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Imagining Kurdish Identity in Mandatory Syria: Finding a Nation in Exile Ahmet Serdar Akturk University of Arkansas, Fayetteville

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Imagining Kurdish Identity in Mandatory Syria: Finding a Nation in Exile Ahmet Serdar Akturk University of Arkansas, Fayetteville University of Arkansas, Fayetteville ScholarWorks@UARK Theses and Dissertations 8-2013 Imagining Kurdish Identity in Mandatory Syria: Finding a Nation in Exile Ahmet Serdar Akturk University of Arkansas, Fayetteville Follow this and additional works at: http://scholarworks.uark.edu/etd Part of the Islamic World and Near East History Commons, Near and Middle Eastern Studies Commons, and the Near Eastern Languages and Societies Commons Recommended Citation Akturk, Ahmet Serdar, "Imagining Kurdish Identity in Mandatory Syria: Finding a Nation in Exile" (2013). Theses and Dissertations. 866. http://scholarworks.uark.edu/etd/866 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by ScholarWorks@UARK. It has been accepted for inclusion in Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks@UARK. For more information, please contact [email protected], [email protected]. Imagining Kurdish Identity in Mandatory Syria: Finding a Nation in Exile Imagining Kurdish Identity in Mandatory Syria: Finding a Nation in Exile A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in History by Ahmet Serdar Aktürk Middle East Technical University Bachelor of Science in History, 2004 University of Arkansas Master of Arts in History, 2006 August 2013 University of Arkansas This dissertation is approved for recommendation to the Graduate Council. ___________________________ Dr. Joel Gordon Dissertation Director ____________________________ ____________________________ Dr. Richard Sonn Dr. Nikolay Antov Committee Member Committee Member ABSTRACT This dissertation looks at the activities of the Kurdish nationalists from Turkey who were exiled in Syria and Lebanon during the period of the French mandate, and especially Jaladet and Kamuran Bedirkhan. Scions of a princely Kurdish family from the Botan region in Eastern Anatolia, the Bedirkhan brothers initiated a Kurdish cultural movement in exile following the failure of two armed rebellions against the new Turkish Republic in 1925 and 1930. Central to this cultural movement was the publication of journals in Damascus and Beirut, namely Hawar (1932-1943) Ronahi (1942-1945), Roja Nu/Le Jour Nouveau (1943-1946), and Ster (1943-1945). This study critically analyzes these Kurdish periodicals and other publications from Syria and Lebanon in the 1930s and 1940s to understand how exiled Kurdish nationalists imagined a new Kurdish identity in the Middle East following the collapse of the Ottoman Empire and the rise of the nation states. Kurdish journals became the platform for a vibrant discussion about the future of the Kurds across the region. They also became the vehicle for the formalization and spread of a national language as well as the construction of a new identity, rooted in tradition but also with the aim of creating new Kurdish men and women. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS It was a great pleasure to work with my dissertation director, Dr. Joel Gordon. His comments, critiques and constant encouragement have made this dissertation possible. My dissertation committee members, Dr. Richard Sonn and Dr. Nikolay Antov, also helped me to look at my research topic from different angles. I am grateful to Dr. William Tucker who directed me to many sources on Kurdish history. I also want to thank Dr. Adnan Haydar for the years of enjoyable and rigorous Arabic training. I am thankful to the King Fahd Center for Middle East Studies and the History Department at the University of Arkansas for funding my graduate studies and research overseas. The chair of the History Department, Dr. Lynda Coon, and the Directors of Graduate Studies, Dr. Kathryn Sloan and Dr. Trisha Starks were extremely helpful throughout my graduate years. I also want to thank my office mates and especially Matt Parnell and Amanda Ford who read parts of my dissertation. I spent almost a year studying Kurmanji Kurdish at the Kurdish Institute of Istanbul. I am grateful to my Kurdish teacher, Mamoste Mevlüt, my tutors Aysel and Ali, and to the former and current chairs of the institute, Sami Tan and Zana Farqini. I should also thank Reşit Koçeroğlu for giving me insight into Kurdish madrasa life in Syria. Firat Ceweri, who republished Hawar in Stockholm in 1998, was kind enough to meet me during his visit to Istanbul. I give special thanks to my friend Hüseyin Burhan, who hosted me in Ankara several times. In Ankara it was inspirational to meet the Turkish sociologist İsmail Beşikçi, the late Şerafettin Elçi, and Mahmut Altunakar, all of whom shared with me their deep knowledge of the Kurds and their personal experiences. I want to especially thank Ahmed Kurdi who hosted me in Mardin and told me a lot about Jaladet Bedirkhan, his experience as a Kurd in Turkey and Syria, and how he smuggled the Kurdish periodicals across the border. Also, I am thankful to Cafer who hosted me in Cizre and showed me his historical town. Special thanks go to my friends Said, Hasan, and