July 26, 2025 – Jorin Avesta
Forgotten Kurdistan in the Caucasus: The Silent Struggle of the Fifth Part
We Kurds divide the map of our hearts into four parts. On that map lies the resistance of Başûr, the cry of Bakûr, the revolution of Rojava, and the patience of Rojhilat. These four parts form the geography of our struggle for existence, the atlas of pain and hope. Yet, tucked into the yellowing, forgotten edges of that atlas, hidden among its faded pages, lies a fifth part—one we often shy away from even whispering. The exiled land of our memory: Kurdistan in the Caucasus. Also known as Kürdistana Sor, or Red Kurdistan.
This is not merely the story of a forgotten geography. It is a document of how the lifeblood of a people was drained from their history, how their language was silenced, and how their identity was targeted for systematic annihilation. Let us restore the torn page of that atlas and listen together to the sorrowful lament echoing behind the Caucasus mountains. This is a journey to remember ourselves.
It Was a Spring, Brief and Fleeting: It Had a Name, It Had a Map
It all began with hope. On July 7, 1923, the Soviet Union—under Lenin’s principle of “the right of nations to self-determination” (Korenizatsiya)—established an administrative unit under the Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic: the Red Kurdistan Uyezd (district). Its capital was Laçîn, including parts of Kelbajar, Qubadli, Zangilan, and Jabrayil. On paper, it was the first official state unit in history to bear the name Kurdistan.
During this short spring, Kurdish-language schools were opened, the Soviet Kurdistan newspaper was published, and Kurdish intellectuals began flourishing in Yerevan and Laçîn. For the first time in our history, our people were on the threshold of self-governance. But this hope could not withstand the harsh winds of the Caucasus and the dirty deals of the great powers. As Stalin’s iron fist descended on the Soviets, its shadow first fell upon the Kurds. In 1929, Red Kurdistan was abolished, and a six-year dream turned into a nightmare overnight.
Deportation Wagons: Stalin’s Ice Dagger
The most brutal pages of history were written in 1937 and 1944. Stalin’s labels of “unreliable people” and the “Great Purge” targeted the Kurdish nation. The abolition of Red Kurdistan wasn’t enough—every trace of Kurdish presence on that land had to be eradicated. In the dead of night, soldiers stormed Kurdish villages. Families were given only a few hours—or sometimes just minutes. Everything they had built in their lifetimes was left behind as they were forced into the grim wagons used for transporting livestock, not knowing what awaited them.
These wagons were iron coffins. The weeks-long journey stretched toward Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and the frozen deserts of Siberia—a human tragedy. Hunger, thirst, and disease claimed lives on one side, while the icy grip of Siberia took others. Babies froze to death in their mothers’ arms; the bodies of the elderly were thrown from moving trains into the white void of the steppes by guards. Each body marked a bloody point on the map of exile. This was not mere population engineering—it was a plan to sever a people from their homeland and dissolve their identity and memory in the endless steppes of Central Asia.
Caught Between Two Fires: Kurds in the Grip of Azerbaijani and Armenian Nationalism
The collapse of the Soviet Union signaled a new disaster for the Caucasian Kurds. This time, the oppressors were not named Stalin, but local nationalisms.
In Azerbaijan, a systematic policy of denial and assimilation was launched. The state shamelessly repeated the official lie: “There are no Kurds in Azerbaijan.” Kurds were forced to hide their identities in census records; they were recorded as “Azeri,” “Tat,” or “Lezgi,” or not recorded at all. This was genocide on paper. The examples of oppression are endless:
Nagorno-Karabakh War (1990s): Under the pretext of war, ancient Kurdish villages in Laçîn and Kelbajar were emptied by Azeri militias, and homes were looted. Kurds became a homeless people viewed with suspicion by both sides.
Cultural Erasure: In historic Kurdish settlements like Şêxan and Xinaliq, Kurdish signs were removed, and place names were changed. Singing Kurdish songs or mourning in Kurdish at weddings was deemed “separatism.” Even in the 2000s, there were dengbêjs arrested for singing in Kurdish at their weddings—concrete evidence of this silent annihilation.
Social Pressure: In schools, children were psychologically bullied because of their names. Families were forced to give their children names that did not reflect their Kurdish identity, to avoid exclusion or future persecution.
On the Armenian side, the situation was more complex. During the Soviet era, Yerevan had served as a cultural refuge for Kurds. The Kurdish broadcast of Yerevan Radio, the Riya Teze (New Path) newspaper, and the works of intellectuals like Erebê Şemo and Heciyê Cindî were invaluable to Kurdish language and literature. However, this did not mean the Armenian state had always embraced the Kurds. The Stalinist deportations of 1937 also struck the Kurds of Armenia. During the Karabakh War, mainly Muslim Kurds—seen as aligned with Azerbaijan—faced immense pressure and were forced to abandon their lands. Meanwhile, Yazidi Kurds were labeled as a separate identity to divide the Kurdish nation. In short, Kurds were caught in the wrath of two nationalisms—always the “other,” always “untrustworthy.”
The Resistance of Memory: Writers and Dengbêjs in Exile
In this darkness, some heroes carried the torch of identity. Erebê Şemo (Arab Shamilov), under harsh conditions, wrote the first Kurdish novel Şivanê Kurmanca (The Kurdish Shepherd) in 1929, single-handedly shouldering a nation’s literature, published in 1935. Celîlê Celîl and his brother Ordîxanê Celîl collected Kurdish tales, epics, and songs passed down by word of mouth in villages and nomadic camps, saving a memory on the verge of extinction. They didn’t just write on paper—they carved the nation’s soul into it.
And of course, the dengbêjs of the Caucasus. Their klams (songs) were unlike those of Botan or Serhad. Their voices carried not only love and heroism, but also the longing for a lost homeland—Laçîn, Kelbajar; the cold of deportation wagons; the loneliness of Kazakhstan’s steppes. Their songs became a portable homeland for a people in exile.
Remembering the Fifth Part Is Reclaiming Ourselves
Today, the Azerbaijani state continues to erase Kurdish identity systematically. Baku has no single Kurdish-language school, no cultural association, and no TV channel. The goal is to ensure the success of this silent assimilation. Yet, despite all this oppression, some families still secretly name their children Ciwan, Rêzan, Berîtan. Every child born with a Kurdish name is a rebellion against this denial.
We are telling an incomplete story when we speak of the four parts of Kurdistan. When we forget the fifth part—that bleeding wound in the Caucasus—we sever a piece of our memory. Red Kurdistan was not a fantasy; it had a map, an administration, schools, and, most importantly, a nation. That nation was first deceived with promises, then targeted with exile and assimilation.
To restore that map, to hear that silent scream, to embrace the struggle for existence that our siblings in the Caucasus are fighting—that is the national duty of every Kurd because the fifth part is ours too. To remember is to place ourselves. To claim it is to reunite the divided map of Kurdistan within our hearts.
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