Heciyê Cindî ( hy, Հաջիե Ջնդի Ջաուարի; 1908–1990) was a

Kurdish Kurdish may refer to: *Kurds or Kurdish people *Kurdish languages *Kurdish alphabets *Kurdistan, the land of the Kurdish people which includes: **Southern Kurdistan **Eastern Kurdistan **Northern Kurdistan **Western Kurdistan See also * Kurd (dis ...

linguist and researcher from

Armenia Armenia (), , group=pron officially the Republic of Armenia,, is a landlocked country in the Armenian Highlands of Western Asia.The UNbr>classification of world regions places Armenia in Western Asia; the CIA World Factbook , , and ''Ox ...

. Cindî was born into a Yazidi Kurdish family in the village of Yemençayir (Emançayîr) near

Kars Kars (; ku, Qers; ) is a city in northeast Turkey and the capital of Kars Province. Its population is 73,836 in 2011. Kars was in the ancient region known as ''Chorzene'', (in Greek Χορζηνή) in classical historiography ( Strabo), part of ...

in modern

Turkey Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a list of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolia, Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with ...

. During

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

and

Turkish Turkish may refer to: *a Turkic language spoken by the Turks * of or about Turkey ** Turkish language *** Turkish alphabet ** Turkish people, a Turkic ethnic group and nation *** Turkish citizen, a citizen of Turkey *** Turkish communities and mi ...

and Soviet invasions, his family fled to

and settled in the village of Elegez. Later on, he lost all his family (except for one brother) to disease and massacre. In 1919, he stayed in the American

orphanage An orphanage is a Residential education, residential institution, total institution or group home, devoted to the Childcare, care of orphans and children who, for various reasons, cannot be cared for by their biological families. The parent ...

Alexandropol Gyumri ( hy, Գյումրի, ) is an urban municipal community and the second-largest city in Armenia, serving as the administrative center of Shirak Province in the northwestern part of the country. By the end of the 19th century, when the city w ...

, and in 1926 was transferred to the orphanage in

Leninakan Gyumri ( hy, Գյումրի, ) is an urban municipal community and the second-largest city in Armenia, serving as the administrative center of Shirak Province in the northwestern part of the country. By the end of the 19th century, when the city w ...

. During 1929–30, Cindî taught in the villages of Qundexsaz and Elegez, and was head of the cultural section of the Kurdish newspaper '' Riya Teze'' in 1930. He also worked as a

news anchor A news presenter – also known as a newsreader, newscaster (short for "news broadcaster"), anchorman or anchorwoman, news anchor or simply an anchor – is a person who presents news during a news program on TV, radio or the Internet. ...

in the Kurdish section of Radio Yerevan. In 1933, he joined the

Writers Union of Armenia The Writers' Union of Armenia was founded in August 1934, simultaneously with the USSR Union of Writers and as a component part of the USSR Union. 1930s The Constituent Assembly was held during 1 August - 5 August, after which the Armenian delegat ...

and attended the meeting of the Soviet Writers Congress the following year. In 1937, during

Joseph Stalin Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili; – 5 March 1953) was a Georgian revolutionary and Soviet political leader who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until his death in 1953. He held power as General Secreta ...

's purges, he was imprisoned on March 18, 1937, on charges of spying, nationalism, being a Yezidi and helping counter-revolutionaries. After one year, several Armenian intellectuals campaigned for his release and he was pardoned, but was not allowed to work; however, with Alexander Fadeyev's help and support, he was able to resume his literary work. In 1940, Cindî received his

PhD PHD or PhD may refer to: * Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), an academic qualification Entertainment * '' PhD: Phantasy Degree'', a Korean comic series * ''Piled Higher and Deeper'', a web comic * Ph.D. (band), a 1980s British group ** Ph.D. (Ph.D. albu ...

Kurdish folklore Kurdish mythology is the collective term for the beliefs and practices of the culturally, ethnically or linguistically related group of ancient peoples who inhabited the Kurdistan mountains of northwestern Zagros, northern Mesopotamia and southeast ...

, and in 1941 the

Armenian government The politics of Armenia take place in the framework of the parliamentary representative democratic republic of Armenia, whereby the President of Armenia is the head of state and the Prime Minister of Armenia the head of government, and of a mult ...

, put him in charge of changing

Kurdish alphabet The Kurdish languages are written in either of two alphabets: a Latin alphabet introduced by Celadet Alî Bedirxan in 1932 called the Bedirxan alphabet or Hawar alphabet (after the '' Hawar'' magazine) and a Perso-Arabic script called the Sorani ...

from

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...

Cyrillic , bg, кирилица , mk, кирилица , russian: кириллица , sr, ћирилица, uk, кирилиця , fam1 = Egyptian hieroglyphs , fam2 = Proto-Sinaitic , fam3 = Phoenician , fam4 = G ...

. The new alphabet was approved and published in 1946, and it was used in Kurdish education in Armenia,

Georgia Georgia most commonly refers to: * Georgia (country), a country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia * Georgia (U.S. state), a state in the Southeast United States Georgia may also refer to: Places Historical states and entities * Related to the ...

and several

Central Asia Central Asia, also known as Middle Asia, is a subregion, region of Asia that stretches from the Caspian Sea in the west to western China and Mongolia in the east, and from Afghanistan and Iran in the south to Russia in the north. It includes t ...

n republics. In 1959, he was employed in the Oriental department of

Armenian Academy of Sciences The National Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Armenia (NAS RA) ( hy, Հայաստանի Հանրապետության գիտությունների ազգային ակադեմիա, ՀՀ ԳԱԱ, ''Hayastani Hanrapetut’yan gitut’yunneri az ...

, where he headed the Kurdology section for the next eight years. In 1940 and 1952 his book ''Kurdish Fairy Tales'' was published in Armenian, in 1959 in Kurdish (''Һ’ьк’йа̄тед щьмаә’тә к’ӧрдие''). From 1968 to 1974, Cindî taught Kurdish literature and language at the Oriental Faculty of the University of Yerevan. He wrote and translated many books, among them 15 books on folklore and literature, 33 textbooks for schools, 19 translations and 7 books in

pedagogy Pedagogy (), most commonly understood as the approach to teaching, is the theory and practice of learning, and how this process influences, and is influenced by, the social, political and psychological development of learners. Pedagogy, taken as ...

Books

# Kurmanji Folklore, with

Emînê Evdal Emînê Evdal (b. in 1906 in Yamançayir, Kars – 1964), was a Kurdish writer, linguist and poet who was based in Armenia. He was born into a Yezidi family in the village of Yamançayir near Kars which at the time was under Russian control. His v ...

, 1936. #Hikayetên Civata Kurdan (Kurdish Social Stories), Yerevan, 1959. (Re-published by Apec, 112 pp., Sweden, 1996.

# Mesele û Xeberokên Cimeta Kurda (Proverbs of the Kurdish Society), 800 pp., 1985. # Hewarî, Novel, 422 pp., Roja Nû Publishers, Stockholm, 1999.

References

External links

Heciyê Cindî and his works
By Eskerê Boyîk (in Kurdish). {{DEFAULTSORT:Cindi, Heciye People from Kars Armenian Yazidis 1908 births 1990 deaths Soviet rehabilitations Kurdish-language writers