history1inglish1

Native inhabitants of their land, there are no "beginnings" for Kurdish history and people. Kurds and their history are end products of thousands of years of continuous internal evolution and assimila-tion of new peoples and cultures intro-duced sporadically into their land. Genetically, Kurds are the descendants of all those who came to settle in Kurdistan, and not any one of them. Thus, ancient peoples such as the Kurti, Guti, Mede, Mard, Carduchi/ Gordyene, Adianbene, Zela and Khaldi, each constitute only one ancestor and not the ancestor of the modern Kurd.
Archaeological finds continue to docu-ment that some of mankind's earliest steps in the development of agriculture, domes-ti-cation of many common farm animals (sheep, goats, hogs and dogs), manufacture of grape wine and beer, record keep-ing (the token system), development of domestic technologies (tabby weaving, fired pot-tery making and glazing), metallurgy and urban-ization took place in Kurdistan between 12,000 and 8,000 years ago.
The earliest evidence so far of a unified and distinct culture (and possibly, ethnicity) by people inhabiting the Kurdish moun-tains dates back to the Halaf culture of 8,000-7,400 years ago. This was followed by the spread of the Ubaidian culture, which was a foreign introduction from Mesopotamia. After about a millennium, its dominance was replaced by the Hurrian cul-ture, which may or may not have been the Halafian people reasserting their domi-nance over their mountainous homeland. The Hurrian period lasted for nearly 4000 years from circa 6,300 to 2,600 years ago.
Much more is known of the Hurrians. They spoke a language of the Northeast Caucasian family of languages (or Alarodian), kin to modern Chechen and Lezgian. The Hurrians spread far and wide, dominating much territory outside their Zagros-Taurus mountain base. They settled most of Anatolia and all the way to the Bosphorus. Like their Kurdish descen-dents, they however did not expand too far from the mountains. Their intrusions into the neighboring plains of Mesopotamia and the Iranian Plateau, there-fore, were primar-ily military annexations with little popula-tion settlement. Their economy was sur-prisingly integrated and focused, along with their political bonds, mainly running paral-lel with the Zagros-Taurus mountains, rather than radiating out to the lowlands, as was the case during the preceding (foreign) Ubaid cultural period. Mountain-plain eco-nomic exchanges remained secondary in importance, judging from the archaeological remains of goods and their origin.
The Hurrians-whose name survives now most prominently in the name of the Kurdish districts of Hawraman/Awraman and Hakkari, and the clan name Haraki-divided into many clans and subgroups, who set up city-states, kingdoms and em-pires known today after their respective clan names. These included the Qardu, Guti, Khaldi, Mard, Mushku, Manna, Hatti, Mittani, Urartu, and the Kassu, to name a few. All these were Hurrians, and to-gether form the Hurrian phase of Kurdish history.
By about 4,000 years ago, the first van-guard of Indo-European-speaking peo-ples were trickling into Kurdistan in limited numbers. They formed the aristocracy of the Mitanni, Kassite, and Hittite kingdoms, while the common peoples remained solidly Hurrian. Meanwhile, around 3800 years ago, the name "Kurti" (Kurd) made its first debut into ancient records for a people and a kingdom located on the south shores of Lake Van and the Hakkari heights.
By about 3,000 years ago, the trickle had turned into a flood, and Hurrian Kurdistan was fast becoming Indo-European Kurdistan. Far from having been wiped out, the Hurrian legacy, despite its linguistic eclipse, remains the single most important element of Kurdish culture to date. It forms the substructure for every aspect of Kurdish existence, from their native reli-gion to their art, their social organization, women's status, and even their militia warfare.
Medes, Scytho-Sarmatians, Sindis, Alans and Sagarthians are just the better-known clans of the Indo-European-speaking Aryans who settled in Kurdistan. About 2,600 years ago, the Medes had already set up a federation that in-cluded all Kurdistan and vast territories beyond. Medians were fol-lowed by scores of other kingdoms and city-states-all dom-inated by Aryan aristocracies and a populace that was becoming Indo-European speaking if not already so.
By the advent of the classical era in 300 BC, Kurds were already experiencing mas-sive population movements that resulted in settlement and domination of many neigh-boring regions. Important Kurdish polities of this time were all by-products of these movements. The Zelan Kurdish clan of Coppadocia (Malatya-Kaysari area), for example, spread to establish in ad-dition to the Zelanid dynasty of Commagene, the Zelanid kingdom of Cappadocia and the Zelanid empire of Pontus-all in Anatolia. These became Roman vassals by the end of the 1st cen-tury BC. In the east the Kurdish kingdoms of Adiabene, Sophene, Gordyene, Cortea, Media, and Kirm had, by the 1st century BC, become confederate members of the Parthian Federation. By the 3rd century BC, the use of the name Kurd (Greek: Kurti; Latin: Cyrti) for the people inhabit-ing modern Kurdistan and other Kurdish colonies become prevalent in the classical Graeco-Roman texts.
