The deportations of Kurds by

Turkey Turkey, officially the Republic of Türkiye, is a country mainly located in Anatolia in West Asia, with a relatively small part called East Thrace in Southeast Europe. It borders the Black Sea to the north; Georgia (country), Georgia, Armen ...

refers to the

population transfer Population transfer or resettlement is a type of mass migration that is often imposed by a state policy or international authority. Such mass migrations are most frequently spurred on the basis of ethnicity or religion, but they also occur d ...

of hundreds of thousands of

Kurds Kurds (), or the Kurdish people, are an Iranian peoples, Iranic ethnic group from West Asia. They are indigenous to Kurdistan, which is a geographic region spanning southeastern Turkey, northwestern Iran, northern Iraq, and northeastern Syri ...

from Turkish Kurdistan that was perpetuated by the

Ottoman Empire The Ottoman Empire (), also called the Turkish Empire, was an empire, imperial realm that controlled much of Southeast Europe, West Asia, and North Africa from the 14th to early 20th centuries; it also controlled parts of southeastern Centr ...

and its successor

in order to Turkify the region. Most of the Kurds who were deported were forced to leave their autochthonous lands, but the deportations also included the forced sedentarization of Kurdish tribes. Turkish historian İsmail Beşikçi emphasized the influence of

fascism Fascism ( ) is a far-right, authoritarian, and ultranationalist political ideology and movement. It is characterized by a dictatorial leader, centralized autocracy, militarism, forcible suppression of opposition, belief in a natural social hie ...

on these policies, and Italian historian Giulio Sappeli argued: "The ideals of Kemal Atatürk meant that war against the Kurds was always seen as an historical mission aimed at affirming the superiority of being Turkish." Occurring just after the

Armenian genocide The Armenian genocide was the systematic destruction of the Armenians, Armenian people and identity in the Ottoman Empire during World War I. Spearheaded by the ruling Committee of Union and Progress (CUP), it was implemented primarily t ...

, many Kurds believed that they would share the same fate as the

Armenians Armenians (, ) are an ethnic group indigenous to the Armenian highlands of West Asia.Robert Hewsen, Hewsen, Robert H. "The Geography of Armenia" in ''The Armenian People From Ancient to Modern Times Volume I: The Dynastic Periods: From Antiq ...

. Historians Dominik J. Schaller and Jürgen Zimmerer state that this event "not only serves as a reminder of the unsettling fact that victims could become perpetrators, but also that perpetrators s some Kurds were during the Armenian and Assyrian Genocidescould turn victims".

Background and Ottoman deportations (1916)

During the 1910s, Kurdish-Ottoman relations were complex as some Ottoman Kurds had sided with the

Committee of Union and Progress The Ottoman Committee of Union and Progress (CUP, also translated as the Society of Union and Progress; , French language, French: ''Union et Progrès'') was a revolutionary group, secret society, and political party, active between 1889 and 1926 ...

against the Christian minorities for opportunistic reasons, while others had positioned themselves against the Ottomans and sided with the Christians. Kurdish manpower had also been used in the Caucasus campaign against the

Russian Empire The Russian Empire was an empire that spanned most of northern Eurasia from its establishment in November 1721 until the proclamation of the Russian Republic in September 1917. At its height in the late 19th century, it covered about , roughl ...

, but the Ottomans did not consider the Kurds loyal, believing that they would cooperate with the Armenians and the Russians to further their own nationalist aspirations. On this, historian and

genocide Genocide is violence that targets individuals because of their membership of a group and aims at the destruction of a people. Raphael Lemkin, who first coined the term, defined genocide as "the destruction of a nation or of an ethnic group" by ...

expert Ugur Ümit Üngör points at the memoirs of Commander Ahmed İzzet Pasha: Moreover, Talaat Pasha ordered in May 1916: As the forced sedentarization and deportations began, the authorities meticulously followed up to learn how well the policies were working, requesting information on whether those deported had assimilated into Turkish culture. Moreover, the largest Kurdish city Diyarbekir was declared a '

Turkification Turkification, Turkization, or Turkicization () describes a shift whereby populations or places receive or adopt Turkic attributes such as culture, language, history, or ethnicity. However, often this term is more narrowly applied to mean specif ...

Region' and Kurds were deported from the area, as migrants from the

Balkans The Balkans ( , ), corresponding partially with the Balkan Peninsula, is a geographical area in southeastern Europe with various geographical and historical definitions. The region takes its name from the Balkan Mountains that stretch throug ...

were planned to be settled there. Kurds deported from Diyarbekir were allowed only to return with a permission by the authorities. In 1916, about 300,000 Kurds were deported from

Bitlis Bitlis ( or ; ) is a city in southeastern Turkey. It is the seat of Bitlis District and Bitlis Province.Erzurum Erzurum (; ) is a List of cities in Turkey, city in eastern Anatolia, Turkey. It is the largest city and capital of Erzurum Province and is 1,900 meters (6,233 feet) above sea level. Erzurum had a population of 367,250 in 2010. It is the site of an ...

, Palu and Muş to

Konya Konya is a major city in central Turkey, on the southwestern edge of the Central Anatolian Plateau, and is the capital of Konya Province. During antiquity and into Seljuk times it was known as Iconium. In 19th-century accounts of the city in En ...

and Gaziantep during the winter and most perished in a

famine A famine is a widespread scarcity of food caused by several possible factors, including, but not limited to war, natural disasters, crop failure, widespread poverty, an Financial crisis, economic catastrophe or government policies. This phenom ...

