The Kurdish ethnoregional movement in Turkey: From class to nation (1959-1974) and from nation to “Revolution” 1974-1984)

Abstract

This dissertation examines modern Kurdish activism in Turkey from 1959 to 1984, in two different periods. The dissertation classifies and contextualizes the period between 1959 and 1974 as the departure stage - or Phase A - of the Kurdish ethnoregional movement, which witnessed a shift from “class” to “nation” in political discussions and activism. Accordingly, the period between 1974 and 1984 constituted the maneuver stage -or Phase B- of Kurdish activism, which was dominated by a blunt ideological dogmatism and numerous factional splits over debates about the socialist “revolution.” The dissertation contributes to the field, by providing new empirical and analytical analyses of Kurdish activism. It also sheds light on the composition of a little known Kurdish activism of the 1960s and 1970s, by exploring the experiences and roles of actual persons and generations, the political identities and affiliations of which were eclipsed by political schisms. The main question of the dissertation is to examine how shis within the Kurdish discourse and activism happened and who were the activists of the movement. e dissertation explores a wide array of issues and actors pertaining to the political and sociological changes that Kurdish society went through. In addition to a multi-sited fieldwork consisting of seventy-four semi-structured interviews, this dissertation employs an interdisciplinary methodology relying on a wide range of primary sources, such as periodicals, magazines, booklets, party programs, and court files on one hand, and relevant secondary sociopolitical literature on the Middle East and Turkey on the other.