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IRAN AND THE CAUCASUS Downloaded from Brill.com10/07/2021 03:19:32PM via free access IRAN AND THE CAUCASUS Scope Iran and the Caucasus appears in one volume (two separate issues) per year in the major European languages. It will accept all materials dealing with Irano-Caucasica, with par- ticular focus on Iranian matters: The History of the Iranian and Caucasian Peoples (Ancient, Medieval and Modern), the Literature and Folklore (Texts and Studies), Textology, the History of Religion, Archaeology, the Economic and Political Problems of the Region, etc. Editor-in-chief Garnik S. Asatrian (Yerevan) Associate Editors Victoria Arakelova (Yerevan) Uwe Bläsing (Leiden) Giusto Traina (Rouen) International Editorial Board Sekandar Amanolahi (Shiraz), Carlo Cereti (Bologna), Muhammad Dandamaev (St. Petersburg), Bert G. Fragner (Vienna), Murtazali Gadjiev (Makhachkala), Jamshid Giunashvili (Tbilisi), Vladimir Livshits (St. Petersburg), Hayrapet Margarian (Yerevan), Mehmet Ölmez (Istanbul), Istvan Perczel (Budapest), James Russell (Harvard), Bahman Sarkarati (Tabriz), Dodikhudo Saymiddinov (Dushanbe), Martin Schwartz (Berkeley), Ehsan Yarshater (New York), Boghos Levon Zekiyan (Venice) International Advisory Board Said Amir Arjomand (New York), Rachel Goldenweiser (Yerevan), Anna Krasnowolska (Krakow), Gerard Libaridian (Michigan, Ann Arbor), Irina Morozova (Hamburg), Antonio Panaino (Ravenna), Ravshan Rahmoni (Dushanbe), Ruslan Seferbekov (Makhachkala), Ivan Steblin-Kamenskij (St. Petersburg), Fereydun Vahman (Copenhagen) Editorial Group Coordinator: Vahe Boyajian-Sureniants (Yerevan) Alice Assadoorian (Tehran/Yerevan), Habib Borjian (New York/Yerevan), Narine Gevorgian (Yerevan), Matthias Weinreich (Berlin) Notice to Contributors All manuscripts, editorial correspondence and books for review should be sent to: Editor, Iran and the Caucasus, Caucasian Centre for Iranian Studies, 375010 Khorenatsi Str. 26 Yerevan, Republic of Armenia Tel/Fax: (37410) 442 307, Tel. (37410) 443 585, 274 470 Email: [email protected], [email protected] Iran and the Caucusus (print ISSN 1609-8498, online ISSN 1573-384X) is published semi-annually in two issues by Brill Academic Publishers, Plantijnstraat 2, 2321 JC Leiden, The Netherlands, tel + 31 (0)71-5353500, fax +31 (0)71-5317532. Downloaded from Brill.com10/07/2021 03:19:32PM via free access IRAN AND THE CAUCASUS Research Papers from the Caucasian Centre for Iranian Studies, Yerevan VOLUME 13 LEIDEN • BOSTON 2009 Downloaded from Brill.com10/07/2021 03:19:32PM via free access Subscription rates The subscription price of volume 13 (2009) is EUR 111 / USD 163 for institutions (E-only: EUR 100 / USD 147) and EUR 37 / USD 54 for individuals, inclusive of postage and handling charges. All prices are exclusive of VAT in EUR-countries (VAT not applicable outside the EU). 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Visit our website at brill.nl/ic Downloaded from Brill.com10/07/2021 03:19:32PM via free access TABLE OF CONTENTS Articles HISTORY, CULTURE Garnik Asatrian – Prolegomena to the Study of the Kurds . 1 Philipp Bruckmayr – The Spread and Persistence of Mturdi Kalm and Underlying Dynamics . 59 Naindeep Singh Chann – Lord of the Auspicious Conjunction: Origins of the ib-Qirn. 93 Ruslan Seferbekov – Sceptre of a Masker (On Some Folk Rituals in Dagestan) . 111 Mansur Khaksar - Reincarnation as Perceived by The “People of the Truth” . 117 LINGUISTICS Arthur Hambartsumian – The Sacred Aryan Forest in the Avestan and Pahlavi Texts . 125 Mahmud Sadeqi-zadeh – Mul “Wine” in Classical Persian Poetry . 131 Abdolrasul Sadeqpur – Notes on the Secret Language of House-builders in bde . 135 HISTORICO-POLITICAL ISSUES Seteney Shami – Historical Processes of Identity Formation: Displacement, Settlement, and Self-Representations of the Circassians in Jordan . 141 Darren L. Logan – Thoughts on Iraqi Kurdistan: Present Realities, Future Hope . 161 Geoffrey F. Gresh – Iranian Kurds in an Age of Globalisation . 