Unsolved:Theories of Kurds having Turkic origin

Short description: Various theories in Turkey which claim that Kurds are a Turkic people

Various theories have emerged in history, made by both Turks and Kurds (including Zazas), which state that Kurds are an Oghuz Turkic people who eventually became distanced from their identity, mostly due to foreign interference or assimilation.

Theories

In 1975, Mahmut Rışvanoğlu, himself being a Kurd from the Reşwan tribe, released a book titled "The Tribes of the East and Imperialism", insisting that all Kurds are Turkic people of Central Asian heritage. He alleged that towards the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, imperialists from both the East and West began brainwashing Kurds into denying their Turkic heritage, and the imperialists declared them to be a completely separate people which are part of the “Aryan race”, and began spreading Kurdish nationalism. Alexandre Jaba, the Russian consul at Erzurum in the 1850s, met with the Kurdish elder Mela Mehmûdê Bayezîdî and requested him to write summaries on Kurdish literature, folklore and society, and to translate the Sharafnama into Kurdish. Jaba later compiled the first Kurdish dictionary and the German linguist Ferdinand Justi wrote the first Kurdish grammar. Around sixty years later, Basile Nikitine, who was the Russian consul in Urmia in 1915–18, joined the Kurdologist movement. Vladimir Minorsky, who began his career as a diplomat for the Russian Empire, began writing articles in the Encyclopaedia of Islam about Kurds and Kurdistan. Mahmut Rışvanoğlu specifically hated Minorsky, and often referred to encyclopedias as "Imperialist tools", which were obviously references to Minorsky's studies, and he often accuses Minorsky and other Orientalists of being “Turkophobes”. The British, on the other hand, had their own diplomats who wrote about Kurds, and established a presence in Kurdistan. Mark Sykes, Ely B. Soane, Edward Noel and Cecil J. Edmonds, were especially active in politically and socially distancing the Iraqi Kurds from Turkey. Major Noel personally travelled across Kurdistan in 1919 to see how committed to nationalism the Kurdish tribes were. It is common knowledge that both Western and Oriental studies on Kurds have not only helped form modern Kurdology, but also gave many Kurds knowledge about themself which they didn't know before. Rışvanoğlu never denied being an ethnic Kurd and he frequently displayed his Kurdish identity to people, however he claimed himself and every Kurd to be Turkic, as opposed to Iranic.

Turkish nationalist Mehmet Eröz claimed that Kurds are an Oghuz ethnic group, just like Azerbaijanis and Turks, rather than a completely distinct ethnicity. Eröz claimed that the word Kurd (Kürt) is found on the Elegest inscription and it specifically referred to Kurds. Eröz stated that it would be more proper to refer to Kurds as “Kurdish Turks”.

Both Eröz and Rışvanoğlu compiled words from Old Turkic which they found in modern Kurdish dialects, and in which they developed a theory that claimed that despite the Iranic and Semitic influences on the Kurdish language over time, many elements which were unique to the alleged Kurdish Oghuz language have survived in the modern language.

A Turkish prosecutor at a court in 1971, speaking about the Kurdish issue in Turkey during a trial against DHKP/C members, went on to make statements about the various Kurdish languages and dialects and stated that "there is no doubt that Kurdish is a Turkic language, just like Yakut or Chuvash. It is not immediately recognisable as such because our racial brothers have, for centuries, had contact with Arabs, Persians and Armenians, which has destroyed the purity of their language." This claim is similar to the claim of Hazaras being a Turkic people who had their language heavily Iranicised, though still retaining some of its Turkic elements.

Whereas Ziya Gökalp was also an ethnic Kurd who identified as a Turk, he did not contribute nor place importance on the theory of Kurds being a Turkic people, and believed that Turkishness is a matter of choice and dedication, not descent or background.

