Draft:Kurds in the Soviet Union

Kurds in the Soviet Union
	Kurdish women working in collective farms in Soviet Armenia, Kyrokend Village, 1966.
Regions with significant populations
Armenian SSR	56,127
Georgian SSR	33,331
Kazakh SSR	25,425
Kirghiz SSR	14,262
Azerbaijan SSR	12,226
Russian SFSR	4,724
Turkmen SSR	4,387
Uzbek SSR	1,839
Ukrainian SSR	238
Other; (Byelorussian SSC, Tajik SSC, Estonian SSC, Latvian SSC, Moldovian SSC and Lithuanian SSC)	142
Languages
	Kurdish (Kurmanji), Russian, Armenian, Azerbaijani, Georgian
Religion
	Irreligion, Islam, Yezidism

Kurds in the Soviet Union
	Kurdish women working in collective farms in Soviet Armenia, Kyrokend Village, 1966.
Regions with significant populations
Armenian SSR	56,127
Georgian SSR	33,331
Kazakh SSR	25,425
Kirghiz SSR	14,262
Azerbaijan SSR	12,226
Russian SFSR	4,724
Turkmen SSR	4,387
Uzbek SSR	1,839
Ukrainian SSR	238
Other; (Byelorussian SSC, Tajik SSC, Estonian SSC, Latvian SSC, Moldovian SSC and Lithuanian SSC)	142
Languages
	Kurdish (Kurmanji), Russian, Armenian, Azerbaijani, Georgian
Religion
	Irreligion, Islam, Yezidism

^[1]

Kurds in the Soviet Union describe Kurdish people or groups living within the borders of the Soviet Union.

The Kurds have had a say in many states established in the South Caucasus for centuries. The Russian Empire's relations with the Kurds developed in the early 19th century during the Ottoman-Russian Wars and the Russo-Persian Wars. As a result of the agreements signed with the countries of the region, Russia's existing borders have become inclusive of Kurds, and many Kurds have settled in the Caucasus and Russia, forming a large population. The pressures exerted by the Turks and Persians also accelerated the migration of Kurds to Transcaucasia. Many studies have been written about the Yazidis living in the region and works of art have been created. From the middle of the 19th century, descriptions of the Kurds began to appear in the literature and research institutes were established on the language and history of the Kurds. The Kurds generally lacked education during the imperial period, and there were no educational institutions to learn their mother tongue, Kurdish. The Kurds, who were oppressed by the landlords and beys who ruled the region since the end of the 19th century, were exposed to assimilation in this period. In the 1926 census, it was determined that the Kurds in the region mainly spoke Tatar (the name given to Azerbaijani at that time).

During the October Revolution, names such as Ferik Polatbekov and Arab Shamilov carried out activities for the Kurds to support the Bolsheviks. As a result of the beginning of the world war and the change of Tsarist power, many new developments took place in the lands under Russian rule before the First World War; Revolts broke out, soldiers left their units, old administrations were changed, attempts were made to establish new Soviet governments, such as the Erzincan Soviet, and mass murders took place in parallel with these. Due to the mass killings committed against non-Muslim peoples such as the Armenian Genocide and the Syriac Massacre that took place during this period, Yazidi Kurds migrated to the Caucasus from the areas where they lived. After the October Revolution that took place in this period, Soviet systems were established in Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan. In the post-revolutionary period, the traditional tribal system still prevailed over the Kurds, the land and plateaus were in the hands of wealthy landlords, and the aghas continued this system through sheikhs.

Kurds were officially recognized as a nation during the Soviet Union. In 1923, the region known as Lachin-centered Kurdistan Uyezdi was established for the Azerbaijani Kurds between the Armenian SSR and the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast. The Soviet Union contributed to the development of Kurdish culture, and for the first time, besides non-Kurdish researchers, Kurds began to contribute to the studies on their own culture. Between 1928-29, the first Kurdish Latin alphabet, the Shemo-Marogulov alphabet, was prepared, educational institutions and academies were opened, many Kurdish publishing houses were established and many works were published. Radio Yerevan's Kurdish broadcasts had a great impact on both the Soviet Kurds and the Kurds beyond the Soviet borders. The first Kurdish film, Zare, was produced in the Armenian SSR in 1926. In 1937, some Armenian Kurds and Azerbaijani Kurds, and in 1944 some Georgian Kurds were immigrated to Kazakhstan SSR, Kyrgyzstan SSR and Central Asia. As the reason for the migration in 1937; Opposition to the Soviet system, the existence of traditions such as sheikhism, sayyidism, and blood feud in their social and economic relations, as well as the continued dominance of rich aghas originating from patriarchal relations, and hindering the collective kolkhoz and sovkhoz system were listed. The migrations in 1944 were carried out by the State Defense Committee on the grounds that some Kurds living in rural areas during the Second World War showed intelligence interest to Turkey. On the other hand, Kurds generally showed significant usefulness at the front or behind the front during the Great Patriotic War. Soviet Kurd Samand Siabandov was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. With the start of the de-Stalinization process, Kurds who were displaced after 1956 began to return to their former lands.

