Kurd, Kitêb, Çapxane: Weşangeriya Kitêbên Kurdî di Dewra Osmaniyan de (1844–1923) by Mesûd Serfiraz (review)

Mesûd Serfiraz. Kurd, Kitêb, Çapxane: Weşangeriya Kitêbên Kurdî di Dewra Osmaniyan de (1844–1923). Stenbol: Peywend, 2015. xviii + 245 pp. ISBN: 978-605-84345-0-9. Since the early 1990s, with the partial lift on the prohibition to express and publish ideas in non-state languages in Turkey, one can observe the flourishing of Kurdish publishing. One can list a relatively long list of Kurdish publishing houses mostly based in Istanbul and Diyarbakır, such as Avesta, Nûbihar and Lîs. The recent foundation of the Peywend Publisher is a welcome development in the growing institutionalization of Kurdish publications. Peywend has republished the novels and short stories of the Syrian Kurdish writer Helîm Yûsiv. His latest novel titled 99 Morîkên Belavbûyî was also published by Peywend. This novel is of particular interest mainly because it is partly about the traumatizing consequences of the ongoing civil war in Syria on the displaced Kurds that took refuge in Germany. Among Peywend’s publications are also discovered manuscripts made available with their facsimiles as well as translations and transliterations in Kurdish-Latin letters. For instance, an ‘alim by the name of Şêx Muhyedînê Hênî (c. 1849–97) has a short yet fascinating mathnawi titled Beyana Xwarinan û Zewqê Wan (The Account of Food and Their Tastes). This work introduces various kinds of food in Kurdish . Another interesting manuscript belongs to a fifteenth-century Syriac priest by the name of Adday from the present-day province of Şırnak. In this chronicle , Adday provides information not only on the history of the Syriac Church in Mardin but also about the political history of the period as well as natural disasters like drought, earthquake and plague that hit the region. Mesûd Serfiraz’s work Kurd, Kitêb, Çapxane: Weşangeriya Kitêbên Kurdî di Dewra Osmaniyan de (1844–1923) (Kurds, Books, the Printing Press: Kurdish Book Publishing in the Ottoman Period [1844–1923]) is based on the author’s master’s thesis submitted at Mardin Artuklu University ’s program of Kurdish Language and Culture in 2014. The book is comprised of four chapters. In the first chapter, Serfiraz provides a history of the printing press in the Ottoman Empire. Then, follows Kurdish intellectuals’ use of the printing press to publish Kurdish books and journals. The second chapter of the book sheds light on Kurdish political and cultural activities in the late Ottoman era. In this context, the appearance of the Ottoman-Kurdish paper Kurdistan in Cairo in 1898 (and subsequently in various European cities until 1902), the Second Constitutional Period and World War I have been important historical moments in the history of Kurdish publishing. The third chapter of the book is devoted to a presentation and description of the Kurdish books published by the Ottoman state and Kurdish intellectuals. The author points out that three Kurdish figures were particularly active in Book Reviews 433 the emergence of a Kurdish print culture during this period: Kurdîzade Ehmed Ramîzê Licêyî, Mehmed Şefîq Arwasî and Huseyn Huznî Mukriyanî. Needless to say, Kurdish publications by both the Ottoman state and Kurdish writers were in the Arabic-Persian script. The final chapter of the book throws light on Kurdish books published by missionaries. Mostly in the Armenian alphabet, they were mainly Kurdish translations of the Bible as there was a large number of Armenians speaking only Kurdish. Starting with 1844, when Mewlana Khalid’s collection of poetry comprising mainly Persian and Arabic poetry in addition to five Kurdish poems (p. 93), was published, the author points out that a total of forty Kurdish books were published in the Ottoman Empire during the period under consideration (p. 3). While thirty of these books were in the Arabic-Persian script, ten were in the Armenian script (p. 219). The books that were in the Arabic-Persian alphabet were mostly Mewlûd, i.e., the name of the mathnawi praising Prophet Muhammad’s birth and life, simple books introducing the basics of Islam, dictionaries and the materials oriented to the instruction of the Kurdish language. The book is certainly a welcome contribution...