In a book titled Shattering Empires: The Clash and Collapse of the Ottoman and Russian Empires 190-1918,Michael A. Reynolds, states that “”Empires know no necessary obvious limits to their borders. This boundlessness offers pliability but also breed insecurity. This held especially true for the Ottoman and Russian empires, whose vast territories were contiguous and whose populations overlapped. Kurds, Armenians, Circassians, Greeks, Tatars, Caucasian Turks, Assyrians, and Cossacks among others inhabited both empires and moved back and forth between them.”[1] Truly, the borderland between Russia and the Ottoman empires was overlapping; or as Reynolds claims “blurred into each other.”[2]In accordance with their territorial ambitions, both empires sought to manipulate the groups living on the fringes of their domains. Needless to say, the inhabitants of these blurry areas were by no means passive bystanders in this historical imperial contest. Their most significant bargaining chip was the threat of switching political loyalties from one empire to the other.
It is in this context that we can bring in the Kurds and their relations to the surrounding empires and to other inhabitants in the region. Some sources claim that a group of people who were labeled as Kurds have lived in the Caucasus region for a millennium. However, there is no evidence to suggest that these groups defined themselves as Kurds. For example, we know that the well-known Shaddadid dynasty lived in the region that is now often labeled as Kurdish. Nevertheless, there is no evidence to suggest that the members of the Shaddadid emirate identified themselves as Kurdish. Defining an ethnic group remains a major challenge for historians today. Such lack of clarity in identifying and categorizing this group of people in the Caucasus directly affects the historiography of the Kurds. Therefore, the first portion of this research will problematize defining the Kurdish identity in the Caucasus region.
Let me begin by referring to my earlier research on the formation of Kurdish identity. I have argued elsewhere that Kurdish nationalism emerged as a viable political movement during World War I.[3] In other words, the rise of Kurdish nationalism coincides with the fall of the Ottoman Empire. However, a multiform Kurdish identity already existed prior to the 20th century. This lack of uniformity is one of the reasons for the unreliability of statistics on the Kurds. This observation is also evident in the context of the Kurds in the Caucasus, especially during and in the aftermath of World War I. The greatest challenge to make estimates on Kurdish presence in the Caucasus is to define who the Kurd is.
There is no comprehensive study of the Kurdish population in the area, especially during the first decades of the 20th century. This is understandable since World War I made it almost impossible to collect reliable data. The most reliable statistics on the Kurdish population come from the early Soviet era. Focusing solely on the Kurds in Soviet Azerbaijan, Daniel Müller presents authoritative figures. In his article “The Kurds of Soviet Azerbaijan, 1920-91,”[4]Müller also makes references to earlier periods:
“A useful start is a list of settlements published in 1855 in the annual Kavkazskii kalendar’ [Caucasian Calendar] issued by the viceroy’s chancellery. The list covers all Shamakhinskaia guberniia [Shamakha governorate ], then comprising most of the territory of present-day ‘mainland’ Azerbaijan (…) minus the Nakhichevan enclave. No Kurds were listed there except in Zangezurskii uchastok [Zangezur division ], indeed only in two of its five minbashestva [headmanships]. These included most of the area later known as ‘Red Kurdistan’.”
In his book, Reynolds cites Mikhail Lazarev’s estimate of 150,000 Kurds living under Russian control and 5 to 5.5 million under the Ottomans prior to World War I.[5] For comparison, we can state that Kemal Karpat estimated that, based on Ottoman official figures, between 1906-07, the total population in the Ottoman eastern vilayets was 3, 147, 880; of these 2,483,135 or 78.89% were Muslims and only 664,745 or 21.11% were non-Muslim.[6] Reynolds further claims that the Armenian population comprised between one-quarter and one-third of the population in the six Ottoman eastern Anatolian provinces—Erzurum, Diyarbekir, Van, Bitlis, Sivas, and Mamuret-ül-Aziz—which he estimates totaled around one million people. In Russia’s Caucasus, Armenian population was somewhere in between 1,118,094 and 1.5 million.[7] In other words, in the borderland area where Kurds and Armenians lived, even prior to the end of World War I, the Muslims in general and Kurds in particular grossly outnumbered the Armenians. This fact is significant to understand inter-communal relations in the region and shifting attitudes of the Russian empire towards the Kurds.
