Kurds and the State in Iran: The Making of Kurdish Identity
In early 1946, Kurds declared an independent republic in north-west Iran. The Mahabad Republic, as it became known, was the first time that the Kurds experienced self-rule in the modern era. Although short-lived, the Republic had a formative influence on the subsequent development of Kurdish nationalist movements in Iran and the wider region. Here, Abbas Vali disputes the conventional view that the Kurdish Republic was the result of a Soviet conspiracy to dismember Iran, a side-effect of the Cold War. Instead he emphasizes the diversity of the internal Iranian and Kurdish factors that led to the formation of the Republic, arguing that the Republic represents the culmination of a new and modern Kurdish national identity.

This was an identity which emerged in response to the exclusionary effects of the political and discursive processes and practices of the construction of a modern Iranian nation-state and national identity since the Constitutional Revolution of 1906, which often excluded and attempted to override a Kurdish one. Vali contends that this process, largely due to the socio-economic and cultural impact of the rule of Pahlavis, in reality forced the Kurdish people of Iran to form and reinforce their own ethno-linguistic and ethno-national community. The expressions of this separate identity can be traced through the formation and dissolution of Kurdish national parties, such as the Kurdistan Democratic Party of Iran (KDPI).

'Kurds and the State in Iran' offers an analysis of the formation and effects of the concepts of the state, the nation, nationalism and ethnic identity, which go beyond current ethnicist and constructivist theories, thus making it essential reading for anyone interested in the Kurds or the development of national and state identities in the Middle East.
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Kurds and the State in Iran: The Making of Kurdish Identity
In early 1946, Kurds declared an independent republic in north-west Iran. The Mahabad Republic, as it became known, was the first time that the Kurds experienced self-rule in the modern era. Although short-lived, the Republic had a formative influence on the subsequent development of Kurdish nationalist movements in Iran and the wider region. Here, Abbas Vali disputes the conventional view that the Kurdish Republic was the result of a Soviet conspiracy to dismember Iran, a side-effect of the Cold War. Instead he emphasizes the diversity of the internal Iranian and Kurdish factors that led to the formation of the Republic, arguing that the Republic represents the culmination of a new and modern Kurdish national identity.

This was an identity which emerged in response to the exclusionary effects of the political and discursive processes and practices of the construction of a modern Iranian nation-state and national identity since the Constitutional Revolution of 1906, which often excluded and attempted to override a Kurdish one. Vali contends that this process, largely due to the socio-economic and cultural impact of the rule of Pahlavis, in reality forced the Kurdish people of Iran to form and reinforce their own ethno-linguistic and ethno-national community. The expressions of this separate identity can be traced through the formation and dissolution of Kurdish national parties, such as the Kurdistan Democratic Party of Iran (KDPI).

'Kurds and the State in Iran' offers an analysis of the formation and effects of the concepts of the state, the nation, nationalism and ethnic identity, which go beyond current ethnicist and constructivist theories, thus making it essential reading for anyone interested in the Kurds or the development of national and state identities in the Middle East.
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Kurds and the State in Iran: The Making of Kurdish Identity

Kurds and the State in Iran: The Making of Kurdish Identity

by Abbas Vali
Kurds and the State in Iran: The Making of Kurdish Identity

Kurds and the State in Iran: The Making of Kurdish Identity

by Abbas Vali

eBook

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Overview

In early 1946, Kurds declared an independent republic in north-west Iran. The Mahabad Republic, as it became known, was the first time that the Kurds experienced self-rule in the modern era. Although short-lived, the Republic had a formative influence on the subsequent development of Kurdish nationalist movements in Iran and the wider region. Here, Abbas Vali disputes the conventional view that the Kurdish Republic was the result of a Soviet conspiracy to dismember Iran, a side-effect of the Cold War. Instead he emphasizes the diversity of the internal Iranian and Kurdish factors that led to the formation of the Republic, arguing that the Republic represents the culmination of a new and modern Kurdish national identity.

This was an identity which emerged in response to the exclusionary effects of the political and discursive processes and practices of the construction of a modern Iranian nation-state and national identity since the Constitutional Revolution of 1906, which often excluded and attempted to override a Kurdish one. Vali contends that this process, largely due to the socio-economic and cultural impact of the rule of Pahlavis, in reality forced the Kurdish people of Iran to form and reinforce their own ethno-linguistic and ethno-national community. The expressions of this separate identity can be traced through the formation and dissolution of Kurdish national parties, such as the Kurdistan Democratic Party of Iran (KDPI).

'Kurds and the State in Iran' offers an analysis of the formation and effects of the concepts of the state, the nation, nationalism and ethnic identity, which go beyond current ethnicist and constructivist theories, thus making it essential reading for anyone interested in the Kurds or the development of national and state identities in the Middle East.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780857733313
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Publication date: 04/11/2014
Series: International Library of Iranian Studies
Sold by: Barnes & Noble
Format: eBook
Pages: 232
File size: 387 KB

About the Author

Abbas Vali is Professor of Modern Social and Political Theory at the Department of Sociology, in Bogazici Universiti, Istabul. He previously taught Political Theory and Modern Middle Eastern Politics at the Department of Politics and International Relations, University of Wales, Swansea, before moving to Erbil, Iraq to serve as the first Vice Chancellor of the University of Kurdistan Hawler from 2006 to 2008. His writings include Pre-Capitalist Iran: A Theoritical History (I.B.Tauris, 1993), Essays on the Origins of Kurdish Nationalism (2003) and Modernity and the Stateless: The Kurds in the Islamic Republic (I.B.Tauris, forthcoming).
Abbas Vali is a teaching Professor of Modern Social and Political Theory in the Department of Sociology at Bogazici University in Istanbul, Turkey.

Table of Contents

Preface
Chapter 1 - The Genesis and Structure of Kurdish Identity in Iran
Chapter 2 - From Komalay J. K. to the Republic: The Conditions of the Formation of the KDPI
Chapter 3 - The Republic: The Formation and Structure of Political Power
Chapter 4 - Ambiguities and Anomalies in the Discourse of the Republic
Conclusions - The Kurds and the Reasons of the State
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