Kurdish History Journal
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 →Kalhor’s own account of Silent City, documented recording partnerships and ensemble awards explain a career built around improvisation, memory and the kamancheh.
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) was a Kurdish singer and composer from Turkey whose music crossed folk, arabesk and protest traditions. His career extends far beyond the controversy of 1999.
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.
Read article →Mehmed Uzun (1953–2007) was a Kurdish novelist, essayist and translator from Siverek. Writing his novels in Kurmanji while living in Sweden, he developed a literary practice shaped by remembered voices, historical experience and a multilingual intellectual life.
Read article →A sourced account of the Kurdish Iraqi politician’s opposition work, ministerial career and contested removal and presidential candidacy.
Read article →Ahmed Arif (1927–1991) wrote in Turkish and drew on the multilingual world of southeastern Anatolia. His 1968 collection linked love, imprisonment and social injustice.
Read article →Muhamad Salih Dilan (1927-1990) was a Kurdish Sorani poet who contributed to the rich literary tradition of Iraqi Kurdistan in the mid-20th century.
Read article →Idris Barzani (1944-1987), son of Mustafa Barzani and brother of Masoud Barzani, led the KDP alongside Masoud after their father's death and was the political architect of the modern Kurdish Democratic Party.
Read article →Mehdi Zana (born 1940), Kurdish mayor of Diyarbakır, was imprisoned for years by the Turkish state for advocating Kurdish rights — becoming an international symbol of Kurdish political prisoners.
Read article →Mahmoud Othman, also written Mahmud Osman or Uthman, has worked across Kurdish diplomacy, party politics and Iraq’s national institutions. His career connects Mustafa Barzani’s negotiations with the later debates over security, federalism and Kurdish party relations.
Read article →Fuad Masum served as Iraq’s president from 2014 to 2018 after leading the Kurdistan Region’s first cabinet. Parliamentary records, constitutional provisions and his own statements clarify the offices he held and the limits of his authority.
Read article →Yılmaz Güney (1937-1984), Kurdish Turkish actor and filmmaker, directed Yol (1982) from prison — winning the Palme d'Or at Cannes and becoming the most celebrated Kurdish figure in world cinema.
Read article →Al-Bouti was a Damascus-based Islamic scholar from a Kurdish family. His career combined university teaching, religious broadcasting and writing, while his support for the Assad government became a central controversy of his later life.
Read article →Turgut Özal (1927-1993), of Kurdish origin, served as Prime Minister and President of Turkey, transformed its economy through liberalisation, and initiated the first public discussion of Kurdish rights in Turkish history.
Read article →Sherko Bekas (1940-2013), Kurdish poet from Sulaymaniyah, published 30+ collections and is celebrated as the greatest Kurdish poet of the late 20th century — the dominant voice of Sorani verse.
Read article →Şerafettin Elçi (1938-2012), Kurdish Turkish politician from Cizre, publicly declared 'I am a Kurd' as a cabinet minister in 1979 — the most courageous act of Kurdish self-identification in Turkish political history.
Read article →Sadegh Sharafkandi (1938-1992), KDPI Secretary-General, was assassinated by Iranian agents at Berlin's Mykonos restaurant in 1992 — leading to a historic German court verdict on Iranian state terrorism.
Read article →Ahmad Moftizadeh (1933–1993) was a Kurdish Sunni thinker from Sanandaj whose movement, political choices and prison writings remain subjects of historical debate.
Read article →Nadir Nadirov (1932-2021) was a Kurdish Soviet and post-Soviet scholar who continued the tradition of Kurdish linguistic and literary scholarship in the Caucasus, bridging the Soviet and modern eras of Kurdish studies.
Read article →Cemal Süreya (1931-1990), born to a Kurdish family in Erzincan, was one of Turkey's greatest modern poets — a founder of the Second New movement whose sensual, fragmented verse transformed Turkish poetry.
Read article →Abdul Rahman Ghassemlou (1930-1989), Secretary-General of the KDPI, was the most brilliant Kurdish political intellectual of his generation — assassinated by Iranian agents in Vienna while negotiating for Kurdish rights.
Read article →Nusrat Bhutto (1929-2011), born to a Kurdish family in Isfahan, became the wife of Pakistani Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and mother of Benazir Bhutto — one of the most influential women in Pakistan's history.
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