Russian Interests in the Kurds
In the course of the 19th century, Russia fought against the Ottoman Empire four times and Iran twice. What is telling for the purpose of this paper is that all these wars took place in the Caucasus. This fact alone clearly demonstrates the geostrategic significance of the region for all three empires. According to Celile Celil, however, despite this fact, Russia’s political goal in the region was not territorial expansion in the 19th century. Celil claims that Russia had two main goals which determined her Caucasus strategy; 1) to counter British influence in the Near East and Central Asia, 2) to understand the political loyalties of the locals vis-à-vis the rival Ottoman empire.[8] In the first half of the 19th century, Russia had only limited diplomatic representation in the Ottoman Empire; consequently, its intelligence gathering was also limited. In the second half of the 19th century—especially following the 1877–78 war with the Ottoman Empire—Russia recognized the need for more reliable information about its rival and began to view the Kurds as potential allies who could be used against the Ottomans.
In order to understand the role of the Kurds in the Caucasus region, Russia’s Caucasus chief of staff N. N. Belyavskiy charged captain P. I. Averyanov to prepare a report on the Russian-Kurdish relations during the 19th century. Belyavskiy was trying to understand the following: what was the nature of the participation of the Kurds in the wars against the Ottoman Empire; what were the defining characteristics of the Kurdish-Russian relations; what was the current political standing of the Kurds in Russia, Iran and the Ottoman Empire; and what would be the possible position of the Kurds in case Russia fought against Iran and the Ottoman Empire? Averyanov was given access to rich Russian archives in Tblisi and produced a valuable work answering clearly the questions posed above. His report was published in Russian in 1900 and was soon translated into Turkish, as the Ottomans found it highly valuable for understanding the Kurds in the region.
Averyanov’s report is largely descriptive, allowing historians to gain insight into how the Russians observed and defined the Kurds. In a section titled “Current Situation of the Kurds in Russia”, the author claims that approximately 4 to 4.5% of the total Kurdish population lived under Russian control.[9] The Kurds in Russia were not significantly different from their kinsmen in Iran and the Ottoman Empire in most respects, except for one: their tribal structure. Averyanov claims that the tribal structure of the Russian Kurds was rapidly dissolving, largely because they had lived under the Russian system—characterized by a settled lifestyle—for a century, and this assimilation disrupted their traditional tribal organization.
The Kurds seemed to have had problems with the local Armenian security apparatus in the Caucasus. Averyanov claims that Armenian authority hurt the feelings of many Kurds and that the two peoples had been hostile toward each other for centuries. “While under Turkish sovereignty Kurds internalized hating the Armenians. When the Kurds became Russian citizens, they fell under Armenian authority. This event coincided with such a sensitive period that both parties did not recover from past sufferings inflicted from the other side.”[10] Ottomans were trying to lure the Kurds under Russian control with promises of land on the Ottoman side. Especially during the formative period of the Hamidiye Regiments, the Ottomans increased their recruiting propaganda among the Russian Kurds.
Averyanov lists a number of preventive measures to undermine the Ottoman attempts: 1) increased border security to prevent illegal migration of the Kurds; 2) increased surveillance on the Kurds in Russia; 3) tightened control over some high-profile figures and tribes; and 4) reward loyal Kurds publicly. We are informed that many Kurds still managed to cross the border and join the Hamidiye Regiments.[11]
Averyanov continues to give us more information about Kurdish-Armenian relations in the Caucasus during the last decades of the 19th century. The Russian captain observes “Kurds who are generally ignorant of power relations in the Russian Caucasus were abused and terribly exploited by Armenians who were better educated. For example, Armenians would first seize the land owned by the Kurds and then with a mock court decision, they would legally transfer these lands to themselves.”[12] Averyanov emphasizes that the Russian Kurds were almost entirely illiterate and did not speak Russian. Accordingly, in case of any conflict with the Armenians, the Kurds were always on the losing side, which in turn weakened their loyalty to the Russian Empire. To prevent Kurdish migration to the Ottoman Empire and gain Kurdish loyalty, Averyanov suggests that a special regional administrative structure be created specifically for the Kurds, which could also assume an advisory role to guide them. According to Averyanov, such administrative sub-structures had been envisioned before but were never realized. Furthermore, the education of the Kurds should be a priority, with schools established to educate them, as the Kurds had repeatedly requested from the local government. In the late 19th century, there was not a single Kurdish student enrolled in any school in the Caucasus. In his report, Averyanov concludes that literacy and education would enable the Kurds to obtain accurate and positive information about Russia, countering the negative propaganda spread by Ottoman agents. Higher literacy and education would also protect them from Armenian abuse.
