ABSTRACT
A very important historical event occurred in 1918 and 1919 to the west of the Urumia lake, Azerbaijan. Starting with violent inter-religious conflict, it developed into the exodus of Christian Persians from the Urumia region, first to Hamadan, and later to Baquba. Even today, some contend that the tensions between Muslims and Christians in Urumia provide the correct explanation for this exodus. Others argue that its origins lie with the Kurdish population of the area. Such opinions look too simple now, as they assume that Persians, Kurds, Muslims and Christians were homogeneous groups at the time, clearly differentiated from each other. They ignore the surprising internal diversity of each group, and the role actually played inside of the groups by individuals and smaller associations of individuals.
