Ferik, Armavir Region, Republic of Armenia © Onnik Krikorian / Oneworld Multimedia 2006

Yesterday saw my first visit to the Yezidi village of Ferik in the Armavir region of Armenia with Nahro Zagros, a Kurd from Iraq now living in Hull, England. An ethno-musicologist, Nahro is on his third visit to the Republic to research the musical traditions of Armenia’s largest ethnic minority.

What makes Yezidi music different from Kurdish music is the behaviour displayed by Yezidi towards it. For example, the funeral we attended today. It’s traditionally very Kurdish, but does not exist among Kurds any more in the various parts of Kurdistan. It only exists among Yezidis.

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The formation, structure and melody of the music was very Kurdish as were the words and narrative. All the songs were about Diasporas in a sense, and the fact that there is no home to go back to. They are here as visitors and it isn’t their home, so everything was very Kurdish. On the other hand, it’s very Yezidi because it only exists among them now.

Ferik, Armavir Region, Republic of Armenia © Onnik Krikorian / Oneworld Multimedia 2006

When Nahro was here in Armenia a few months I put Hasmik Hovannisyan, a journalist with Hetq Online, in touch with him and advised her to write something on his research while explaining to her about the sensitivity surrounding Kurdish identity in Armenia. The resulting article was accompanied by some of my photos here.

Once Nahro said, “Khachatur Abovyan said every Kurdish woman is a singer.” I would generalize the saying like this: every Kurd is a singer, at least in this village.

Alagyaz is one of the villages Nahro chose for his research on Kurdish muzik ajamanti - the people’s music.

Nahro Zagros is an ethnomusicologist. A Kurd by nationality, he was born in Iraqi Kurdistan.

Several years ago, as a refugee, he moved to Great Britain where he has lived until now. His research is a part of his MPhil PhD at the University of York.

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“Kurdish and Armenian music is similar in melodic structure (for example repeated chords), lyrics, instruments. The Kurds living in Turkey have the dhol, duduk. Iranian Kurds play the tar. The Kurmanji Kurds’ music is the closest to Armenian music.

Anyway, there’s some portraits and general scenes from Ferik to come later along with some observations on the division within the Yezidi community regarding their ethnic origin. As most people following my work know, reporting on the question of Kurdish identity and nationalism among Armenia’s Yezidi has been one of my things since 1998.

My most recent article on this, incidently, was for Transitions Online in 2004. Incidently, if there are any commissioning editors out there I’m always ready to look into the issue again.

While the Yezidis practice a religion dramatically different from that of most Kurds, it seems that political ideology is attracting some Yezidis to the Kurdish cause.

At a recent event in a predominantly Yezidi-inhabited village, the audience listened to pro-Kurdish speeches and songs, including some sung by Yezidi children. One of the speakers at the event was Heydar Ali, a Kurd from Iraq who openly identifies himself as the Caucasus representative of Kongra-Gel, the organization formerly known as the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK).

Engaged in a separatist conflict in the southeastern regions of neighboring Turkey, the organization is considered a terrorist group by the United States and the European Union. The PKK lost momentum when Turkey arrested its leader, Abdullah Ocalan, in 1999 but is still active in Turkey and abroad.

“Certain officials are using this artificial division in the community for their own interests,” Ali says. “In fact, the Yezidi religion is the original faith practiced by the Kurds before most were converted to Islam–just as Armenians were pagan before converting to Christianity.

“Of course, when the Muslim Kurds and Azeris left Armenia at the beginning of the Karabakh conflict, some Yezidis might have hid their Kurdish identity because they were scared,” he continues, “but in general, the attitude of Armenian society toward Kurdish issues is positive. We have lived together for centuries and we also have some common interests.”

Nineteen-year-old Gohar Saroava, who was also present at the event held in September, agrees.

One of the few Muslim Kurds who remain in Armenia, she says that her family and two Kurdish neighbors living in an Armenian village have never experienced discrimination. As a young journalist working for the Kurdistan Committee in Yerevan, she is very open about her views on the Yezidis.

“I write about Kurdish life in Armenia and about our leader, Abdullah Ocalan,” she says. “I have come to this [Yezidi] event today because we are Kurds. Our religions may be different but we are from the same nation.”

Saroava is one of a tiny and dwindling number of Muslim Kurds left in Armenia. According to reliable estimates, at most a few hundred individuals remain. Even government officials privately acknowledge that the 1,519 Kurds recorded in the 2001 census are mainly those Yezidis who instead identified themselves as Kurds.

“Another complicating factor seems to have been the lure of PKK ideology, which attracts some Armenian Yezidis as it does many others,” Kreyenbroek explains.

“As the PKK stresses that Kurdish identity takes precedence over religious affiliations, those who are influenced by it naturally go back to calling themselves Kurds. On the other hand, more traditional [Yezidis] feel threatened and deny the connection between the Kurds and Yezidis all the more strongly. To a lesser extent the same developments can be seen in Germany, where dislike of the PKK causes some Yezidis to play down their Kurdish identity, stressing the Yezidi aspect.”

For anyone interested Armenia Now had an article on Ferik some time ago although they kind of didn’t touch upon the origins of the Yezidi and the fact that they speak Kurmanji Kurdish. Of course, this is not really their fault as most Armenian journalists don’t cover this issue. Then again, it is a highly complex and sensitive one.

Nevertheless, this article provides an interesting insight into minority village life, and not least because what struck me most about Ferik was how few children there were. In general most village populations have been decimated by the post-Soviet economic collapse and the lack of investment in the regions.

Children are seldom born in Ferik. In 2000 there were no births at all and in recent years only two or three children have been born.

But the sound of the school bell is heard in the center of the village and noisy children immediately enliven its muddy streets filled with winter silence. The number of pupils in the eight-grade school has shrunk over the years, however, from 160 to just 56.

Anyway, it was interesting to witness a Moslem Kurd from Iraq able to communicate with Yezidi in a language that the Armenian Government and even UNICEF says doesn’t recognize as existing in many Yezidi villages. It was also intriuing to note that those Yezidi in Ferik who did identify themselves first as Yezidi also admitted that they were ethnic Kurds who fled the massacres alongside Armenians during the 1915 Genocide.

It was also funny to have almost every Yezidi adult male immediately refer to “Apo” [Abdullah Ocalan — imprisoned leader of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK)]. Even when Yezidi respond to questions about their origins with their religious identity, it seems that Kurdish nationalism is again quite strong in Armenia.

Ferik, Armavir Region, Republic of Armenia © Onnik Krikorian / Oneworld Multimedia 2006