ABSTRACT
In the past, the Assyrians inhabiting the southern parts of Turkey and the Iraqi-Syrian-Turkish border area suffered a number of pogroms. These were led or instigated by Kurdish emirs of the Baḫtiyye tribe who exercised power over the Bōtān region and its capital Çizre (Gz?ro) from the mid-fourteenth to the mid-nineteenth century. The emirs Sharaf II (1505–1513), Shamdīn (Shams ad-Dīn) (1711–1714), Badr Khān (1833–1847), and ʿIzz ad-Dīn ēr and his elder brother Massūr Beg (1854–1855) were among those whose memory is sullied by events of this kind. The Assyrian sources contain numerous examples of the massacres, abductions, village destruction, and other atrocities perpetrated on Assyrian Christians living in Tur Abdin and Hakkari by these aghas.
Until recently, Assyrians had primarily transmitted accounts of the Seyfo by word of mouth. Although some eyewitnesses wished to make those events known so that they would not be forgotten by future generations, others had been too traumatized, had begun to doubt their own memories, or had been stripped of any hope that reliving their memories or telling their stories would change anything, in terms of the perpetrators being prosecuted or their properties being recovered. Refugees were scattered all over the world and their priority was survival in foreign environments. These circumstances prevented more organized efforts being undertaken to preserve the community's memories of its tragic history. However, the scattered reports and accounts of the events which have been found do have historical value and shed a new light on a period not yet thoroughly researched.