Mehmed Şükrü Sekban, a Kurdish medical doctor from Ergani who worked in Sulaymaniyah, was likely the first person to publish an entire book that asserts that all Kurds are racially Turkic. The book was titled "The Kurdish Question: On the Problems of Minorities", which he wrote in French in 1933 and two years later translated it to Ottoman Turkish. Sekban was originally a Kurdish nationalist who later renounced Kurdish nationalism, and began research in which he proclaimed that Kurds were racially closely related to Turks, and that it is the best for both of them to form a single united political community. He claimed that the Kurds had migrated to the Middle East much earlier than other Turkic people, and significantly intermixed with the local Iranic people, and had their Oghuz Turkic language heavily changed after being dominated by the Medes, with the Iranic influence eventually overtaking most of the Turkic elements. Sekban further stated that Kurds were not direct descendants of the Medes, nor were the Medes Kurdish, and that it was empty claims made by Kurdish nationalists. Seyyid Ahmet Arvasi supported Şükrü Sekban's claims, and said that Kurds are indeed a Turkic nation and had no problem being one until foreign imperialists began making false claims, and started fabricating history, as well as laying the basis for Kurdish nationalism in order to divide Turks. He also claimed that before the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire, Kurds referred to themselves as Kurds while knowing they were a faction of the Turkic people.

Arvasi also claimed that Kurds are not descendants of the Medes, Gutians, Corduene, or Merwanids, and that "Kurd" as an ethnonym was never mentioned in the languages of these nations. Arvasi claimed that the etymology of the ethnonym "Kurd" comes from words in various Turkic languages which refer to snow, such as "Kürt" in Kazakh and Chuvash, "Kört" in Kazan Tatar, "Körtük" in Uyghur and Kyrgyz, all meaning "heavy snow drift", as well as "Kürt" in the Taranchi language meaning "freshly fallen snow". Arvasi also claimed that the term "Kurdistan", created by Ahmad Sanjar of the Seljuks, meant "mountainous land which heavy snow fell on", or in simpler terms. He also stated that before the imperialists began coming to the Ottoman Empire, there was never a distinction between Kurds and other Turkic people, and that the term Kurdistan was used by everyone to refer to lands where Kurds lived, without separatist or negative intentions. He accuses imperialists of having designed a Kurdish nationalism in which was specifically designed to convince Kurds that they aren't Turkic, as well as falsifying Kurdish history and origins.

Şerif Fırat's "History of Varto and the Provinces of the East", became a very popular book. Fırat was a Zaza Alevi tribal chief of a branch of the Hormek tribe, which in 1925 had fought against Sheikh Said. Fırat's book mentioned stories that were passed down from generation to generation, found among other Alevi tribes as well, which mentioned that all Alevis originate from Khorasan. Fırat writes that his ancestors had lost their Turkic language after living with Zazas, who had migrated to Anatolia earlier. Fırat also claimed that all Kurdish tribes are genuinely Turkic, whether in Turkey, Iran, Iraq or Syria.

The biggest contributor to the theory of Kurds being Turkic, was M. Fahrettin Kırzıoğlu. Kırzıoğlu was born in Kars in 1917 and claimed to be of Dagestani descent. He studied Turkology at Istanbul University and got into Pan-Turkism. In his works, he targeted Western and Russian Kurdologists, especially Minorsky, Nikitine and Vil’chevsky, and dedicated a large part of his career to debunking their claims that Kurds were not a Turkic people. He claimed that foreign Kurdologists were extremely biased and falsified history and studies in order to distance Kurds and Turks from each other. Kırzıoğlu alleges that the word "Kurd" comes from the Old Turkic words "kurtuk" or "kürtüm", which in various Turkic languages refer to large heaps of snow, referring to the tall and snowy mountains which Kurds live on. Kırzıoğlu claims that all Kurdish tribes began from various tribes within the Üçok division of Oghuz Turks.

Historians reported that Sharafkhan Bidlisi mentioned that every Kurd descends from one Oghuz tribe, eventually splitting off into many smaller subtribes. They also reported how Sharafkhan Bidlisi mentioned the Kurds as a part of the Turkic people since the times of Oghuz Khagan, in the Sharafnama which he presented to Sultan Mehmet III in 1597. In these theories it also mentions how the colors red-yellow-green were used by from the Göktürks to the Ottomans, and are important to all other Turkic peoples, of which many wore green-yellow-red silk clothing. It was also stated that these three colors have national and spiritual value for Turks.

Ziya Gökalp alleged that while Oghuz Turkoman nomads who migrated among Arabs maintained their culture and language, they were much more relaxed among Kurds due to much cultural and linguistic similarities, and therefore assimilated much easier, whereas many Kurds who migrated among Turkomans were also relaxed and assimilated easily.

See also

• Turco-Persian tradition