Background
This spring, Turkey’s government, led by Tayyip Erdogan, reached what appears to be a landmark agreement with the longstanding Kurdish militant group that has challenged state authority for nearly four decades. This development comes exactly one hundred years after the first Kurdish uprising against the Turkish Republic, when in 1925 a Naqshbandi cleric led a revolt against the republic’s founder, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk. In this two-part examination of Kurdish activism in Turkey, the focus turns first to the legacy of resistance during the final years of the Ottoman Empire.
Under Ottoman rule, a vast multiethnic Islamic empire based in Istanbul, the emergence of nationalism in the 19th century began to undermine the empire’s traditional Islamic universalism. This shift provoked unrest among Christian minorities—often with backing from European powers like Britain and Russia—while efforts to centralize administrative reforms met with resistance outside the inner circles of power. Many Kurdish groups, who had long enjoyed significant autonomy under local chieftains and traditional preachers, were especially disillusioned by centralization. Leading families, such as the Bedirkhans of Bohtan, actively opposed these reforms amid broader upheavals on the empire’s frontiers with Russia and Qajar Persia. For example, in 1880–81 the Nehri Naqshbandi preacher Ubaidullah Khalidi led a significant campaign against Persia, only to relent under pressure from Sultan Abdulhamid II before briefly opposing Ottoman rule himself.
Ubaidullah’s outspoken opposition to both Ottoman and Qajar dominance, along with his call for a more autonomous Kurdish frontier, marked him as an early advocate of Kurdish nationalism. His strategy—publicly affirming loyalty to the empire while simultaneously negotiating with external powers—set a pattern for later leaders, including his son Seyid Abdulkadir. Despite his dissenting views, the bulk of Ottoman Kurds remained loyal to the state; indeed, Sultan Abdulhamid II armed them under regional leader Ibrahim Milli to help combat Russian-backed Armenian nationalists during a violent, unofficial conflict at the turn of the century. Yet as Abdulhamid’s secretive and increasingly repressive rule fell out of favor, Kurdish elites were among the few to rally in defense of the old order when he was deposed in 1908. Regional leaders like Ibrahim in Syria, along with the Barzinjis in Iraq, subsequently launched short-lived revolts against the emerging regime.
Homogenization
The Young Turk revolution, which united diverse ideological currents under a promise of renewal, initially suggested that a more representative government was on the horizon. However, power soon consolidated within a militaristic faction that viewed the empire’s ethnic diversity as a liability. In an effort to both centralize and culturally homogenize the state, officials increasingly promoted a Turkish identity at the expense of other cultures. As a result, distinguished Kurdish families and leaders—including the Bedirkhans, Babans, and the Cemilpasazades—were forced to operate in secrecy, while groups such as the Barzanis, renowned for their heterodox religious practices and significant popular following in what is now northern Iraq, briefly rebelled. During the Balkan Wars of 1912–13, when Istanbul found itself vulnerable, leaders like Abdulkadir Dirai of the Karakecili anticipated the empire’s downfall and took up arms, only to be imprisoned once the state endured. Other Kurdish clans remained loyal, often serving as a counterweight to their local adversaries.
Individual Ottoman officials, not all of whom were Turkish, also influenced government responses. For instance, prominent figures such as Mehmed Fazil and Suleiman Nazif—of Caucasian and Kurdish backgrounds respectively—played pivotal roles in subduing Kurdish uprisings in Iraq. At the same time, the traditional Kurdish middle class, long accustomed to a degree of autonomy as intermediaries between their communities and the central government, began questioning the viability of the Ottoman state. Many were prepared to sever ties should foreign interventions weaken the empire further. It was in this climate of uncertainty that a distinctly nationalist conception of Kurdish identity began to take shape.
During World War I, a vast number of Kurds fought under the Ottoman banner, with estimates suggesting that around 300,000 Kurds sacrificed their lives in service. Entire military units on the eastern front against Russia were largely composed of Kurdish soldiers. The war unleashed an unprecedented level of displacement and turmoil. While Russian-backed Armenian nationalists inflicted brutal casualties on Muslim civilians, the Ottoman response involved wide-scale violence against the Armenian population, leading to systematic massacres and forced displacements. These catastrophic events not only remain among the darkest episodes of state violence against a minority, but also laid the groundwork for postwar efforts toward cultural homogenization.
Some Kurdish notables—even members of historically influential families such as the Bedirkhans—briefly allied with Russia when it temporarily captured border territories during the conflict. Although these maneuvers yielded little in the long run due to Russia’s rapid collapse, they paled in comparison to the more decisive actions of Arab groups who aided the British against the overwhelmingly loyalist Arab populations. Ultimately, by autumn 1918 the weakened Ottoman state was forced into a peace settlement. European powers, along with Armenian nationalist forces, occupied Istanbul and surrounding regions. Sultan Mehmed VI attempted to salvage his position by distancing himself from the discredited Young Turks, hoping that his shared enmity toward them might earn some sympathy from the victors. Instead, the occupiers set about partitioning the empire, a development that spurred Kurdish nationalists, notably the Ottoman Kurdish general Mehmed Serif, to advocate for an independent Kurdistan.
