Kurdish History Journal
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), Kurdish Iranian-Canadian scholar, wrote Nationalism and Language in Kurdistan — the foundational academic work on Kurdish language policy — and pioneered Kurdish media studies.
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 (born 1968), Kurdish Turkish poet from Maraş, writes in Turkish poetry of extraordinary spiritual and political intensity — one of Turkey's most internationally recognised contemporary poets.
Read article →Farhad Pirbal (born 1961), Kurdish Iraqi novelist and scholar from Erbil, is one of the most important contemporary Kurdish prose writers — his novels and short stories bringing new dimensions to Sorani Kurdish fiction.
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 (born 1961), first Kurdish woman elected to the Turkish Parliament, was imprisoned for 10 years after speaking Kurdish during her oath — becoming one of the most celebrated political prisoners of the 20th century.
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 →Ayşe Şan (1938-1996), Kurdish Turkish singer from Dersim, was one of the greatest Kurdish folk singers of the 20th century — the Nightingale of Kurdistan whose voice preserved and spread Kurdish musical tradition.
Read article →Huner Saleem (born 1964), Kurdish Iraqi filmmaker from Duhok, directed Vodka Lemon and other internationally acclaimed films that brought Kurdish life in Iraq and the diaspora to world cinema audiences.
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.
Read article →Seyran Ateş (born 1963), Kurdish German lawyer and women's rights activist, founded the Ibn Rushd-Goethe Mosque in Berlin in 2017 — a liberal mosque welcoming all Muslims regardless of gender or sexuality.
Read article →Kayhan Kalhor (born 1963), Kurdish Iranian master of the kamancheh, is one of the world's greatest living musicians — a Grammy-nominated artist who has brought Kurdish and Persian classical music to global audiences.
Read article →Ibrahim Tatlises (born 1952), Kurdish Turkish singer from Urfa, is one of Turkey's biggest-ever pop stars — a self-made phenomenon whose arabesk style brought Kurdish musical sensibility to tens of millions of listeners.
Read article →Ahmet Kaya (1957-2000), Kurdish Turkish rock musician from Malatya, was one of Turkey's greatest singers — driven into exile after announcing he would sing in Kurdish, dying in Paris just months later.
Read article →Şivan Perwer (born 1955), Kurdish singer from Urfa, is the most beloved Kurdish musician alive — the 'Voice of Kurdistan' whose folk and nationalist songs have sustained Kurdish identity across fifty years of exile.
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