Kurdology

Kurds became known for the first time in Europe through Dominican Order. In the beginning, it was Italians who carried out research on the Kurds on behalf of the Vatican. A monk, Domenico Lanza, lived between 1753 and 1771 near Mosul and published a book titled Compendiose realizione istorica dei viaggi fatti dal Padre Domenico Lanza dell'Ordine dei Predicatori de Roma in Oriente dall'anno 1753 al 1771.[4] The missionary and traveler Maurizio Garzoni spent 20 years with the Kurds of Amadiya and Mosul and wrote an Italian-Kurdish dictionary with around 4,500 words between 1764 and 1770. This work was published in Rome in 1787 under the name Grammatica e Vocabolario della Lingua Kurdi.[5] With the growing interest in Europe about the Ottoman Empire, other people became aware of the Kurds. Garzoni's book was reissued in 1826. The first European book dealing with the religion of the Kurds appeared in Naples in 1818. It was called Storia della regione Kurdistan e delle sette di religio ivi esistenti and was written by Giuseppe Campanile.[6] The Italian missionary and researcher Alessandro de Bianchi published in 1863 a book on Kurdish culture, traditions and history.

The earliest mention of the Kurds in a German work comes from Johann Schitberger from the year 1473. In 1799, Johann Adam Bergk also mentions Kurds in his geography book. During his stay in the Ottoman Empire, Helmuth von Moltke reported about Kurds in his work letters about the events in Turkey. The Kurds were also mentioned in the German literature, the most prominent example being Karl May's in 1892 published Durchs wilde Kurdistan.[7]

The period from 1840 to 1930 was the most productive period of Kurdology in Germany. Germany was at the time the center of Kurdish studies in Europe. Due to its good relations with the Ottoman Empire, German researchers were able to access to the Ottoman lands and its inhabitants with relative ease.[7]

At the present time Humboldt University of Berlin, University of Vienna,[8] University of Göttingen,[9] University of Erfurt[10] and Free University of Berlin[11] offer Kurdish oriented courses in Germany, either as a sole study or as a part of wider Iranian studies.

During its expansion Russia also was in contact with the Ottoman Empire, that often resulted in conflicts. Russia's access to Black Sea and the Caucasus brought the country in contact with eastern part of the Ottoman Empire, where they then began their research on the Kurds.[12] In 1879 Russian-Polish diplomat from Erzurum August Kościesza-Żaba published a Franco-Kurdish dictionary with the help of Mahmud Bayazidi.[12] The center of Kurdish studies was the University of St. Petersburg. Żaba and other diplomats like Basil Nikitin collected Kurdish manuscripts and recorded oral histories. Among other things, the Sharafnama was translated into Russian for the first time.[12]

Due to the Turkish state policy, the Kurdish people and their culture were not deemed as a research topic for decades.[13] Some early works on Kurds, such as by Fahrettin Kırzıoğlu, portrayed the Kurds as a Turkic or Turanian population group and were consistent with the state backed Turkish History Thesis. First studies that deviated from the state view were published by İsmail Beşikçi. It was only after the relaxation of Turkish-Kurdish relations that academic papers on the Kurds appeared.[13] At the Mardin Artuklu Üniversitesi, which was founded in 2007, a chair for Kurdish language and literature was established as a part of the Institute of Living Languages.