The Human Rights situation of the Yezidi minority - UNHCR

In Armenia, language has in recent years become implicated in the ongoing debates in the
country as to whether Yezidis should be considered Kurds or not. Advocates of a separate
Yezidi identity deny that Yezidis speak Kurdish or any variety of it; instead they claim that
Yezidis speak a separate language called Yezideren or Ezdiki. Although the precise
differences between Ezdiki/Yezideren and Kurmanji are beyond the scope of this paper, a key
feature appears to be that government-produced textbooks in Ezdiki/Yezideren use the
Cyrillic script as opposed to the Latin or Arabic scripts customarily used for Kurmanji.
2 Settlement History in the South Caucasus
Large-scale Yezidi migration into the South Caucasus took place in a series of waves dating
from the late eighteenth century. These waves of migration originated in growing antipathy
between Muslims and Yezidis in the Ottoman Empire, military conflict and shifting borders
between the Ottoman, Persian and Russian empires and the treatment of Yezidis within the
broader context of the events widely referred to as the Armenian Genocide in 1915 and the
years immediately following that time. There was also historical Muslim Kurd migration into
the South Caucasus, motivated more by economic factors. These migration flows contributed
to the formation of mixed Yezidi/Muslim Kurd minorities in Georgia and Armenia, and a
Muslim Kurd minority in Azerbaijan.
2.1 Pre-Nineteenth Century Kurdish Settlement
The first movement of Kurds into the South Caucasus is recorded in pre-modern times, when
the arrival of Kurdish seasonal workers is noted in Tbilisi. 20 There are also thought to have
been Kurdish dynasties in (fluctuating) control of parts of what is today Azerbaijan and
Armenia, 21 although it should not be assumed that in this pre-national era these “Kurds”
thought of themselves as such. In medieval times more permanent compact settlement is
recorded in parts of what is today Armenia. These were Muslim Kurds who over the course
of time converted to the Armenian Gregorian Church. With the growing power of regional
Muslim empires, Yezidis increasingly became the subject of persecution and in the early
modern period sought support from non-Muslim allies. In the late eighteenth century Yezidi
leaders appealed to the Georgian King Erekle II for assistance under conditions of increasing
religious oppression in the Ottoman Empire. Although the agreement ultimately failed, some
4,000 Yezidi families migrated into Georgia in the early 1770s. Yezidis in the Persian Empire
do not appear to have fared much better; some 600 families are thought to have crossed the
Russian-Persian border in 1807 and settled in the Karabakh khanate. 22
2.2 Triggers of Nineteenth Century Yezidi Migration
To understand the drivers of the nineteenth century waves of migration by Yezidis into the
South Caucasus, brief mention of the Yezidis’ situation in the Ottoman Empire is required.
The Ottoman Empire was composed of many distinct religious and ethnic groups. The rights
awarded different groups broadly followed principles laid down in Islam for the division and
allocation of rights to Muslim and non-Muslim populations in a given context. 23 Beyond the
20 Trier and Tarkhan-Mouravi
21 Pirbari, D., Kurdy na Yuzhnom Kavkaze [Kurds in the South Caucasus], n.d.,
http://www.nplg.gov.ge/ic/orient/Histoty/24.htm [accessed April 2008]
22 Idem, p.3
23
See Akçam, T., A Shameful Act: The Armenian Genocide and the Question of Turkish Responsibility,
London: Constable, 1999, pp.3-22
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