In addition, Averyanov suggests in his report that the Kurds should be transitioned into settled farmers and protected from raids, looting, and robbery from both the Iranian and Ottoman sides
Averyanov’s report provides a detailed description of the daily life and political challenges faced by the Kurds in the Caucasus during the 19th century. It also offers valuable insights into Kurdish-Armenian relations, as well as the Kurds’ stance toward Russia and other surrounding empires. As a Russian officer, Averyanov depicted the Kurds as ignorant, wild nomads who did not have a clear national consciousness. They had a strong sense of freedom, defined by their desire to be free from any external authority, as well as deep love and loyalty toward their own tribe or the area in which they lived. Averyanov’s other significant observation is based on one of the well-known Kurdish revolts: the Ubeydullah movement of 1880-81, led by a local Kurdish Sheikh. Due to the lack of participation and the eventual failure of the rebellion, Averyanov concludes that, at that time, there was no religious fanaticism among the Kurds, and religion alone was therefore insufficient to mobilize them. Moreover, the only moral link between the Kurds and the Turks was their shared religion, and this religious connection had been weakening due to Kurdish Sheikhs who had been claiming for some time that the Ottoman Sultans were not the true inheritors of the Caliphate. Averyanov closes his report with the following statement: “therefore, what will determine the loyalty of the Kurds in a possible war between Russia and the Ottomans is the material gain, not religion.”[13]
Although historians should not accept Averyanov’s observations and conclusions at face value, they cannot deny the due respect for the author’s attention to detail. We can substantiate several points in this report with other sources. For example, Zharmukhamed Zardykhan examines how the Kurds were depicted in Russian sources during a period slightly later than World War I.[14] “This article focuses on the Ottoman Kurds. However, the reader should keep in mind that the Kurds lived in the aforementioned ‘blurry areas,’ which changed hands many times between the two imperial rivals. Therefore, terms like ‘Ottoman Kurd’ or ‘Russian Kurd’ can be misleading if they are perceived as referring to entirely distinct groups.
In any case, Zharmukhamed Zardykhan points out that, more often than not, Kurds in Russian sources are described in a pejorative manner, “emphasizing their savagery, arms-fetishism, and defiance.”[15] During the World War I period, the description of Kurds as inherently savage was somewhat ameliorated. In a great example of Russian Realpolitik, as the wars with the Ottoman Empire intensified, the image of the Kurds was transformed from “a nation of robbers by nature” to “victims of Ottoman neglect,” leaving them with no choice but to become savages. On the eve of World War I, Kurds were promoted from being “‘absolute evil’ to that of a minor strategic partner.”[16]
Indeed, during World War I, the Russian and Ottoman empires paid particular attention to the Kurds living along their shared borders. This proposition is especially true during the 1915 Armenian massacres. Russian Lieutenant-General N. G. Korsun estimated that prior to 1917, there were 75,000 Kurds serving in the 2nd, 3rd, and 6th Ottoman Armies.[17] There were also the reformed Hamidiye Light Cavalry Regiments under the new name of the Tribal Light Cavalry Regiments.[18] These Kurdish tribal forces were mainly utilized to counter and subdue the Armenian threat supported by Russia. Accordingly, as Zardykhan noted, these Kurdish regiments were mentioned in the writings of Russian officers. Russian assessment of them prior to World War I was somewhat dismissive, an appraisal based mainly on the observation that “German and Ottoman command did not trust the Kurds and deliberately equipped them with an insufficient amount of outmoded armaments and ammunitions.”[19] Towards the end of World War I, after the withdrawal of Russian forces from the Ottoman portion of the Kurdish areas, Kurdish fighters of the Ottoman Empire were labeled as “obnoxious traits.”[20]