Resistance and Collaboration
In the wake of occupation, resistance unfolded across Anatolia, with Turks, Arabs, and Kurds alike rising against foreign domination. In central Anatolia, renegade Ottoman generals such as Kemal Atatürk, Kazim Karabekir, Ibrahim Refet, Fuat Cebesoy, and Huseyin Rauf mobilized forces under the assertion that they were liberating the sultan from external subjugation. Their cause, bolstered by European intransigence toward Istanbul, was framed in terms of a righteous jihad—a narrative that temporarily united Kurds, Arabs, and Turks against a common enemy.
Even though the sultan and Atatürk reached a tentative understanding by the end of 1919, Britain’s full-scale crackdown in Istanbul during the spring of 1920 upended the fragile status quo. This forced the remaining parliament to retreat to Ankara, where Atatürk established a provisional government. The ultimate humiliation for the crumbling sultanate came with the Sèvres Agreement. While Sultan Mehmed VI hoped that his ousting of the Young Turks might earn European sympathy, the victors instead opted to dismember Ottoman territories. Although some Kurdish aspirations were superficially acknowledged—through the lobbying of figures like Mehmed Serif—this gesture came on the heels of a year marked by bitter conflict between British forces and vast segments of the Kurdish population.
Diverse Kurdish leaders played roles in the resistance. Chieftains such as Ali Bati of the Haverkan clan, Abdurrahman Aga of the Shernakhlis, and Ramadan Aga of the Salahan emerged as key figures. Likewise, leaders like Abdulkadir Dirai of the Karakecili and Mahmud, son of the influential Ibrahim of Millan, were released from captivity to command Kurdish forces. Still, political uncertainty and deep-seated rivalries often muddied the waters. For example, after Bati captured Nusaibin in May 1919, misinterpretations of his intentions led an army under Kenan Dalbasar to forcefully expel him—a decision that ultimately cost him his life. In another episode, when a governor dispatched from Istanbul sought to arrest Atatürk, suspicions arose of his involvement with pro-French Kurdish separatists, further embarrassing the palace. Finally, in early 1921, General Nurettin Konyar carried out a brutal suppression of an Alevi Kurdish uprising led by the Kocgiri clan in eastern Anatolia, an action that even shocked fellow members of the resistance. This revolt, linked to both British influence and the secessionist movement promoted by Mehmed Serif, entrenched doubts about the reliability of Kurdish agitation—a suspicion that would resurface later.
In contrast to the general pattern, collaboration with British forces was relatively rare among Kurds. In British-occupied northern Iraq, however, notable Ottoman figures—including the former defense minister Ismail Enver—encouraged Kurdish rebellions among clans such as the Zebaris, Barzanis, and Surchis. Prominent leaders in these efforts included figures like Mala Mustafa of Barzan, Karim Fattah of Hamawand, Faris Agha of Zebar, Mahmoud Dizli of Hawraman, Nuri Bawil of the Surchis, Abbas Mahmoud of Pizhdar, and Mahmoud Barzinji. Their rivals, bolstered by British support along with opportunists like Seyid Taha and the ever-unpredictable Ismail Simko of the Shikak clan, maneuvered to shift allegiances at will.
By the summer of 1921, the British, having recognized the inevitability of a Turkish victory in Anatolia, opted to withdraw by establishing a nominally independent Iraqi state under Faisal I bin Husain. Faisal, a former British ally in Arabia who had been denied a kingdom after France’s conquest of Syria, now led a state composed largely of his own followers and intellectuals from the Ottoman era. Despite Atatürk’s initial reluctance to abandon Baghdad, both Turkish and British interests soon fixated on Mosul, reputed to hold vast oil reserves.
In the following summer of 1922, Ankara dispatched Sefik Ozdemir—a scion of a once-prominent Mamluk family known for its resistance against France and advocacy for Muslim unity—to the troubled regions. Unlike many Turkish officers, Sefik swiftly earned the trust of several Kurdish clans, aiding leaders like Karim and Abbas in their struggles against British occupation. Distrustful of more unreliable figures such as Taha and the unpredictable Ismail Simko, the British turned to Mahmoud Barzinji, who initially promised to quash local uprisings in exchange for rulership over Sulaimania. However, once in power, Barzinji allied himself with Sefik and joined the insurrection, eventually proclaiming himself the shah of Kurdistan.
It was not until 1923 that this combined Turkish-Kurdish resistance was ultimately crushed. Although Mahmoud Barzinji was driven out of Sulaimania, British authority over Kurdish areas remained tenuous, allowing him to reemerge repeatedly in the ensuing years. In an effort to subdue him and other dissidents in Iraq, the British resorted to extensive aerial bombardment—a then-novel military tactic that devastated the Kurdish landscape. This strategy would be echoed over the next century as successive governments confronted Kurdish uprisings.
…to be continued.
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