. When the liberal Freedom and Accord Party came to power in 1918 (to 1923), the few surviving deported Kurds were encouraged to return to their areas of origin.

Amount of deportees

Most sources suggest that as many as 700,000 Kurds were deported during World War I, although there are no reliable statistics. Safrastian (1948) estimates that half of these deported Kurds died. Üngör (2009) writes that "it would require a separate study to calculate meticulously how many were deported".

Turkish deportations (1923–1934)

The official policy of the newly-founded

was to dismantle traditional Kurdish Islamic tribal society and institutions, as well as to continue with the

World War I World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

CUP A cup is an open-top vessel (container) used to hold liquids for drinking, typically with a flattened hemispherical shape, and often with a capacity of about . Cups may be made of pottery (including porcelain), glass, metal, wood, stone, pol ...

's Turkist assimilationist policies against the Kurds. Consequently, the Kurds began to mobilize for a resistance and a group of Kurds led by Colonel Xalîd Begê Cibranî briefly captured the town of Beytüşşebap (see Beytüşşebab rebellion of 1924). In spite of being unsuccessful, the rebellion generated more distrust and accumulated into the Sheikh Said rebellion in 1925 which forced the mobilization of half of the Turkish army and prompted the Turks to bomb the Kurds. The rebellion was ultimately crushed and Sheikh Said executed. The far-right wing of the Young Turks exploited this situation and demanded tougher punishments and even pro-state Kurds were persecuted including politicians Aziz Feyzi Pirinççizâde and Pirinççizâde Sıdkı. By mid-1925, the government initiated a

pogrom A pogrom is a violent riot incited with the aim of Massacre, massacring or expelling an ethnic or religious group, particularly Jews. The term entered the English language from Russian to describe late 19th- and early 20th-century Anti-Jewis ...

in Diyarbakir executing civilians and burning villages to the ground which in total destroyed about 206 villages and killed 15,200 people. By late 1925, the new deportation law ''Law on Migrants, Refugees, and Tribes Who Leave Their Local Settlements Without Permission'' was implemented and the Kurdish elite - numbering about 500 - were deported to western Turkey. In Sheikh Said's village, all men were deported making a 14-year-old boy the oldest man there. The subsequent laws ''Settlement Law'' from May 1926 and ''Law Regarding the Transportation of Certain Persons from the Eastern Regions to the Western Provinces'' further allowed the government to deport Kurds. In the western parts of the country, Kurds experiencing

xenophobia Xenophobia (from (), 'strange, foreign, or alien', and (), 'fear') is the fear or dislike of anything that is perceived as being foreign or strange. It is an expression that is based on the perception that a conflict exists between an in-gr ...

, and in some cases,

lynching Lynching is an extrajudicial killing by a group. It is most often used to characterize informal public executions by a mob in order to punish an alleged or convicted transgressor or to intimidate others. It can also be an extreme form of i ...

. Assuming that the laws had become successful, Turkey eased on the restrictions and allowed some of the deported to return in 1929. Similar to the previous Sheikh Said rebellion, the Kurds of

Mount Ararat Mount Ararat, also known as Masis or Mount Ağrı, is a snow-capped and dormant compound volcano in Eastern Turkey, easternmost Turkey. It consists of two major volcanic cones: Greater Ararat and Little Ararat. Greater Ararat is the highest p ...

rebelled in the Ararat rebellion from 1927 to 1930 and was also subdued. Consequently, the Turkish Parliament discussed new methods to oppress the Kurds. Kemalist Mustafa Naşit Uluğ argued that it was needed to "''exterminate root and branch all of the remaining social institutions from the Middle Ages’ so these would ‘never blossom again''". Thus, in 1934, the ''Settlement Law'' was passed which banned the

Kurdish language Kurdish (, , ) is a Northwestern Iranian languages, Northwestern Iranian language or dialect continuum, group of languages spoken by Kurds in the region of Kurdistan, namely in southeast Turkish Kurdistan, Turkey, northern Iraqi Kurdistan, Ira ...

in public and issued the settlement of Turks to the Kurdish region. On this deportation wave, Üngör writes: During the 1940s, most of the survivors of the deported Kurds received amnesty and returned to Kurdistan.

Independence Tribunal of Diyarbekir

The Independence Tribunal of Diyarbakır is a court established in March 1925 in order to quell the Sheikh Said rebellion. The court was inspired by the Independence Tribunals which were established during the

Turkish War of Independence , strength1 = May 1919: 35,000November 1920: 86,000Turkish General Staff, ''Türk İstiklal Harbinde Batı Cephesi'', Edition II, Part 2, Ankara 1999, p. 225August 1922: 271,000Celâl Erikan, Rıdvan Akın: ''Kurtuluş Savaşı tarih ...

and which were provided with extensive powers to subdue the enemies of the Government of Mustafa Kemal Pasha, and established following the issuing of the by the government of prime minister İsmet İnönü on the 4 March 1925. The law was to be valid for two years, after which the Independence Tribunal of Diyarbkır was disestablished.

Aftermath of the Dersim rebellion

Turkish authorities have treated present-day Tunceli area with suspicion after the rebellion and consequent massacre in the 1930s which included new conducts of deportations. Today, a majority of the people of Dersim live in Western Turkey and Europe.

References

Bibliography

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