Kurdish History Journal
Arab Shamilov (1897-1978) was a Kurdish writer from the Caucasus who pioneered Kurdish-language literature in the Soviet Union, writing novels, plays, and short stories that gave Soviet Kurds a literary voice.
Read article →Nur Ali Elahi (1895-1974), Kurdish Ahl-e Haqq spiritual master from Kermanshah, was a Sufi mystic, Islamic jurist, and virtuoso of the tanbur whose teachings bridged Kurdish mysticism and universal spirituality.
Read article →Kamuran Alî Bedirxan (1895-1978), brother of Celadet Alî Bedirxan, was a Kurdish scholar and the founding voice of Kurdish radio broadcasting at the BBC and Radio Paris, reaching Kurds across the Middle East.
Read article →Gholamreza Rashid-Yasemi (1895-1951) was a Kurdish-Iranian scholar and poet who wrote Kurd va Peyvastegi-ye Nezhadi va Tarikhi-ye U — the first major modern history of the Kurdish people written in Persian.
Read article →Celadet Alî Bedirxan (1893-1951), Kurdish linguist and grandson of Bedir Khan Beg, created the Latin-based Bedirxani alphabet for Kurdish in 1932 — the standard script still used for Kurmanji today.
Read article →Sheikh Ahmed Barzani (died 1969) led the Barzan community through revolt, displacement and imprisonment. His history must be distinguished from his brother Mustafa’s Soviet exile.
Read article →Nur Ali Elahi (1895-1974) was a Kurdish Yarsan (Ahl-e Haqq) spiritual master and virtuoso musician from Kermanshah, whose tanbur playing and mystical teachings influenced both Yarsan devotees and the international spiritual world.
Read article →Kamuran Alî Bedirxan (1895-1978) was a Kurdish scholar, linguist, and politician who co-founded the Kurdish Institute of Paris and spent decades championing Kurdish language rights and cultural survival.
Read article →Gholamreza Rashid Yasemi combined poetry, literary criticism, translation and historical writing. His book on Kurdish connections with Iran belongs to the intellectual setting of the 1930s and has also drawn criticism for its nationalist and racial framework.
Read article →Celadet Alî Bedirxan (1893-1951), Kurdish scholar and prince, created the Latin-based Kurdish (Kurmanji) alphabet in 1932 and founded the journal Hawar — cornerstones of modern Kurdish written culture.
Read article →Kara Fatima Khanum (19th century) was a Kurdish female warrior and military leader from Diyarbakır who commanded Kurdish irregular troops in the Crimean War (1853-1856), earning Ottoman military honours.
Read article →From an Ottoman military education to Kurdish resistance at Ararat: Ihsan Nuri’s changing career, cross-border politics and surviving memoirs.
Read article →Hapsa Khan (1891-?) was a Kurdish female tribal leader of the early 20th century, one of the rare women who held political and military authority in traditional Kurdish tribal society.
Read article →Taufiq Wahby (1891-1984) was a Kurdish linguist, poet, and diplomat from Sulaymaniyah who compiled one of the first systematic Kurdish dictionaries and advocated for the Kurdish language across a long career.
Read article →Ekrem Cemilpaşa, born in Diyarbakır in 1891, helped organize Kurdish student cultural activity and later worked for Kurdish independence. His education, exile and memoir illuminate how an Ottoman notable’s grandson became a nationalist activist.
Read article →Bakr Sidqi (1890-1937), Kurdish general in the Iraqi army, staged the first military coup in the Arab world in 1936, becoming briefly the most powerful man in Iraq before his assassination in 1937.
Read article →Simko Shikak (1887-1930) was a Kurdish tribal leader who carved out a de facto autonomous Kurdish region in northwestern Iran in the 1920s, assassinated an Iranian general, and resisted both Iranian and Ottoman power.
Read article →Sheikh Ubeydullah Nehri (died 1883) led the first major Kurdish uprising of the modern era in 1880, crossing into Iran with 10,000 fighters and briefly controlling significant territory before Ottoman suppression.
Read article →Süreyya Bedir Khan (1883-1938) was a Kurdish prince and pioneer of Kurdish journalism who founded Kurdistan — the first Kurdish newspaper — in 1898 and became a leading figure in early Kurdish nationalism.
Read article →The physician and organizer behind an early constitutionalist network: medical school, Rhodes exile, Geneva journalism, compromise and death in Sanremo.
Read article →Şerif Pasha (1865-1951) was a Kurdish Ottoman diplomat who represented Kurdish national aspirations at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919, negotiating for Kurdish self-determination after World War I.
Read article →Mevlanzade Rifat Bey (1869-1930) was a Kurdish journalist and Ottoman intellectual who published newspapers and memoirs documenting the final years of the Ottoman Empire and the Young Turk era.
Read article →Abdulhakim Arvasi (1865-1943) was a Kurdish Naqshbandi Sufi scholar whose traditional Islamic teachings made him one of the most prominent religious opponents of Kemalist secularisation in Turkey.
Read article →Abdullah Pasha Bajalan was an 18th-century Kurdish leader of the Bajalan tribal confederation, one of the important Kurdish tribes of the Sulaymaniyah region in Ottoman Kurdistan.
Read article →