Talk:Syrian Kurdistan

Best sources for this article

I looked for book-length scholarship by academic publishers from the last five years or so, and this is what I came up with:

About Syrian Kurdistan in particular
  1. Matthieu Cimino (2020), Syria: Borders, Boundaries, and the State, Springer. [1]
  2. Harriet Allsopp & Wladimir van Wilgenburg (2019), The Kurds of Northern Syria: Governance, Diversity and Conflicts, Bloomsbury. [2]
  3. Hilly Moodrick-Even Khen, Nir T. Boms & Sareta Ashraph, eds. (2019), The Syrian War: Between Justice and Political Reality, Cambridge. [3]
  4. Brendan O'Leary (2018), The Kurds, the Four Wolves, and the Great Powers, The Journal of Politics. [4] PDF — not a book, but a book review of:
    1. Harriet Allsopp (2016), The Kurds of Syria: Political Parties and Identity in the Middle East, Bloomsbury. [5]
    2. Michael Gunter (2014), Out of Nowhere: The Kurds of Syria in Peace and War, Hurst. [6]
    3. Michael Gunter (2017), The Kurds: A Modern History, Markus Wiener Publishers. [7] (O'Leary reviewed the 2016 ed.)
    (And four other books about Kurds in Turkey, Iraq, and Iran.)
  5. Samer N. Abboud (2015), Syria, Wiley. [8]
    About Kurdistan in general (including Syrian Kurdistan)
  6. Güneş Murat Tezcür, ed. (2020), A Century of Kurdish Politics: Citizenship, Statehood and Diplomacy, T&F. [9]
  7. Zeynep N. Kaya (2020), Mapping Kurdistan: Territory, Self-Determination and Nationalism, Cambridge. [10]
  8. David Romano, Mehmet Gurses, and Michael Gunter (2020), The Kurds in the Middle East: Enduring Problems and New Dynamics, Lexington Books. [11]
  9. Sebastian Maisel (2018), The Kurds: An Encyclopedia of Life, Culture, and Society, ABC-Clio. [12]
  10. Michael Gunter (2018), Routledge Handbook on the Kurds, T&F. [13]
  11. Gareth Stansfield, Mohammed Shareef (eds.) (2017), The Kurdish Question Revisited, Oxford. [14]
  12. David L. Phillips (2015), The Kurdish Spring: A New Map of the Middle East, Transaction Publishers. [15]
  13. Mehrdad Izady (2015, orig. 1992), Kurds: A Concise Handbook, T&F. [16]
  14. David McDowall (April 2021, 2004, orig 1996), A Modern History of the Kurds, Bloomsbury. [17]

Anything missing from this list? Anything that should be removed from the list? Some but not all of these are already in the article (or in related articles). Levivich harass/hound 06:26, 7 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with this sources. Merdad Izady has strong opponents, and even the climate info from him is seen as unreliable and is blamed to come from a nationalist. I don't share this view, but it will be difficult to source anything with him.
Others I would also recommend are:
  1. Jordi Tejell: Syria's Kurds: History, Politics and Society
  1. Jordi Tejel: Le mouvement kurde de Turquie en exil: continuités et discontinuités du nationalisme kurde sous le mandat français en Syrie et au Liban (1925-1946)
  1. Roger Lescot is also good. His books you can read online hereParadise Chronicle (talk) 18:23, 7 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Also add Robert Lowe "The Emergence of Western Kurdistan and the Future of Syria" in D. Romano et al. (eds.), Conflict, Democratization, and the Kurds in the Middle East (2014). As for Izady (aside from the academic criticism), it is not as simple as climate. --Attar-Aram syria (talk) 08:24, 8 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Somehow I forgot to put Cimino 2020 on my list, so I added it. Also, I added O'Leary even though it isn't a book, because it's a book review by a reputable scholar in a reputable journal. (Are there any other recent book reviews like it?) Re: the above, Tejel, Lescot, and Lowe I think are all reputable scholars as well and their works are usable. However, given the changes "on the ground", I think we should really lean on very recent scholarship: 2019-2020 preferably, post-2016 second choice, post-2011 third choice, and only use pre-war as necessary to fill in gaps. So I think, for example, for Tejel's views about Syrian Kurdistan, it's better to rely more on Tejel 2020 (in Cimino 2020) than Tejel 2009, although Tejel 2009 could be used to fill in gaps of material not covered by more recent sources. For this reason, even O'Leary's book review I think should be considered "second choice", because it was written in 2018 and reviews books written in 2016 or earlier. We want to tell our readers what Syrian Kurdistan is today, according to scholars. Levivich harass/hound 07:27, 9 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know how to vote here, but if the sources here presented are included in the article I agree.Paradise Chronicle (talk) 11:15, 10 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Maps