187 Babak Rezvani – Iranian Georgians: Prerequisites for a Research . 197 Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2009 DOI: Downloaded from Brill.com10/07/2021 03:19:32PM via free access PERSONALIA Boghos Levon Zekiyan 65 . 205 Wörter und Sachen 100 . 209 OBITUARY Karen Yuzbashian . 213 Book Reviews Henryk Jankowski, A Historical-Etymological Dictionary of Pre-Russian Habitation Names of the Crimea (review by Uwe Bläsing and Hasmik Sargisian) . 217 Matthias Weinreich, We Are Here to Stay: Pashtun Migrants in the Northern Areas of Pakistan (review by Mikhail Pelevin) . 219 Hooman Majd, The Ayatollah Begs to Differ: The Paradox of Modern Iran (review by Philip O. Hopkins) . 225 Jason Burke, Al-Qaeda: The True Story of Radical Islam (review by Philip O. Hopkins) . 227 Downloaded from Brill.com10/07/2021 03:19:32PM via free access Iran and the Caucasus 13 (2009) 1-58 Prolegomena to the Study of the Kurds * Garnik Asatrian Yerevan State University Abstract The article presents a thorough review of nearly all relevant aspects of Kurdish Studies concerning the ethnic history, identity, religion, language, and literature of the Kurds. Elaborating upon the respective issues, the author makes extensive use of all available data and materials, including ancient and mediaeval, particularly those never previously examined with regard to related topics. The objective ex- amination of most crucial problems of the field contributes to a better understand- ing of Kurdish prehistory, expanding, at the same time, the basic methodological concepts upon which further research should be grounded. Due to the politicised nature of Kurdological disciplines, many ideological elements of non-academic provenance, that have found their way into the scholarly milieu in recent decades and have become a constant set of stereotypes and clichés, have been highlighted in the paper. Keywords Kurds, Ethnic History of the Kurds, Religion of the Kurds, Ethnonyms Kurd and Kur- manj, Kurdish Language, Kurdish Literature, Plant-Names in Kurdish, Armenian in Kurdish, Early Kurdish-Armenian Contacts, Yezidi Identity, Zazas, Gurans To the Memory of Fridrik Thordarson and Karen Yuzbashian INTRODUCTION: SOME METHODOLOGICAL REMARKS Hardly any other field of Near Eastern Studies has ever been so politi- cised as the study of the history and culture of the Kurds, having pro- duced an industry of amateurs, with few rivals in other domains of Ori- * I thank Martin Schwartz, Donald Stilo, and Uwe Bläsing for their valuable com- ments on this paper. Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2009 DOI: 10.1163/160984909X12476379007846 Downloaded from Brill.com10/07/2021 03:19:32PM via free access 2 G. Asatrian / Iran and the Caucasus 13 (2009) 1-58 entalistic knowledge.1 In Oleg Vil’evskij’s view: “The Kurds were stud- ied inter alia by everyone and, therefore, (seriously), by no one” (Vil’ev- skij 1945: 13; also Arakelova 2006: 153). This statement formulated more than half a century ago, still holds validity, to a certain extent, although during the following period Kurdology has registered serious achieve- ments, especially in the study of the social structure of Kurdish tribal society (see, e.g., Bruinessen 1992),2 language and literature (see below), and ethnography (Nikitine 1956; Aristova 1990; etc.). Due to the highly politicised nature of the disciplines related to the Kurds, during recent decades many ideological elements of non-academic provenance have found their way into the academic milieu and created constant stereo- types and a set of clichés, which, in fact, have nothing to do with reality. In the course of examining the key points of Kurdish prehistory and cul- ture, we attemptin this introductory part and throughout the text to cursorily highlight some of these elements.3 The term Kurd, as an ethnonym, is traditionally applied to an ethnic conglomeration whose various parts reside in the bordering areas of a number of Near Eastern countries.