Marouf Cabi - The Formation of Modern Kurdish Society in Iran: Modernity, Modernization and Social Change 1921-1979

The Formation of Modern Kurdish Society in Iran

Kurdish Studies Series

Series Editors

Zeynep Kaya , Middle East Centre, London School of Economics and Political Science, UK & Department of Development Studies, School of Oriental and African Studies, UK

Robert Lowe , Middle East Centre, London School of Economics and Political Science, UK

Advisory Board

Sabri Ate , Dedman College of Humanities & Sciences, USA

Mehmet Gurses , Florida Atlantic University, USA

Janet Klein , University of Akron, USA

David Romano , Missouri State University, USA

Clemence Scalbert-Ycel , University of Exeter, UK

Gne Murat Tezcr , University of Central Florida, USA

Nicole Watts , San Francisco State University, USA

Titles

The Kurds in a Changing Middle East: History, Politics and Representation , edited by Faleh A. Jabar and Renad Mansour

Kurdish Nationalism on Stage: Performance, Politics and Resistance in Iraq , Mari R. Rostami

The Kurds of Northern Syria: Governance, Diversity and Conflicts , Harriet Allsopp and Wladimir van Wilgenburg

The Kurds and the Politics of Turkey: Agency, Territory and Religion , Denz ifi

Kurds and Yezidis in the Middle East: Shifting Identities, Borders and the Experience of Minority Communities , edited by Gne Murat Tezcr

The Formation of Modern Kurdish Society in Iran: Modernity, Modernization and Social Change (1920-1979) , Marouf Cabi

For Hamed (19681985)

The Formation of Modern Kurdish Society in Iran

Modernity, Modernization and Social Change 19211979

Marouf Cabi

Contents

Many people have been directly or indirectly involved in developing the ideas discussed in this book. I am grateful to Ali M. Ansari and Saeed Talajooy for their constant support and comments on my works during the last several years when I was studying at the University of St Andrews, Scotland. I extend my thanks to a group of enthusiastic Iranian academics at the universitys Department of Modern Languages, with whom I had regular meetings about culture, history and literature during the same period and became friends. I am particularly indebted to Saeed Talajooy for offering guidance in my research of the subjects of culture and literature and engaging with my arguments actively. My thanks are also due to Kaveh Qobadi, Ahmad Mohammadpur, Farangis Ghaderi and Gabriel Polley, whose comments in different ways helped me to present my ideas more clearly. I thank Pouya Taheri for helping with maps and figures. For this book, I have benefited from the works of many Kurdish academics living in Iran, too. I have acknowledged their endeavours and studies of social change in Iranian Kurdistan by citing their works when relevant. My research on social change in postSecond World War Iran includes many interviews that I conducted with many members of that generation. I thank all of them for their insight, enthusiasm and the great hospitality they showed me. I would like to express my gratitude to many friends and my children Arash and Hannah, for being unwavering sources of encouragement and support. I am especially grateful to Azad Azimi who supported me during difficult times. Finally, I thank all the staff at I.B. Tauris, especially Yasmin Garcha and Sophie Rudland, as well as the reviewers of the book, for their friendly and fantastic support.

All the quotes from the Kurdish and Persian sources are translated by the author unless otherwise stated. For the transliteration of Kurdish and Persian words, this book follows the Iranian Studies scheme. There are two exceptions. First, for surnames ending in deh in Persian, da is used when referring to a Kurdish figure, for example, Sharifzada instead of Sharifzadeh, to preserve the Kurdish pronunciation. The second exception is the names of non-English authors of sources published in English. The Persian attributive ezafeh (-e) and Kurdish attributive izafa (-i) are used in the text but not necessarily with a dash in the references. The text uses established anglicized forms such as Kurdistan and Majlis (instead of Kordestan and Majles).