During the Second World War, Iran came under the control of the Soviet Union and the United Kingdom. As the war continued, the Kurds formed their own political organizations. The Kurdistan Resurrection Community was established in Iranian Kurdistan and later became the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan. After the war, the Soviets refused to withdraw and continued to support these separatist movements and spread socialism in Iranian Azerbaijan and Iranian Kurdistan. For this purpose, the Republic of Mahabad was established in 1946. However, after the withdrawal of the Soviet Union from the region, the region was captured and destroyed by Iranian armies. Mustafa Barzani and his entourage defected to the Soviets. Since Barzani believed that an independent Kurdistan to be established in Iraq could only be realized with Soviet support, he established close ties with the Soviet rulers. The Barzanis returned to Iraq after the Iraqi government issued a special amnesty in 1958. Over time, relations with the Iraqi government deteriorated, and after the Baath Party seized power in 1963, military operations began in Kurdish areas in Iraq. The Soviet administration took a harsh stance towards stopping the operations immediately.

After the perestroika policies of the 1980s, the cultural efforts and autonomy demands of the Soviet Kurds became more evident. Kurds living in all republics united in the organization called Yekbûn in 1989 and worked to re-establish Kurdistan Uezd. Soviet authorities began working on the reconstruction of Kurdish autonomy, but the Kurdish autonomous region could not be established due to reasons such as ideological differences, Azeri-Armenian conflicts, Turkey's intervention and the dissolution of the Soviet Union.

According to the census results in 1989, there were a total of 152,717 Kurds living in the country. The largest Kurdish population lived in the Armenian SSR, and the second in the Georgian SSR. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Kurds of the region were divided among the former Soviet countries.

History[edit]

Kurds in the pre-Soviet South Caucasus[edit]

Kurds have lived in the region for a long time. In the 9th century, the Deysemi dynasty ruled in Barda.^[2]^[3] In the 10th century, the Ganja-based Shaddadi dynasty had political, military and cultural weight in the vast majority of the South Caucasus.^[2]^[4] In the 13th century, in the Principality of Khachen and between the 16th and 18th centuries, when most of the Caucasus was under the Persian Empire, the Kurds maintained their presence in these regions politically and militarily at certain levels.There is extensive information about the independent Kurdish states of the past, namely Marwanid, Ayyubid, Shahrizor, Big Lor and Little Lor, in the work called Şerefname, written in 1597 by Şeref Han, the ruler of Nakhchivan, who conducted extensive research on Kurdish history in the South Caucasus.^[2] The Russian-Iranian and Russian-Ottoman wars in the 19th century caused the Kurds to move to the South Caucasus in large groups.^[2]

Kurds during the October Revolution[edit]

Soviet Kurdistan documentary about the changing social life of the Kurds living in the Soviet Union with the October Revolution.

During the 1917 October Revolution, while the Kurds living in the Caucasus were working in areas such as Baku where the working class created mass power, some pro-Tsarist leaders were trying to prevent all Kurds from participating in the revolution altogether. There were also wealthy Kurds who had the title of "general" in exchange for loyalty to the Tsar. Since this segment had large lands, it was in a position to have a say over other working Kurds. On the other hand, people such as Ferik Polatbekov and Erebê Şemo worked before the public to support the Kurds to the Bolsheviks.^[5]

Soviet Union Era[edit]

Deportation of some Kurds[edit]

^ "Демоскоп Weekly - Приложение. Справочник статистических показателей". www.demoscope.ru. Retrieved 2023-09-06.
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d Bedirxan, Ezîzê Ziyo (2010). Kızıl Kürdistan. Pêrî Yayınları. ISBN 9786054375004.
^ Demir, Sores Welat (2008). Pembe Hayaller Kasırgası & Kürdistanbul / Pink Dreams Tornado & Kurdistanbul (Docu-Drama by SWD). SWD Group. ISBN 9788293675358.
^ Keles, Nevzat (2016). Şeddâdîler (951-1199): Ortaçağ'da bir Kürt hanedanı. Bilge Kültür Sanat. ISBN 9786059241908.
^ Can, Hüseyin (2017). Stalin ve Kürtler. İstanbul: Ceylan Yayınları. ISBN 978-975-2416-07-9.