Kurdish Exiles under Stalin’s Rule
摘要
Kurds were subjected to numerous deportations and massacres in the twentieth century. A few of the deportations took place in the fifth part of Kurdistan, Caucasian Kurdistan. While the 1920s were a renaissance for Soviet Kurds, the 1930s turned into hell. The Stalin administration, which became more authoritarian during these years, began to put pressure on ethnic identities. Minorities were particularly exposed to a deliberate policy of Russification and Cyrillization. Undoubtedly, this policy has also negatively affected the Kurds. Kurdish intellectuals were arrested and a few were sent into exile. Similarly, the Kurdish newspaper Rêya Teze was shut down. Subsequently, in 1937–1938, some Kurds living in Armenia and Azerbaijan were deported to Central Asian countries. They were accused of anti-Sovietism, nationalism and espionage. The second wave of deportations took place in 1944 during World War II. This time mainly Kurds living in Georgia were exiled. In both deportations, thousands of Kurds were displaced from their homes and hundreds died on the trains. They could not adapt to the countries they were exiled to for a long time. Some remained uneducated and some unemployed. This chapter provides a detailed analysis of the exile of Soviet Kurds in 1937–1938 and 1944, examining how these events constituted acts of genocide.