Literary Tradition as a Form of Resistance: The Constant Battle Against Kurdish Oppression in Türkiye
The Kurd minority, scattered across Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Türkiye, has faced historical suppression in nearly every space they inhabit—especially in Türkiye. Comprising approximately 18 percent of Türkiye’s population, the Kurds are one of the nation’s largest minority groups, and as the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) becomes increasingly aligned with the right-wing Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), anti-Kurdish language and cultural sentiments in the nation have spiked.
Since the establishment of the Turkish Republic in 1923, the state has consistently sought to control the use of the Kurdish language in public spheres such as education, media, and most notably, literature. In 1925, the Turkish government passed the “Law on the Maintenance of Order” effectively barring Kurdish from public life. Expressing the vivid stories, poetry, and plays that are integral to the Kurd identity, was regarded as an act of explicit defiance against the Turkish government. Various Kurdish writers and poets like Cegerxwîn and Şêrko Bêkes were forced to preserve Kurdish literature by writing in exile.
Tensions only became exacerbated over time. The rise of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) in the 1980s and 1990s led to an armed struggle for Kurdish autonomy, escalating to violent political tensions with the Turkish government. In response, the Turkish government began arresting Kurdish intellectuals, activists, and writers, often on charges of “terrorism” or “propaganda”. Prominent writers like Orhan Pamuk had their works banned or censored for bringing exposure to Kurdish issues. Kurdish authors were subjected to arbitrary trials and imprisonment of Kurdish authors, as the Turkish government sought to erase Kurdish expression and identity from the public eye.
Until 1991, it was illegal in Türkiye to record or publish anything in Kurdish. State institutions worked actively against the documentation and preservation of Kurdish. While the Turkish government had made some concessions, such as allowing the broadcasting of Kurdish-Language shows in 2002 and permitting the use of Kurdish in media and publications in 2003, these reforms, though reluctantly introduced, aimed at liberalizing press freedom to meet European Union criteria for membership. These reforms are merely cosmetic and deceptive in nature. Restrictions on Kurdish broadcasting and publication remain stringent.
The rise of Recep Erdoğan’s increasingly authoritarian government has fueled this censorship. In September 2024, Turkish police seized books at the Diyarbakir book fair and arrested Kurds on suspicion of terrorism; however, these arrests are more accurately related to the unjust persecution of Kurdish expression. In December 2024, Türkiye banned one hundred twenty Kurdish-language publications in a mere span of three weeks, the Kurdish Publishers Association (YEW KURD), calling the bans “legally baseless”. Most recently in early March 2025, three Kurdish writers were detained in house raids in İstanbul and southeastern Türkiye, coming amidst a potent government crackdown on opposition. To avoid persecution, many Kurdish writers have fled the country and sought asylum in Europe and the United States, where they can write freely.
Despite mounting opposition, Kurdish writers continue to keep their tradition alive. Writers not only document the pain and trauma of Kurdish communities, but also demonstrate how the act of writing itself has become a powerful form of resistance. In her novel Yüzünde Bir Yer, Kurdish author Sema Kaygusuz boldly depicts the Dersim Massacre—a genocide against the Kurds carried out by the Turkish military—while grappling with what it means to write about one’s own experience of oppression in the language of the oppressor. Şener Özmen’s Kurdish novel Pëşbaziya Çîrokën Neqediyayî critiques the scars left by Turkish colonial dominance contrasting Kaygusuz’s book, which addresses these same sentiments within the Turkish language.
The complexity of Kurdish suppression becomes apparent when translating Kurdish works into languages like English and German to raise awareness to these issues. In a Translation Seminar part of the Boston University Lecture Series in Literary Translation, anthropologist and translator Nicholas Glastonbury elaborates upon these difficulties. When consulting dictionaries for translating books, Turkish translations of Kurdish often have to be used, demonstrating the markedness of Turkish on Kurdish culture. How can the Kurdish experience be accurately depicted without Turkish influence? How do you handle the challenges created by code-switching between Turkish and Kurdish when translating the original work?
Translating Kurdish literature to a global audience may shed light on the socio-political dynamics of the Kurdish struggle, while spreading knowledge of Kurdish culture in a way that benefits their community. Nonetheless, Kurdish translators themselves may face persecution, making the task of spreading awareness of Kurdish issues to a global audience as challenging as putting them to paper in the first place.
The suppression of Kurdish literature in Türkiye is more significant than preserving a literary tradition—it is about denying a people their fundamental rights to a voice and to telling their own story. In the face of oppression, literature functions as a means of survival and building of collective resistance. The struggle for Kurdish literary liberation remains long and arduous, but the persistence of Kurdish literary expression in underground circles—despite decades of hard repression—testifies its resilience and hope that drives Kurdish writers.