While all larger Kurdish kingdoms of the west gradually lost their existence to the Romans, in the east they survived into the 3rd century AD and the advent of the Sasanian Persian empire. The last major Kurdish dynasty, the Kayosids, fell in AD 380. Smaller Kurdish principalities (called the Kofy�r, "mountain administrators") however, preserved their autonomy into the 7th century and the advent of Islam.
Several socioeconomic revolutions in the garb of religion emerged in Kurdistan at this time, many due to exploitation by central governments, some due to natural disasters. They continued as underground movements into the Islamic era, bursting forth periodically to demand social reforms. The Mazdakite and Khurramite movements are best-known among them.
The eclipse of Sasanian and Byzantine power by the Muslim caliphate, and its own subsequent weakening, permitted the Kurdish principalities and "mountain administrators" to set up new, independent kingdoms. The Shaddadids/Shadanids of the Caucasus and Armenia, the Rawwadids/ Rewandids of Azerbaijan, the Marwanids of western Kurdistan, the Hasanwayhids, Fadilwayhids, Kakawayhids and Ayyarids of the central Zagros and the Shabankaras of Fars were some of these Kurdish kingdoms.
The Ayyubids stand out by the vastness of their domain. From their capital at Cairo they ruled territories of Libya, Egypt, Nubia, Yemen, west-ern Arabia, Syria, the Holy Land, Armenia and much of Kurdistan. As the custodians of Islam's holy cities of Mecca, Medina and Jerusalem, the Ayyubids were instrumental in the defeat and expulsion of the Crusaders from the Holy Land. The founder of the dynasty, King Saladin (Sal�haddin) achieved lasting admiration as much from friends as foes for his magnanimity, humanity and valor. He is known by the epithet "Prince of Chivalry" in the annals of the Crusades.
With the 12th and 13th centuries, Turkic nomads arrived in the area and in time polit-ically dominated vast segments of the Middle East. Most Kurdish states became vassals to various Turkic king-doms and empires. Kurdish principali-ties, how-ever, survived and continued their au-tonomous existence until the 19th century. Intermittently, they ruled in indepen-dence when local empires weakened or collapsed.
By AD 1500, there were over a score of independent and autonomous Kurdish king-doms and principalities, some forming well-established states with currency of their own, and boasting dynastic histo-ries several centuries old. None showed any inclination for unification of Kurdistan. In this Kurdistan resembled the Germany of the 1850s, where tens of small principali-ties coexisted alongside larger kingdoms, all German in their ethnicity, but displaying little interest in merger into a united Germany. This was achieved only by force by the strongest among them; Prussia.
The advent of the Safavid and Ottoman empires in the area in the 16th century and their division of Kurdistan into two uneven imperial depen-dencies was on a par with the practice of the preceding few centuries. Their introduction of heavy artillery and a scorched-earth policy into Kurdistan was a new, and devastating devel-opment.
In the course of the 16th to 18th cen-turies, vast portions of Kurdistan were sys-tematically devastated and large numbers of Kurds deported to the far corners of the Safavid and Ottoman empires. The magni-tude of death and destruction wrought in Kurdistan unified its people in their call to rid the land of these imperial vandals. The chronic mutual suffering awakened in Kurds a community feeling-a nationalism.
For the first time, Kurdish authors called for a unified Kurdish kingdom to guard the land and foster- Kurdish culture and lan-guage. Thus the historian Bitlisi wrote in 1597 the first pan-Kurdish history, the Sharafn�ma, as Ahmad Khani, the collector and versifier of the national epic of Mem-o-Zin, called in 1695 for a Kurdish state. Kurdish nationalism was born.
It is noteworthy that, prompted by exter-nally-induced national distress, a century earlier than Europeans the Kurds were writ-ing of the need for a unitary Kurdish ethnonational state-a "nation-state."
For one last time a vast Kurdish empire-the Zands-emerged in 1750. Like the medieval Ayyubids, however, the Zands set up their capital and kingdom largely out-side Kurdistan, and pursued no policies aimed at unification of the Kurdish nation.
The disintegration of the Ottoman au-thority highlighted by the virtual indepen-dence of Egypt and Arabia, meanwhile, per-suaded the ancient, autonomous Kurdish princely dynasties to sue for full indepen-dence. The first of these was the principal-ity of Soran (central Kurdistan). In the early 1830s, a scion of the Rewandid dynasty, Dostakid Prince Muhammad, embarked on establish-ing an independent kingdom of Kurdistan. At his capital of Rewanduz, he established foundries to forge artillery and firearms, enabling his army in 1834 to score a major victory against the Ottoman forces that in-cluded the Prussian officer Helmuth von Moltke (future general and con-queror of Paris in 1871). Prince Muhammad's realm spread to cover the entire central Kurdistan, including Arbil and Kirkuk, where justice and law reigned supreme. A contemporary visitor, J. Baillie Fraser, wrote of "the great contrast which is observed between Turkish and Koordish territories. In the former, all villages were deserted, the inhabitants hav-ing taken flight to avoid the government imposts� On the other hand, no sooner did [one] reach Altoun Kupree [on the border], than all people flocked out, wearing flowers on their heads as on holidays, and shouted and cheered� They depend on no country but their own for the supply of all their wants. Everything they require is produced at home, and while their mountains form im-pregnable defences against foreign invaders, their rugged sides and valleys, with little effort, produce abundantly every-thing they desire to cultivate, and afford a never-failing supply of wood, water, and pasture."
