The Kurds and Kurdistan: A Selective and Annotated Bibliography
After nearly two years' labor, in collecting, reading, arranging, and classifying the material included in this work, I am at last able to publish the following bibliographical study. This work has been driven by two main considerations: First, the need to fill one of the major gaps in the world of bibliographies, namely, a general annotated bibliography on the Kurds and Kurdistan. Second, to assist researchers to locate their needed information on the Kurds in a more efficient way.
In the last few years, the Kurdish question has taken on more prominence in Middle Eastern politics, and attracted the interest of media, the academic community as well as governmental and non-governmental organizations. The years 1991 and 1992 are (and will be) remembered by all students of Kurdish topics as the ones during which they were swamped by the press and academic departments to supply answers to everything that needed to be known about the Kurds--and quickly.
Lacking comprehensive bibliographical studies, the Kurdologists have had little choice but to go to the Internet or DIALOG to search for material to complete their work, spending hundreds of hours and dollars in the process. They had to go over many databases, containing plenty of repetitious and misleading records. They have needed to survey all of the outputs for the needed material and yet with no definite positive end result. Soon also, they would discover that almost none of the databases cover materials published before the mid-1960s which certainly include many valuable works. Therefore, a manual search through a well-classified, annotated bibliography seemed to be more fruitful and presented a more economic and rapid method of communication research and retrieval of information. Had there been an up-to-date, multidisciplinary, annotated bibliography of the Kurds and Kurdistan, the researcher's task would have been much easier, less expensive and more rewarding. In short, no matter how much the Information Science field develops, we will always need to rely on printed bibliographies. This is due to their accuracy, their savings in time and money, and their multi-disciplinary character...
CONTENTS
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS / xi PREFACE / xiii
INTRODUCTION: GENERAL INFORMATION ON THE KURDS AND KURDISTAN / 1 Geography and Population / 1 Kurdish National Identity / 2 Tribalism vs. Nationalism / 2 Language / 3 Religion / 5 Other Cultural Aspects of Kurdish National Identity / 5 Education / 6 Economy / 6 History / 7 The Kurds in Turkey Since 1918 / 9 The Kurds in Iran Since 1918 / 12 The Kurds in Iraq Since 1918 / 14 The Kurds in Syria Since 1918 / 15 The Kurds in the Former Soviet Union Since 1918 / 16 Conclusion / 18
1. GENERAL WORKS / 25
2. DESCRIPTION AND TRAVEL / 37
3. HISTORY AND ARCHAEOLOGY / 43 Ancient, Classical, and Medieval: Prehistory-1496 AD / 43 Early Modern. 1497-1918 / 52 Modern and Contemporary: 1919-Present / 58 General / 58 Turkey / 73 Iran / 77 Iraq / 83 The Kurdish War in Iraq, 1961-1975 / 88 The Kurds and Iran-Iraq War, 1980-1988 / 96 The Kurdish War in Turkey, 1984- / 98 The Kurds and the Gulf War, 1991- / 103
4. POLITICS / 109 Nation-States and Kurdish Nationalism / 109 General / 109 Turkey 133 Iran / 150 Iraq / 156 Great Britain / 176 United States / 180 Former Soviet Union / 191 Israel / 197 Human Rights and Repression / 198 General / 198 Turkey / 200 Iraq / 210 Syria / 214 Genocide / 214 Refugees / 222
6. SOCIETY / 255 National Identity / 255 Social Structure and Organization / 260 Women / 268
7. ECONOMY / 271
8. LANGUAGE AND EDUCATION / 275
9. LITERATURE AND FOLKLORE / 293
10. CULTURE AND ARTS / 299 Miscellaneous / 299 Rugs, Kilims, Textile Fabrics, etc. / 305
AUTHOR INDEX / 311 TITLE INDEX / 319 SUBJECT INDEX / 343
Preface
After nearly two years' labor, in collecting, reading, arranging, and classifying the material included in this work, I am at last able to publish the following bibliographical study. This work has been driven by two main considerations: First, the need to fill one of the major gaps in the world of bibliographies, namely, a general annotated bibliography on the Kurds and Kurdistan. Second, to assist researchers to locate their needed information on the Kurds in a more efficient way.
