Shamdinani Stories I

During the First World War, the Russian consul Basile Nikitine recruited the Kurdish Mullah Sa’id of Shamdinan to assist him in the study of the Kurdish language and history in the city of Urmia in northwest Iran. Their collaboration resulted in a rich corpus of cultural and historical texts, which Nikitine subsequently intended to publish in cooperation with the British scholar David N. MacKenzie. The plan, however, was never brought to fruition, and MacKenzie’s copious unpublished material remained undiscovered until after his death. This volume presents facsimiles of the original Kurdish texts, a normalized transliteration with parallel English translations, an introduction sketching the life of Mullah Sa’id Shamdinani and the historical and literary context, as well as a Kurdish-English glossary and a map of locations. The result is a unique compilation of primary sources in Kurdish that document the cultural and political life of late nineteenth and early twentieth century Kurdistan, and significantly contribute to the study of the Kurdish language and history. Funded by the European Union (ERC, ALHOME, 101021183).