Archive for the ‘History’ Category
Ancient History
Origin: Kurds are reported to be the descendants of many settlers in their current homeland. Their ancestors include Guti, Kurti, Mede, Mard, Carduchi, Gordyene, Adianbene, Zila and Khaldi.BC: Ancient written historical tablets indicates that along other smaller kingdoms and city states the Guti’s kingdoms began around 2300 BC and the Medes kingdom around 1100 BC.
7th century: First record of Kurdish writing.
NuRuj, as is pronounced in parts of Kurdistan, and Newroz, as it is known in Iran and other parts of the Middle East, is just around the corner, arriving on vernal equinox, which occurs on a certain precise moment usually on March 21. For year 2008, it occurs on March 20, at 05:48 UT. This occurs when Earth completes its journey around the Sun with vernal equinox as a reference point.
By Dr. A. Ghassemlou (late 1970s / Edited by gerard Chailiand)
On the 20th of August, 1941, the Soviet, British and American Allied
Armies entered Iran. Reza Shah’s dictatorship was replaced with a weak
Government, based in Tehran and with no control over the south of the
country, which was under British and American occupation, or the north,
which was occupied by the Soviet Union. Various democratic rights were
granted to the growing number of political parties in the country.
The Mahabad area was occupied neither by Britain or America nor by the
Soviet Union. It was an area with a long tradition of Kurdish
nationalism.
THE KURDS’ RELATIONSHIP WITH THE WEST
NARRATOR:
While the Kurds have a long history of learning to live with their enemies, they have an equally long history of being betrayed by their allies. Sadly, even the great democracies of the west have not always lived up to the promises they’ve made to the Kurds.
During the nineteen-seventies the United States supported Kurdish autonomy in northern Iraq in order to pressure Saddam Hussein during his negotiations with Iran. But as soon as agreement was reached the Kurds were unceremoniously abandoned by their U.S. allies and exposed to the full fury and vengeance of Saddam’s regime.
The Sheikh Said rebellion was the first large-scale nationalist rebellion by the Kurds. The role of the Azadi was fundamental in its unfolding. Kurdish intellectuals and military officers lay at the heart of the nationalist movement, in terms of organization and recruitment. The paramount influence of the more secular or noncleric Kurdish nationalist organizations must be seperated from the rebellion itself and its sheikhly leadership. The Sheikh Said rebellion was led largely by sheikhs, a deliberate determination by the leadership of Azadi from 1921 onward. These decisions were defined and given force in the Azadi congresses of 1924. The fact that the rebellion had a religious character was the result of Azadi’s assessment of the strategy and tactics necessary for carrying out a successful revolution. While the Sheikh Said rebellion was a nationalist rebellion, the mobilization, propaganda, and symbols were those of a religious rebellion. It must be remembered that it was and continued to be characterized by most Turkish scholars (such as Behcet Cemal and Metin Toker) as a religious rebellion, instigated by reactionaries, who happened to be Kurds, against the secularizing reforms of the Kemalist government from 1922 onward (especially the abolition of the caliphate on 3 March 1924 and the National Law Court Organization Regulation among others).
by Mehrdad Izady, Harvard University
In the mid- 1 960s the Royal Ontario Museum of Toronto, under the supervision of archaeologist E.J.Keall, carried out excavations on the site of Qaleh-i Yazdigird and found a vast and artistic landmark complex of palaces abandoned by the end of the Parthian era (AD 226). Qaleh-i Yazdigird is situated on a superbly formed high tableland at the edge of the Zagros Mountains north of the town of Sarpuli Zohab in southern Kurdistan. From these heights it commands the famous Silk Road. The wealth of plaster decoration and statuary on the site has always been used by local peasants as a ready source of gypsum for construction. Unfortunately, this practice has destroyed untold numbers of cultural and historical treasures of the Kurdish past.
By Mehrdad R. Izady
In correspondence with the prestigious British scientific journal, Nature (Vol.360,5, Nov. 1992, p.24), Rudolph Michel of the Museum of Applied Science, Center for Archaeology, Patrick McGovern of University Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, University of Pennsylvania and Vlrginia Badler, Department of Near Eastern Studies, University of Toronto, provide archaeological and laboratory evidence regarding the world’s oldest existing trace of the production of barley beer. Their investigations took place at the archaeological site of Godin, six miles (10 kilometers) east of Kangawar in southern Kurdistan in Iran. It was at this same site where, a few years earlier, evidence of the earliest grape wine production (also dating between 4000-4500 years ago) was found by the Royal Ontario Museum of Canada team that originally excavated the site.
Exploring Kurdish Origins
by Mehrdad R. Izady (published in the Kurdish Life, Number 7, Summer 1993).
The question of Kurdish origins, i.e., who the Kurds are and where they come from, has for too long remained an enigma. Doubtless in a few words one can respond, for example, that Kurds are the end-product of numerous layers of cultural and genetic material superimposed over thousands of years of internal migrations, immigrations, cultural innovations and importations. But identifying the roots and the course of evolution of present Kurdish ethnic identity calls for greater effort. It calls for the study of each of the many layers of these human movements and cultural influences, as many and as early in time as is currently possible. Presently, at least 5 distinct layers can be identified with various degrees of certainty.
THE KURDISH QUESTION – ITS HISTORY AND PRESENT SITUATION
Kemal BURKAY
During recent years the Kurdish question has reappeared, more intensely than before, on the international agenda. For years, this question has been of fundamental concern to the countries of the region, and it has led to extensive internal controversies and economic and social crises. In order to further an understanding of the Kurdish question in its present dimensions, a summary of its historical and geographical background is necessary.