Mehmet who hosted me in Damascus. Dilawer Zengi kindly shared his collection of Kurdish periodicals published in Syria and introduced me to the Kurdish neighborhood in Damascus. I am grateful to Dr. Jordi Tejel for providing me with contacts in Qamishli. Rustum Mahmoud hosted me in Qamishli and introduced me to many people who had much to teach me regarding my research topic. It was exciting to meet the late Yousef Haji Harsan in Amuda who published a few pieces in the periodicals that I analyze in this dissertation. I would like to thank my friend Akif for his hospitality in Sulaymaniya, Iraqi Kurdistan. Mazlum Doğan in Sulaymaniya also helped me meet many people interested in Kurdish journalism. I was very privileged to have been granted an interview in Erbil with Sinemkhan Bedirkhan, the daughter of Jaladet Bedirkhan. She was very hospitable and she shared many family documents and recounted her childhood years with her father. The staffs of the Turkish Prime Ministry Republican Archives and Syrian National Archives were very helpful during my stays in Ankara and Damascus. I am also thankful to Kendal Nezan and Joyce Blau from the Kurdish Institute of Paris for letting me use their collections. The staff of Mullins Library at the University of Arkansas, especially the Interlibrary Loan department, deserves special thanks for their helpful service. My parents, my brother, my sister, and my grandmother have always supported me and encouraged me with their prayers. I am also thankful to all of my friends who made Fayetteville a second home. I will miss them and Fayetteville. Last, but not least, I want to thank Rıdvan, my close friend and countryman who was always there to lend support. DEDICATION Dedicated to my mentor, colleague, and good friend, al-Ustaadh Dr. Joel Gordon TABLE OF CONTENTS Note on Transliteration……………………………………………………………………….1 I. Introduction…………………………………………………………………………….2 II. An Overview of Kurdish Identity and History………………………………………...18 III. Kurds’ Search for a Place in the Middle East without the Ottoman Empire: Kurds and Kurdish Nationalism since the End of World War I……………………….43 IV. The Kurdish Press in Syria and Lebanon………………………………………………82 V. Kurdish History, Kurdistan, and Kurdish Language and Literature in the Kurdish Press…………………………………………………………………….134 VI. Kurdish Nationalists Analyze Their Society, Religion(s), and Gender………………...187 VII. Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………...243 VIII. Bibliography……………………………………………………………………………256 IX. Appendix………………………………………………………………………………. 276 NOTE ON TRANSLITERATION Unfortunately, there is not a standard transliteration system for Kurmanji Kurdish. Transliteration of Kurdish names and terms in this dissertation follows the system adopted by Wadie Jwaideh in his The Kurdish National Movement: Its Origins and Development (Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University Press, 2006). For the transliteration of Arabic names and terms I have used the International Journal of Middle Eastern Studies’ transliteration system. 1 1. Introduction The Turkish nation was tired of their sultans and kicked them out of their country. The nations, which had gathered around the Ottoman throne and the Muslim Caliph, broke away. Each got its own share except the Kurds ….What we (Kurds) should have had according to the principles of wisdom and of Shariah …fell into the hands of others. That is what we lay claim to today. That is the question of Kurdistan. When we defend our rights, the nations around us say that we are all Muslims and brothers, and there is not difference between us. That argument might be true but what they did is not fair. Because when a father dies, each son gets his own share. A brother cannot take others’ shares.1 The editorial in the Beirut-based Kurmanji Kurdish newspaper Roja Nu (The New Day) st dated Monday, May 1 1944 utilizes a metaphor to clarify the frustrations of the Kurds within the new regional order after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. If we stick to the author’s metaphor, we can say that the distant members of the Ottoman household, namely Greeks, Bulgarians, Serbs, and Albanians, had already left the Empire with their own shares by the beginning of the Great War. The end of the war brought further dismemberment as the empire lost its Arab territories. Kurds, however, remained loyal to the Ottoman sultan and caliph and fought side by side with the Turks to defend the remaining Ottoman territories in the Turkish War of Independence (1919-1923). The Kemalist Turkish Republic, founded in 1923 by Mustafa Kemal (Ataturk), destroyed the ties that had held Kurds and Turks together for centuries: the Ottoman sultanate and the caliphate. Moreover, the ardently secular and exclusively Turkish nationalist character of the new regime along with the attempts to assimilate the Kurds further alienated the Kurds of Turkey. In that context, some Kurds stayed in Turkey and struggled against the new regime. Others voluntarily or involuntarily went into exile, a process that had started before the foundation of the Turkish Republic in 1923 and accelerated with the consolidation of the Kemalist regime and the failure of the Sheik Said Rebellion in 1925.
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