and the quest for peace.
Read article →Abdulbaset Sieda (born 1956), Kurdish Syrian politician and academic, led the Syrian National Council in 2012 — becoming the first Kurd to lead a major Syrian opposition body during the Syrian civil war.
Read article →Tofy Mussivand (1943-2021), Kurdish Iranian-Canadian inventor and surgeon from Kermanshah, invented the mechanical heart pump that has saved thousands of cardiac patients worldwide — one of the great Kurdish scientific achievements.
Read article →Amir Hassanpour (1943–2017) studied how language, education and communication shaped Kurdish political life. His work ranged from language standardisation and satellite television to oral history, peasant movements and gender.
Read article →Ali Ashraf Darvishian (1941-2017), Kurdish Iranian writer from Kermanshah, wrote short stories and novels championing the poor and dispossessed of Iranian Kurdistan — a major voice of Persian-language social literature.
Read article →Nazand Begikhani (born 1964), Kurdish British poet and academic from Bakur, writes poetry in Kurmanji Kurdish and English and is a pioneering scholar of Kurdish women's rights and gender studies.
Read article →Bachtyar Ali (born 1966), Kurdish Iraqi novelist from Sulaymaniyah, is widely regarded as the greatest living Kurdish novelist — his magical realist Sorani epics translated internationally and compared to García Márquez.
Read article →Bejan Matur is a Kurdish Alevi poet from Turkey. Her poems, translations and interviews illuminate the relationship between language, memory and the landscapes she writes about.
Read article →Farhad Pirbal’s writing moves between poetry, short stories, visual form and the experience of displacement. Named works and their English translations show how his experiments extend beyond a generic account of modern Kurdish literature.
Read article →Abdulla Pashew (born 1946), Kurdish Iraqi poet from Erbil, is one of the most beloved Sorani Kurdish poets — his lyric verse of love, freedom, and Kurdish longing reaching millions of readers across the world.
Read article →Leyla Zana became the first Kurdish woman elected to Turkey’s parliament in 1991. Her Kurdish-language intervention, imprisonment from 1994 to 2004, Sakharov Prize and later political work made her a prominent advocate for Kurdish rights.
Read article →Vian Dakhil (born 1971), Kurdish Yazidi member of the Iraqi Parliament, gave the most powerful speech in Iraqi parliamentary history in 2014 — begging the world to save the Yazidis from ISIS genocide.
Read article →Ciwan Haco (born 1957), Kurdish Syrian singer from Afrin, is one of the most beloved living Kurdish musicians — a voice of extraordinary power who has performed Kurdish music on stages across the world for four decades.
Read article →Nizamettin Arıç (born 1956), Kurdish Turkish singer and filmmaker from Dersim, broke barriers by performing Kurdish music in Turkey and directed Keje — one of the first Kurdish-language feature films from Turkey.
Read article →Born in Diyarbakır in 1938, Ayşe Şan carried Kurdish songs through broadcasts, commercial records and migration. Her testimony, surviving discography and later archival work explain a career too often reduced to an honorary nickname.
Read article →The Kurdish filmmaker’s cinema of exile, dark humour and independence, explored through films, interviews and festival archives.
Read article →Bahman Ghobadi (born 1969), Kurdish Iranian filmmaker, made A Time for Drunken Horses (2000) — the first internationally acclaimed Kurdish-language film — and became the pioneering voice of Kurdish cinema worldwide.
Read article →Yılmaz Erdoğan (born 1967), Kurdish Turkish actor, director, and playwright from Adıyaman, created the beloved film Vizontele and is one of Turkey's most multi-talented and celebrated cultural figures.
Read article →Hülya Avşar (born 1963), Kurdish Turkish actress and singer from Edirne, is one of Turkey's biggest entertainment stars — a multi-decade icon of Turkish film, pop music, and television.
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