Grim Legacy: The Image of Kurds in Turkish Culture

Abstract

Kurdish people have been described in mainstream Turkish culture as the «other», which stands in opposition to the Turkish «ego». Turkish culture has distorted the Kurdish image throughout history, and we see that process of distortion in Turkish proverbs, literature, art, cinema, etc., which often pictures Kurds as peasants, fools, thieves, miscreant, barbaric, devilish, hillbillies, etc. From an extra-Turkish perspective, this article connects the process of distortion of the Kurdish image in Turkish culture to the distortion of the Kurdish image in Persian and Arab cultures. It traces the transference of negative images from Persian culture to Arab culture, and finally to Turkish culture, as a legacy of the transference of power from the Persians to the Arabs and then the Turks. From an internal-Turkish perspective, the article also attributes a major share of the process of distorting the image of Kurds in Turkish culture to the political and military reports that were sent out to the Tiles of the Ottomans by Turkish military and administrative personnel present in the Kurdish areas

Keywords

• image of Kurds, the other, identity, Turkish culture, comparative literature