Kurdish-Armenian relations are another subject to which Russian sources devote attention. Averyanov’s observations on poor Kurdish conditions under Armenians in the Russian Caucasus are contradicted by Kamal Madhar Ahmad’s conclusions on Armenians suffering under Kurdish dominance on the Ottoman side. According to Ahmad “the injustice done to Armenian farmers by the Kurdish ağas far exceeded that suffered by the Kurds, adding that certain cases of real slavery took place, where the Armenians were registered, sold and bought as the property of Kurdish beks.”[21]
In 1914, a Russian Armenian priest Ruben Bekgulyants made a remark on the similarity between the Kurds and the Armenians in terms of social structure. Bekgulyants, amazed at the existence of nomadic Armenians, observed that “the only difference between [the Kurds and the Armenians], which had the ‘same morals and customs’, was the fact that the Armenians lived more cleanly and went to school during the winter.”[22]
In his survey depicting changing Russian attitude towards the Kurds around the World War I period, Zharmukhamed Zardykhan concludes that the representation of the Kurds in Russian sources before, during and after the Great War is not uniform. But what was the attitude of the Ottoman government towards the Kurds residing in the buffer zone?
Ottoman Interest in the Kurds
Historical sources show that the Ottoman government saw the Muslim Kurds as allies in its competition with the Christian Russian Empire. This observation is most evident in the war time politics against Russia. The creation of the Kurdistan province in 1847 is a prime example for this claim. As wars with Russia intensified in the 19th century, the Ottoman Empire felt a great need to create a super-sized administrative unit in a place where the Ottoman, Russian and Persian empires met. The Ottoman government called this province the Kürdistan Eyaleti. An imperial edict written on 6 May 1846, makes a case for choosing Ahlat, a small town near to Iran and Russia, as the headquarters of the Ottoman Anatolian Army. The irade reads:
Müşir Pasha firstly stated that the village of Harput, … although it is a suitable place to station the army, is peripheral to the headquarters of the army. On the other hand, Ahlat—which is located on the other shore of Lake Van, and has suitable weather and fertile soil, and is located at the center of the Imperial Army (Ordu-yu Hümayun)—is, unlike Harput, close to the Iranian and Russian borders. Ahlat provides better transportation and logistical support and is located in the heart of Kurdistan, where the Kurds can be better controlled with the iron fist (pençe-i satvet), which proves to be necessary. Therefore, it is suggested to the exalted Sultan that Ahlat should become the headquarters of the Anadolu army. The appropriate action should be taken pending the Sultan’s approval.[23]
Evident in this irade is also Ottoman government’s desire to control the Kurdish population. In other words, creation of the Kurdistan province in the Ottoman Empire aimed at controlling the Kurdish aspirations and deterring any shift in their political loyalties towards the other neighboring empires. Related to this is the Ottoman desire to check the Russian expansionist designs.[24]
The same sentiment persisted in the following centuries, up until the end of the Ottoman Empire. To demonstrate this, I refer to a 1920 memorandum by Mr. A. Ryan of the British High Commission in Constantinople, which highlights the Ottoman attitude toward the Kurds along the Russian border. Mr. Ryan informs London of his meeting with Hamdi Pasha, former Minister of Marine. “I was approached, some days ago, by Hamdi Pasha (…) on the subject of the utilization of the Kurds as a barrier against the descent of the Bolsheviks towards Mesopotamia. (…) Hamdi Pasha said that the Bolsheviks had now extended to old Turco-Russian frontier and that they constituted an imminent danger to the countries lying south thereof, including Kurdistan and Mesopotamia. He urged that H.M. Government should use the Kurds as a barrier.” It is fair to say that using the Kurds as a barrier against the other empires in the region had been a determining factor of the Ottoman administrative policies towards the Kurds. This memorandum clearly captures that sentiment.