In the last few years, the Kurdish question has taken on more prominence in Middle Eastern politics, and attracted the interest of media, the academic community as well as governmental and non-governmental organizations. The years 1991 and 1992 are (and will be) remembered by all students of Kurdish topics as the ones during which they were swamped by the press and academic departments to supply answers to everything that needed to be known about the Kurds--and quickly.
Lacking comprehensive bibliographical studies, the Kurdologists have had little choice but to go to the Internet or DIALOG to search for material to complete their work, spending hundreds of hours and dollars in the process. They had to go over many databases, containing plenty of repetitious and misleading records. They have needed to survey all of the outputs for the needed material and yet with no definite positive end result. Soon also, they would discover that almost none of the databases cover materials published before the mid-1960s which certainly include many valuable works. Therefore, a manual search through a well-classified, annotated bibliography seemed to be more fruitful and presented a more economic and rapid method of communication research and retrieval of information. Had there been an up-to-date, multidisciplinary, annotated bibliography of the Kurds and Kurdistan, the researcher's task would have been much easier, less expensive and more rewarding. In short, no matter how much the Information Science field develops, we will always need to rely on printed bibliographies. This is due to their accuracy, their savings in time and money, and their multi-disciplinary character.
Books, articles, chapters in edited works, doctoral dissertations, and reports on the Kurds and Kurdistan are many, but scattered and often untraceable when needed. It was this situation which motivated me to consider compiling an annotated bibliography on the subject and make it available to the public, students, academicians, researchers, policy-makers, and the press. The fact that very few works of this kind are now available in English was another important reason.
The first real bibliography on the Kurds and Kurdistan was published in 1968 by the International Society for Kurdistan (ISK's Kurdish Bibliography). This impressive work came out in two volumes and was edited by Silvio van Rooy and Kees Tamboer (Amsterdam: International Society for Kurdistan, 1968). The work is exhaustive and includes 9,350 entries in more than twenty languages and on all subjects that had been published before June 30, 1966. The second bibliography on the Kurds in English was by Wolfgang Behn (The Kurds in Iran: A Selected and Annotated Bibliography. [2nd ed.] London: Mansell, 1977. The first edition was published in 1969 under the title The Kurds, a Minority in Iran). This bibliography, compiled chiefly from holdings of the Islamic Union Catalogue in Germany, lists 275 entries in more than four languages, some of which are specialized studies of Iran. It was intended to supplement the ISK's bibliography for the years 1966-1975, yet, as the title reflects, the work is almost exclusively limited to the Iranian sector of Kurdistan. Finally, in anticipation of the rising importance of the Kurdish question in the Middle East, Elizabeth E. Lytle produced a small work entitled A Bibliography of the Kurds, Kurdistan, and the Kurdish Question (Monticello, 111.: Council of Planning Librarians, 1977, 16 p. Exchange bibliography-Council of Planning Librarians; 1301). She says in the introduction that her bibliography cites works that were published between 1837 and 1975, divided into two sections: One is concerned with the Kurds and Kurdistan in general, while the other is limited to the historical and political aspects of the Kurdish question. This small work, however, is merely a list of records (216) written in nine different languages with no subject headings or annotations...
THE KURDS AND KURDISTAN A Selective and Annotated Bibliography
Compiled by LOKMAN I. MEHO
Bibliographies and Indexes in World History, Number 46
GREENWOOD PRESS Westport, Connecticut • London
Library of Congess Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Meho, Lokman I., 1968- The Kurds and Kurdistan : a selective and annotated bibliography / compiled by Lokman I. Meho. p. cm.—(Bibliographies and indexes in world history, ISSN 0742-6852 ; no. 46) Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and index. ISBN 0-313-30397-5 (alk. paper) 1. Kurds—Bibliography. 2. Kurdistan—Bibliography. I. Title. II. Series. Z3014.K85M44 1997 [DS59.K86] 016.9566'7—dc21 97-9008
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data is available.
All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, by any process or technique, without the express written consent of the publisher.
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 97-9008
ISBN: 0-313-30397-5 ISSN: 0742-6852
First published in 1997 Greenwood Press, 88 Post Road West, Westport, CT 06881 An imprint of Greenwood Publishing Group, Inc. Printed in the United States of America er The paper used in this book complies with the Permanent Paper Standard issued by the National Information Standards Organization (Z39.48-1984).
