Botan Times EnglishKurdish Novel and Nation

Nation encompasses the unity of the individuals of a society based on the reality of language, territory, history and culture. It spread as an ideology with the French Revolution of 1789. This term was also an enrichment for multinational empires. Murat Belge says the following: “The nation is the main factor in determining identity. But, ethnicity means language. In other words, it is not blood that is decisive; the unity of culture established through language is important.” [1] Regardless of the official language, the language of ethnicity creates a difference between peoples and this difference becomes even more evident after some political and historical events.

After the First World War, many nations have emerged into history by signing agreements. However, the agreements accepted divided the Kurdish country which was previously divided. For these historical reasons, the pains and sufferings of a unified non-nationality have become the main themes of Kurdish literature. Haşim Ahmedzade says that Huxley clearly reclaim the importance of literature in nation-building and claimed that “Novelists and poets are the inventors of their own nations”. [2] Common cultural and historical memory is the certain base of a nation. Poets and writers draw the water of life from this bottomless memory.

Kurds who are persecuted all over the world and influenced by the languages of the ruling powers, have gotten away from their own language and have not been able to establish a systematic language. For hundreds of years, the spirit of Kurdish literature has lived and flourished in the lines of immortal poetry. For example, one genre of classical poetry is the Mesnevi genre, which has long replaced novels and short stories.

The first Kurdish novel, Şivane Kurmanca was published in 1935. The author of this novel is Ereb Şemo. Ereb Şemo is considered the father of the Kurdish novel. This autobiographical novel reveals the colonisation and poverty of the Kurds through the act of the main protagonist.

The first novel in the Sorani dialect, Pêşmerge is a symbol of the colonisation of the Kurdish nation with its political theme and the events that took place between Pîrot and Qaranî Axa. In this novel, Rehmiye Qazi paints a portrait of socially and economically backward South Kurdistan. The cases of this tribal basis show the Kurdish society and the awakening of national consciousness [3].

In his novel Jana Gel da, İbrahim Ahmed establishes relationships between the protagonists of the novel and leaders with names and voices in Kurdish politics. In Hisên Arif’s novel Şar, the Class war is the main theme. “National identity is one of the main concerns of the protagonist” [4].

Mehmed Uzun, in his novel Ronî Mîna Evînê Tarî Mîna Mirinê, tells the story of “The Country of Mountains” in an allegorical structure [5] . Helim Yûsiv, in his novel “Tirsa be Diran”, kept a fear alive, got the Kurdish nation under his thumb, and blended the issue of immigration together in the search for identity.

In his novel Labîrenta Cinan, Hesenê Metê has created an ideal type for rescuing the Kurds from ignorance through the personality of the Teacher Kevanot. In this novel, the daily life of Kurdish culture is discussed in detail. An active novelist, Firat Cewerî, in his novel Payîza Dereng, is based on the experiences of Ferda, the protagonist of the novel. He depicts the reader about the years of struggle, how these revolutionaries escaped from prison and how they lived. As Oktavia Paz said: “Sometimes even an old wound bleeds [6].

Fırat Cewerî ‘s second novel, Ez ê Yekî Bikujim, is a picture of the subconscious of the people of a colonised nation who are constantly faced with murder in daily life. From a pessimistic point of view, the author emphasises the story of Temo and his failed rebellion.

Bilind Newî by Nesrîn Caferî tells a popular Kurdish folk tale set in the 17th century during the war between the Kurds and the Safavid Shah Abbas II. This story has already been the subject of a novel called Dimdim by the Kurdish writer Ereb Şemo.

Jan Dost, in his novel 3 Gav û 3darek, shows the rebellion of Şêx Seîd as a tragic example of the fate of the Kurds by narrating the memoirs of Şêx Seîd. The Turkish critic Berna Moran claims: “It is not what is told in a work, but what cannot be said that revives ideologies. In Jan Dost’s novel, as much as the Şêx Seîd revolution is described, the unfortunate failure of this revolution is also seen from a national perspective [7]. The Mijabad novel by Jan Dost is also inspired by the establishment and collapse of the Mehabad Republic and national ideology. In these novels, as in many other Kurdish novels, the novelists have tried to paint the national idea into the fiction of their novels as far as the narrative structure of the novel allows.

Conclusion

The definition of Kurdish literature cannot be made only in the context of national literature shaped in the context of the nation. On the contrary, it has a national and international character. T.S. Eliot claims that: “Every century interprets itself.” The 20th century Kurdish novelists also interpreted their situation and wanted their culture, art and language to be compatible with the culture, art and language of other nations.

Kurdish writers have never written about nationalism for the sake of their own nation being better than other nations. Their concern is that the Kurds should live successfully like the nations of the world. The famous philosopher Immanuel Wallerstaine claims that nationalism is ambidexter: It is a protest of the oppressed against the oppressors, but at the same time a tool in the hands of the oppressors to be used against the oppressed. At the beginning of the 21st century, we will see how new generations will evaluate the issue of nation in their novels in the context of the conflict of statelessness and the logic of globalisation.