KURDS AND ARMENIANS IN THE OTTOMAN PARLIAMENTARY DISCUSSIONS
The first two decades of the 20th century were highly eventful for the Ottoman Empire. One episode relevant to our discussion is the attempted rapprochement between the Kurds and Armenians at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919. Şerif Pasha, a Kurdish notable who was already in Paris,[25] and Bogos Nubar Pasha, the head of the Armenian delegation in Paris,[26] signed an agreement declaring that Kurds and Armenians had long suffered under the Turkish administration. In the pamphlet, titled Memorandum on the Claims of the Kurd People, Şerif demanded from the victors of World War I an independent Kurdistan. This claim for an independent Kurdish state clearly did not sit well with the Ottoman members of the Parliament (Meclis-i Mebusan). Parliamentary minutes provide valuable insight into what Ottoman politicians thought about the Kurds and their relations with the Armenians.
In a session on 26 February 1920 the members of parliament discussed the issue of Şerif Pasha’s memorandum.[27] In reference to the Şerif/Boghos rapprochement, members of parliament collected telegrams from local Kurds in the Ottoman Empire protesting the Kurdish-Armenian joint declaration. “In Paris, Bogos Nubar and Şerif Pasha declared alliance,” states Şefik Bey, a represtative of Bayazit—a town on the Russian border. “In their joint declaration, they mention that the noble people of the Kurds and Armenians come from the same race (müşterek ve kardeş bir kavm ve cins…) and decided that the two will secede from the empire with the hope of establishing a separate government. (…) The Kurds and Armenians are different peoples with different history”[28] After Şefik Bey, Hüseyin Avni of Erzurum added “the Kurds and the Armenians cannot be siblings. Today Kurds and Armenians are fighting and killing each other in month Ararat. (…) [They] drink each other’s blood.”[29]
British intelligence on Kurds in Caucasus
Another important source on the Kurds in the Caucasus region at the turn of the 20th century is British archival material. Consistent with their desire to establish their foothold in the region, British intelligence officers were busy collecting information on the Pan-Turanian movement in the Caucasus led by Enver Pasha. In one report, we can also find information on the Kurds and their relations with the Armenians. An intelligence report numbered CAB/24/33[30]makes some interesting observations. These are significant in illustrating how a non-indigenous empire viewed the imperial rivalry between the Ottoman and Russian empires over the loyalty of the Kurds and Armenians..
When the Osmanlis conquered Armenia at the beginning of the 16th century, their main concern was to establish a bulwark against Persia, and the Kurdish tribes served excellently for the purpose. Notwithstanding their Persian dialect, the Kurds have not, and never had a vestige of Persian national feeling. Their social consciousness is limited by the tribe, the sole object of tribal policy is to evade external control, and in the 16th and 17th centuries the Persian Government, which was near and powerful, seemed a more immediate menace to tribal independence than the distant Ottoman Government at Constantinople. The Ottoman Government was content with a nominal suzerainty over the Kurdish chiefs, and in return the Kurds guarded the Ottoman Empire’s Persian frontiers–playing the same role here as the Bosniaks and Albanians in the Balkans.
Friction between the Kurds and the Ottoman Government began in the early 19th century, when Sultan Mahmud reduced the semi-independent Kurdish chiefs in Armenia and Kurdistan, and set up the beginnings of an official Ottoman administration in their place. This centralizing policy was reversed about 1890 by Abd-ul-Hamid, who hoped to keep his various subjects in subjection by playing them off against each other and weakening them all. Abd-ul-Hamid gave the Kurds rifles, and their chiefs the title of commanders of Hamidie gendarmerie, and let them loose on the Armenian; but Ottoman policy was reversed again in 1908 by the C.U.P., who hoped to regenerate the Empire by unity and internal strength. The C.U.P. attempted to call the Kurds to order, and they had a notable success in subduing the practically independent Milli Confederation built up by Ibrahim Pasha. But they could not call in the arms which Abd-ul-Hamid had given out, though they improved the situation by allowing the Christian population to bear arms too.
