Kurdish Nationalism: 1830-1930

Forcibly settled in some select communities in Western Turkey and several Middle Eastern countries, and partially concentrated in the eastern districts of Anatolia, there lives an atypical ethnic group whom Turks label as “Mountain Turks”. Yet this unique ethnic group is totally unrelated to the Turks and possesses a distinct culture, history, and social background. Historical data collected during the last 2 centuries indicates that these people are the original inhabitants of southeastern Anatolia. History names them the Kurds and their homeland, Kurdistan.

The modern day Turkish Republic was built on the remnants of the Ottoman Empire. During their expansion, the Ottomans conquered and occupied the lands of many peoples. They built a large, yet diverse empire, whose borders extended from southeastern Europe (the Balkans) to the Caucasus including the Middle East, Arabia, and North Africa. Asia Minor and Anatolia became the nexus of this vast state.

During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, unprecedented luxury, opulence, and indolence corrupted the Ottoman imperial power. Weakness and incapacity in the face of European powers became a permanent features of the power elite. By the nineteenth century, the whole empire was reduced to “the sick man of Europe.”

During these two centuries of weakness, the Ottomans encountered an increasing number of nationalistic and freedom movements. An already strong Europe interfered in the internal politics of the empire. However, European powers were never able to reach a compromising agreement or a final decision on how to divide the Ottoman Empire between themselves. Thus, Ottoman territorial integrity became a permanent element of the European peace process. The totality of the empire was restored for almost a century, until the outbreak of World War I.

Most of the nationalistic movements that the Ottomans encountered during the nineteenth century were staged in their European territories. These were backed by different European powers, especially Russia, which for political reasons regarded the Slavic freedom fighting peoples of the Balkans a continuation of its own people. Moreover, Russia used the Slavic population of the Balkans to implement its strategic plans of “descending to the hot waters” that is, the Mediterranean. Unable to suppress all these freedom movements at the same time, the Ottomans retreated. Consequently, most of the Balkans regained its freedom.

At about the same time (i.e. the middle of the 19th century), peoples in the eastern parts of Anatolia, namely the Kurds and the Armenians, awoke from their centuries long torpor and embarked in nationalistic movements seeking freedom and equality. Yet the remoteness of those peoples and their lands from Europe brought them a fate that was totally different from their European counterparts. Armenian and Kurdish national liberation struggles were handled with an iron fist. All that Ottoman Sultans were deprived of achieving in their European territories they forced in the eastern parts of their empire. Later, under the cover of the first global war, The Ittihadist Turkish government exceeded even its predecessors when it staged and executed THE FIRST GENOCIDE OF MODERN HISTORY [G.M.] by massacring the Armenian population of Ottoman, i.e. Western Armenia.