A Brief Bibliography of Kurdistan and the Kurds Dedicated to the valiant martyrs who laid down their lives to pave the future of the Kurdish Nation Compiled By Dr Jawad Mella WKA and Kurdish Museum, Library & Archive-London 2014 Acknowledgement Many thanks to the Management Committee of Western Kurdistan Association, the researchers and volunteers of Kurdish Museum, Library & Archive in London and Awards For All, for their cooperation and support. Western Kurdistan Association Kurdish Museum, Library & Archive Telephone: 0044 (0) 2087487874 Mobile: 0044 (0) 7768266005 e-mail:
[email protected] www.westernkurdistan.org.uk Charity number: 1066236 Company number: 3454407 A Brief Bibliography of Kurdistan and the Kurds Copyright © 2014 by Dr Jawad Mella Cover Designer: Upkar Singh Rai, Nations Without States ISBN: 09529951 1 5 FOREWORD The Kurdish nation is the fourth largest nation in the Middle East and the largest nation in the world without a national state. Today the Kurds are more than 50 million, their homeland is called Kurdistan, which means “country of the Kurds”. Kurdistan is not the name of a state, but rather a land, which in the 20th century was obligatorily divided among five states (Turkey, Iran, Iraq, Syria and Red Kurdistan in the former Soviet Union). The Kurdish language is belongs to the Indo-European group. Kurdistan extends from the Caucasus to the Mediterranean Sea and from there to the Gulf. A part of it lies in Mesopotamia, which is regarded as the “cradle of humanity”. In this region, high cultures such as Mithraism or the Sun Cult already existed thousands of years ago.