As soon, however, as they intervened in the European War, the C.U.P. went back deliberately to Abd-ul-Hamid’s policy. They distributed more arms to the Kurdish tribes, encouraged them to take part in the invasion of Azerbaijan, and incited them against, the Christians. From April 1915 onwards, the massacres of Armenian convoys in course of deportation were generally carried out by Kurdish bands, reinforced by released criminals and Ottoman gendarmes. But not all the Kurd took the Government’s side. In Cilicia, for instance, the Kurds deplored the treatment of the Armenians, as did the rest of the Moslem population; and in the Dersim highlands the Kurdish or pseudo-Kurdish tribes have given shelter to Armenian refugees from Kharput and elsewhere.
The Kurdish sense of independence has been galled by the Ottoman conscription, and the percentage of Kurd[ish] deserters has notoriously been higher than that of Armenians, not to speak of Turks. Many of the Dersimli tribes refused altogether to supply recruits, and the Ottoman military authorities have failed to send effective punitive expeditions against them. At present the Dersim country is a kind of no-man’s-land between the Turkish and Russian lines, and-many Kurdish chiefs are under Russian influence.
This Russian influence dates from the Russian occupation of Azerbaijan for except in the Erivan district there are practically no Kurds in the Caucasus provinces, under direct Russian sovereignty. The occupation of Azerbaijan increased Russia’s political prestige among the Kurds, and roughly coincided with the fall of Abd-ul-Hamid and the substitution of a regime in Turkey hostile to Kurdish privileges. The Russian governments as a power making for disorder from outside, was more congenial to many Kurds than the C.U.P. in its first genuine enthusiasm for order and good government.
During the War the partisanship of the Kurds has varied with the military situation. They were pro-Turk when the Turks were on the offensive in Azerbaijan and the Caucasus; they have turned pro-Russian in the Ottoman territories which the Russians have subsequently occupied. The Russian military authorities have treated these Ottoman Kurds with extraordinary favour, have left them their arms, and have connived at their raids, not only upon returned Armenian refugees, but even upon the Russian line, of communications. The Kurds were naturally a more congenial element than the Armenians to the Tsarist Government, but the Armenians complain that even since the Revolution the military authorities, have continued their pro-Kurdish policy.
The Armenian volunteers in the Russian Army have taken opportunities of reprisals, and recently it was reported that a punitive expedition by Armenian volunteers against the Kurds N[orth] E[ast] of Lake. Van had resulted in massacres of women and children. It is significant that this alleged atrocity was taken up by the Tatar press of Baku. Hitherto Tatars and Kurds have had little to do with one another; but if Ottoman Armenia becomes incorporated with the Russian provinces of the Caucasus in a federal Russian Republic, it is possible that Kurds and Tatars may work together as an Islamic political bloc.
But the future of the Kurds lies less in Armenia (under whatever regime Armenia may come) than in Northern Mesopotamia, which is certainly on the eye of economic development. So long as it lay fallow, the steppe-country between Aleppo and Mosul was an Arab domain-though the Kurds drove their flocks there for the winter, and Ibrahim Pasha, the last great Kurdish chieftain, made his headquarters at Viranshehr, .on the edge of the plain. But agriculture is now following the Baghdad Railway from Aleppo towards the east, and where Kurd and Bedawi have taken to the land, the Kurd has shown himself so far to be the-better man. If therefore the agricultural development of the country proceeds gradually, and if the local population is not swamped by reservoirs of man-power from abroad, Northern Mesopotamia seems destined to become Kurdish land; and; here, freed from their tribal tradition and their nomadic habits, the-Kurds will be more susceptible to the influences of civilization.
What will be the policy of the Ottoman Government towards the progress of the Kurds in Northern Mesopotamia, supposing it remains in their-hands it the peace-settlement? It is possible that they may try to carry out the threat of the Danish nurse’s gendarme; but it.is much more likely that they will seek an understanding with the Kurds, on the basis, of national autonomy instead of the old tribal independence. The Turco-Kurdish entente, in one form or another, is in the tradition of Ottoman statesmanship, but the future policy of the Ottoman Government towards the Kurds will be, a subsidiary consequence of their policy towards the Arabs. If they offer autonomy to their Arab provinces, the growing Kurdish agricultural population will share the benefit; if they decide for repression, and Turkification, Kurds and Arabs will suffer alike.
