Magin_Edward-thesis

7
2.1.1 Before 1920
The division of the Kurdish homeland continues to complicate the production of a
comprehensive treatise on the history of Kurdish literature. There are still linguistic
debates concerning the origin of the Kurdish language and the classification of its dialects
and related languages. For example, most Kurdish literary critics and historians “agree
that Kurdish art poetry began with Baba Tahir Hamadanî (935-1010)” (Shakely 2002).
However, Hamadanî’s language was Lurî (or Lorî), which is regarded by European
Orientalists to be a southwestern Iranian language (see 1.3), unlike Northern and Central
Kurdish (Shakely 2002).
2.1.1.1 The Botan school
Most historians believe that Northern Kurdish poetry was established during the
16 th century when war began between the Ottoman and Safavid Empires. After defeating
the Safavids in the Chaldîran war in 1514, the Ottomans began to reinforce existing
Kurdish principalities. They also founded new principalities in order to strengthen the
border. The area of Botan, which lies in Turkey at the border of Iraq and Syria, was one
of the more significant of the principalities. It was in Botan’s capital city, Cezîra, that the
first school 4 of classical Kurdish poetry in the Northern Kurdish dialect developed. The
leading representative of this school was Malayê Cezîrî who lived between 1570-1640
(Shakely 2002), and who is considered by many to be the “father of Kurdish literature”
(Kreyenbroek 1996:95).
Cezîrî, like other early writers, was proficient in Arabic, Persian and Turkish
(Blau 1996:21). While his syntax was Kurdish, he drew from his large lexicon of these
other languages, as well. Much of his work consists of qashidas (longer odes) and
ghazals (shorter lyric poems) (Kreyenbroek 2005). During this time, Classical Kurdish
4 When the idea of a ‘poetic school’ is used, it is meant to refer to a group of people, including poets, who
have a common belief about what good poetry should consist of.