ABSTRACT
The Republic of Turkey has gone through several Kurdish conflicts since its foundation in 1923. The Sheikh Said rebellion was the first popular movement against the state. Various local Nakşibendi sheikhs, some of whom were motivated by ethnic aspirations, were frustrated with the abolition of the Caliphate in 1924 and revolted, particularly in Palu, Bingöl and Muş regions in 1925. The newborn Turkish government crushed the movement by using severe tactics. Following the Sheikh Said rebellion, the Kurdish space still remained a place of conflict with the central authority. According to estimates based on observations in different regions, at least 150 conflict groups emerged due to psychological, religious and ethnic tensions with the state authority between 1925 and 1940 in Eastern Anatolia. The Dersim massacres were no doubt the bloodiest conflict between Kurds and the state. The Turkish government, unable to construct its authority and legitimacy over the Kurdish Alevi region, used massive coercion, which resulted in the killing of thousands of people in the 1930s. However, Kurdish contestation continued in different dimensions. Between 1930 and 1980, apolitical social banditry (eşkiyâcılık) and cross-border smuggling (kaçakçılık) were significant means of Kurdish opposition to the state authority. These meant that, after the crush of the Kurdish rebellions and conflict groups during the late period of the Ottoman Empire and early Turkish Republican period, Kurdish contestation persisted in different social dimensions. But unlike Iran, with the proclamation of the Kurdish Mahabad Republic in 1946 (destroyed some months later), and Iraq, with the return of Molla Mustafa Barzani in 1958, the Kurdish space in Turkey did not produce genuine political movements. In Turkey, from the 1940s to the 1960s, Kurdish political activities were particularly influenced by the movement of Barzani in Iraq. Even if some cultural and political organizations arose in the 1960s, it is only from the 1970s onwards that radical political movements appeared in Turkey. The emergence of these parties opened a new cycle of violence which is different from the 1920s and 1930s.