These 1917 observations by British intelligence did not anticipate the collapse of the Pan-Turanian movement in the Caucasus, but they offer a window into the interrelations among the Kurds, Armenians, Russians, and Turks. This document contains indications of how the British viewed the competition between the Russian and the Turkish empires and how they viewed the relationship between the Kurds and the Armenians.
Conclusion
Depending on political motivations, one can subscribe to one of the following explanations of ethnic/religious rivalry in the Caucasus. 1) This was an ethnic problem, and one group tried to exterminate the other based on their ethnicity (and/or religion); 2) this was a regional problem (Anatolian and trans Caucasian problem) where involved parties tried to dominate each other but the weak one lost. In the current historiography, the Turks, in an attempt to minimize or absorb to massacres of Armenians, subscribe to the latter. Armenians, on the other hand, insist on the former. This is to be expected; however, what is significant is that Armenians and Kurds downplay their own violent rivalry in favor of a narrative that presents the Kurds as a party manipulated by the Turks and therefore forms an alliance with their ethnic rival, the Armenians, at the expense of the third one, the Turks. Michael Reynolds correctly states that “Although rivalry with Kurds was at the center of the Ottoman Armenian concerns up through World War I, Armenian historiography generally glosses over this in favor of narratives that present Kurds as victims of the Turkish Republic. Kurdish historiography [on the other hand] has been preoccupied with the “failure” of Kurds to achieve a nation-state of their own. It has preferred to downplay conflict with Armenians in favor of emphasizing struggles for ethno-national self-determination against the Turkish, Arab, and Iranian states.”[31]
Hakan Özoğlu
Hakan Özoğlu is Professor of History and Director of Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Central Florida. Hakan Özoğlu’s earlier research centers on Kurdish nationalism in the Ottoman Empire, particularly explored in his book Kurdish Notables and the Ottoman State, which was published in Turkish in 2004. In that work, Özoğlu aimed to understand the processes of identity formation and the emergence of nationalism. His broader research interests include the post–World War I power struggle in the early Turkish Republic and U.S. involvement in the Middle East through Turkey following the Great War. In his From Caliphate to Secular State (Praeger Press, 2011) he examines the tensions between secularists and Islamists and analyzes the Kemalist effort to suppress political opposition in pursuit of westernizing the remnants of the last Islamic empire. Özoğlu also recently published a monograph titled The Decline of the Ottoman Empire and The Rise of the Turkish Republic: Observations of an American Diplomat, 1919-1927 (Edinburgh Studies on Modern Turkey, 2021). His essays and interviews have been featured in numerous international media outlets, including The New York Times, Orlando Sentinel, Chicago Tribune, and WTTW PBS Chicago.
References:
Averyanov, P., Osmanlı, İran, Rus Savaşında Kürtler, 2010, Istanbul.
Aytar, O., Hamidiye Alaylarından Köy Koruculuğuna, 1992, Istanbul.
Hovannisian, R., Armenia on the Road to Independence, 1918, 1967, Berkeley.
Klein, J., Margins of Empire: Kurdish Militia in the Ottoman Tribal Zone, 2011, Stanford.
Korsun, N., Pervaya mirovaya voyna na kavkazskomfronte: Operativno-strategicheskiy ocherk, 1946, Moskou.
Madhar Ahmad, K., Kurdistan During the First World War, 1994, London.
Müller, D., “The Kurds of Soviet Azerbaijan, 1920-91”, Central Asian Survey, Vol. 19, 2000, pp. 41-77.
Özoğlu, H., Kurdish Notables and the Ottoman State, 2004, Albany.
Özuğlu, H., “The Impact of Islam on Kurdish Identity Formation in the Middle East”, Evolution of Kurdish Nationalism, ed. M. Gunter, 2007, Costa Mesa, pp. 18-35.
“Report on the Pan-Turanian Movement”, Intelligence Bureau, Department of Information, 2017. British Library document available in pdf-form via Qatar National Library.