Prince Muhammed's undertakings were aborted when a local grand mullah was bribed to issue a religious edict in 1836, forbidding Muslim Kurds from fighting the Ottoman Sultan/Caliph. Deserted, Prince Muhammed surrendered and was murdered in captivity at Trabzon the following year.
With the fall of Soran, the neighboring prin-cipality of Jezira (modern Cizre), under Bokthi Prince Badir (1802-1868) pursued the same goal by establishing links with other Kurdish princely houses at Muks, Bitlis, Kars, Hakkari and even the Ardalans in Persia, extending his dynasty's influence to most of Ottoman Kurdistan by 1840. To his diverse subjects, Badir attracted the alle-giance of the Christian Armenian, Assyrian and Chaldian inhabi-tants of Kurdistan. Awakened to the threat posed by Prince Badir and other Kurdish royalties, the Ottomans, now resuscitated by vast mili-tary support from Prussia/Germany, brought their full force against the fledgling Kurdish kingdoms. After three years of full-scale war, by 1848, the Ottomans had suc-ceeded in shelling all Kurdish princely capi-tals into surrender. Jezira/Cizre, the ancient and charming capital of the Bokhti princi-pality, was utterly pulverized.
By 1867, the House of Ardalan-the last autonomous Kurdish principality in Persia-had been likewise extinguished. For the first time in history, the Ottomans and Persians now ruled all of Kurdistan directly, via governors.
The loss of independence and/or auton-omy of Kurdish provinces created a political turmoil in the land which was to be further exacerbated after the end of WWI and the effective fragmentation of Kurdistan into five isolated sectors.
The Treaty of S�vres (signed August 10, 1921) anticipated an independent Kurdish state to cover a small portion of the former Ottoman Kurdistan. A larger portion-in fact the entire northern Kurdistan, from Van to Ardahan, from Bitlis to Bayezid-was scheduled at S�vres for inclusion in a planned independent "Armenia." Luckily for Kurds, none of this came to pass.
Unconcerned with the natives' call for in-dependence, France and Britain divided former Ottoman territories according to their own needs, with Kurdistan apportioned to the new states of Turkey, Syria and Iraq. The Treaty of Lausanne (signed June 24, 1923) formalized this division. Kurds of Persia/Iran and Russia/USSR, meanwhile, were kept where they were before by Teheran and Moscow. Even though Lausanne dashed the Kurds' hope for inde-pendence for the rest of the 20th century, it saved them from the ethnic cleansing that had been openly planned and partly im-ple-mented by the Armenians in large por-tions of the Kurdish territories scheduled by the Treaty of S�vres for inclusion in an inde-pendent Armenia.
The drawing of well-guarded state bound-aries dividing Kurdistan has, since 1921, afflicted Kurdish society with such a degree of frag-mentation that its impact is tearing apart the Kurds' unity as a nation.
The 1920s saw the setting up of a Kurdish Autonomous Province ("Red Kurdistan") in Soviet Azerbaijan. It was dissolved in 1929. In 1945, Kurds set up a Kurdish republic at Mahabad in the Soviet occupied zone in Iran. It lasted one year, until it was reoccupied by the Iranian army.
Since the 1970s, the Iraqi Kurds have en-joyed an official autonomous status in a portion of that state's Kurdistan. By the end of 1991, they had become all but indepen-dent. By 1996, however, the Kurdish gov-ernment in Arbil had committed political suicide as a result of fac-tional fighting between various Kurdish warlords. In August 1996, the Barzani faction called the Iraqi army into Kurdistan to help it dislodge the rival Talabani faction.
Since 1987 the Kurds in Turkey-by themselves constituting a majority of all Kurds-have waged a war of national libera-tion against Ankara's 70 years of heavy-handed suppression of any vestige of Kurdish identity and its rich and ancient culture. The massive uprising had by 1995 propelled Turkey into a state of civil war. The burgeoning and youthful Kurdish popu-lation in Turkey is now demanding abso-lute equality with the Turkish component, and failing that, full independence.
In the Caucasus, the fledgling Armenian Republic in the course of 1992-94 wiped out the entire Kurdish community of Red Kurdistan (Lachin, Kelbajar, Zangelan). Having ethnically cleansed its Kurdish inhabitants, Armenia has effectively annexed Red Kurdistan's ter-ritory that sepa-rates the Armenian exclave of Nagorno-Karabakh from Armenia. The fate of Red Kurdistan should serve as a model of what was in store for northern Kurdistan, had it been included into Armenia in 1920 by the provisions of the Treaty of S�vres.