Hi @Applodion:, do you think adding a version showing only Syrian Kurdistan from the file would be useful to make it well readable? The section talks about demography and it mentions the Kurdish tribes in northern Syria so I think the files are useful.Sulaimanl (talk) 22:56, 13 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Kurds "Iranian ethnic group" RFC

Editors are invited to join the discussion at Talk:Kurds#RFC: Iranian ethnic group. Levivich (talk) 00:06, 15 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Removal of sourced material, again

Hello @Applodion:, I was really surprised by the removal of the material I added, since it's taken from a highly credible, very respected source (International Crisis Group). I see that you restored some of the information, but you left out the most important 2 pieces of information; who created the names Rojava, Western Kurdistan, and when. In 2013, as the PKK and Turkey agreed a ceasefire and began political talks, the YPG-PYD set up a “democratic self-administration” there, calling it Rojava (“Western Kurdistan”). I think that the origin of the term is of prime importance to give to the reader. If you don't like paraphrasing you are welcome to use the quote as is. I am less worried about the Afrin Kurdish presence piece, and willing to work with you on that. Thank you. New Aramean (talk) 23:15, 16 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Here is one more high-profile source on the "Rojava" name origin and date, from Robert Lowe (Deputy Director of the Middle East Centre, London School of Economics and Political Science): Western Kurdistan and Future of Syria, P243.

In 2013 the short form, “Rojava” has gained common usage among Syrian Kurds and some other interested parties to refer to the PYD-controlled areas of Syria. The term will be used in this chapter. I also see above that other users have also pointed that out before, so it does deserve to be mentioned. Thank you. New Aramean (talk) 08:03, 17 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@New Aramean: As I stated and we even discussed before, the name "Rojava" was not created by Kurdish nationalists in 2013. That is not what the International Crisis Group says, and neither does Lowe. Both instead say that the AANES is a new entity for which titles like "Rojava" or "Syrian Kurdistan" or "Western Kurdistan" have been used as an alternate name. These terms cannot have been invented in 2013 anyway, because they already appears in academic literature long before this date: Mehrdad R. Izady talks about "western Kurdistan in Turkey and Syria" in The Kurds: A Concise Handbook, written in 1992, Lokman I. Meho about "Syrian Kurdistan" in The Kurds and Kurdistan: A Selective and Annotated Bibliography in 1997, just to name two examples. By the way, neither writer treats these terms as "nationalist" or controversial in origin. It is very important not to confuse "Syrian Kurdistan" with the AANES; the two do not overlap in many ways. Applodion (talk) 22:47, 17 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 29 January 2026 (Update)

Has anybody updated the article yet? I like a request to have this article updated to reflect the post-Assad Syria as Ahmed al-Sharaa gave them equal rights including the restoration of citizenship and recognizing Kurdish as the minority language of the state. Please replace "Syrian Arab Republic (1963–2011)" to "Ba'athist Syria (1963–2011)" and "Syrian civil war (2011–present)" to "Syrian civil war (2011–2024)".~2026-65022-2 (talk) 20:25, 29 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

 Done Day Creature (talk) 22:02, 29 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
allikas: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Syrian_Kurdistan