Reynolds, M., “Abdürrezzak Bedirhan: Ottoman Kurd and Russophile in the Twilight of Empire”, Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History, Vol. 12, 2011, pp. 411-50.
Reynolds, M., Shattering Empires: The Clash and Collapse of the Ottoman and Russian Empires 1908–1918, 2011, Cambridge.
Zardykhan, Z., “Ottoman Kurds of the First World War Era: Reflections in Russian Sources”, Middle Eastern Studies,Vol. 42, 2006, pp. 67-85.
[1] Reynolds, Shattering Empires, 46.
[2] Idem; Here the author talks about eastern Anatolia but one can also add the Caucasus to this proposition.
[3] Özuğlu, H., “The Impact of Islam on Kurdish Identity Formation in the Middle East”, 18-35.
[4] Müller, “The Kurds of Soviet Azerbaijan, 1920-91”, 41-77.
[5] Reynolds, Shattering Empires, 48.
[6] This was cited in Reynolds, but the reference was not to the Karpat book but Hovannisian, Armenia on the Road to Independence, 1918, 48.
[7] Reynolds, Shattering Empires, 48. He arrives at this conclusion based upon several secondary sources, such as Hovanissian, Armenia on the Road, 35-37. According to Armenian Patriarchal records in 1912, the Armenian population in the Ottoman empire was 1,018,000 Armenians, claiming nearly 40% of the total population of the six Ottoman provinces.
[8] “Introduction” in Averyanov, Osmanlı, İran, Rus Savaşında Kürtler, 9.
[9] Information in this section comes mostly from Averyanov, Osmanlı, İran, Rus Savaşında Kürtler, 255-65.
[10] Ibid., 258.
[11] Ibid., 259.
[12] Ibid., 260.
[13] Ibid., 231-32.
[14] Zardykhan, “Ottoman Kurds of the First World War Era”, 67-85.
[15] Ibid., 68.
[16] Ibid., 73.
[17] Korsun, Pervaya mirovaya voyna na kavkazskomfronte, 30 as cited in Zardykhan, “Ottoman Kurds of the First World War Era”, 74. The author claims that “Despite the 66% decrease in the overall number of Kurdish soldiers, (…) the total number of Kurds in the 2nd, 3rd and 6thOttoman Armies amounted to 25,000 in 1917.” I was not able to confirm the validity of this number.
[18] For more information on the Hamidiye see Klein, Margins of Empire: Kurdish Militia in the Ottoman Tribal Zone, 3-6.
[19] Zardykhan, “Ottoman Kurds of the First World War Era”, 74; see also Aytar, Hamidiye Alaylarından Köy Koruculuğuna, 140.
[20] Zardykhan, “Ottoman Kurds of the First World War Era”, 74.
[21] Madhar Ahmad, Kurdistan During the First World War, 148 as cited in Zardykhan, 78.
[22] As cited in Zardykhan, “Ottoman Kurds of the First World War Era”, 78.
[23] Prime Minister’s Ottoman Archives, Mesail-i Mühimme, 1310.
[24] On a different scale, one can see similar moves by the Ottomans against the Safavid Empire in the 16th century; see especially chapter 4 in Özoğlu, Kurdish Notables and the Ottoman State, 2004.
[25] Şerif Pasha was an Ottoman diplomat and a son of a former Ottoman Foreign Minister, Said Pasha.
[26] Bogos (or Boghos) Numar Pasha was a son of a former Prime Minister of Egypt.
[27] Session number 14.
[28] Meclis-i Mebusan, session 14, 26 February 1920, vol. 1, p. 209. Şefik Bey was possibly referring to a joint declaration by Şerif Pasha and Bogos Nubar Pasha, signed on 28 November 1919; see F.O. 371/4193.
[29] Meclis-i Mebusan, session 14, 26 February 1920, vol. 1, p. 210-11.
[30] “Report on the Pan-Turanian Movement”, Appendix I: The Kurds.
[31] Reynolds, “Abdürrezzak Bedirhan”, 411-50. Quotation is from page 13.
alongthesilkroad.com 
Leave a comment