Abstrakty
Prof. Christine Allison
The Orphanage Generation: Yezidi Cultural Production in the Former Soviet Union
Until the early 1990s, both scholarly and artistic cultural production in Kurmanji (Northern Kurdish) was dominated by the outputs of the former Soviet Union. This was due to a combination of Soviet nationalities policy and the proscription of Kurdish in Turkey, where most Kurmanji speakers live. However, levels of production were not uniform throughout the Soviet Union: outside Russia, cultural politics in Armenia were much more favourable to the fostering of Kurdish than those of Georgia, where Kurds were very few in number, or of Azerbaijan, despite the brief flourishing of the so-called ‘Red Kurdistan’. Within Armenia, many of the early Kurmanji writers and scholars were Yezidis who had come from Turkey at the end of the First World War. Some of the most notable figures in the first wave of Kurmanji cultural activity had lost their families and lived in orphanages; they took up the challenges of literacy and education with enthusiasm and, despite the political upheavals of the Soviet period, experienced a social mobility beyond all comparison with that seen in the Kurdish homelands at the time. This paper will discuss the contribution of this wave of intellectuals and the relationship between their traumatic background and their subsequent work.
Prof. Philip Kreyenbroek
The links between Yezidism and Zoroastrianism in the light of new evidence.
The paper will review current theories on the origin of Yezidism and its connection to Zoroastrianism in the light of Patricia Crone's recent work on the history of religious movements in early Islamic Iran.
Prof. Martin van Bruinessen
Veneration of Satan among the Ahl-i Haqq (Yarsan) of Dalahu, South Kurdistan
One major subgroup of the Ahl-i Haqq of South Kurdistan is known -- and stigmatized by their neighbours -- for their alleged veneration of Satan and their invocation of his support in worldly ventures. They refer to the well-known esoteric Sufi theme of Satan as God's most beloved angel and truest servant to explain their positive attitude towards him, but besides a benign he retains a frightening aspect in the community's cosmology. The religious ideas concerning Satan are expressed most clearly in a set of Gurani texts composed in the nineteenth century under the patronage of a rising dynasty of religious leaders. This family is known to have made efforts to extend its authority to other heterodox communities as far away as Anatolia. possibly leading to a certain exchange of religious ideas with Qizilbash and Yezidi communities.
Dr Artur Rodziewicz
Eros and the Pearl. Love as the Cosmogonic Factor in the Yezidi Theology and Some Ancient Cosmogonies.
In my paper I analyse the descriptive and structural parallels between the figure of Love in the Yezidi theology and European Eros known from the ancient Greek literature. I refer in particular to the Qewlê Zebûnî Meksûr and the sources connected with Empedocles, Plato and the Orphics as well as to the gnostic apocrypha known in the Middle East.
Dr Khanna Omarkhali
Current changes in the Yezidi System of Transmission of Religious Knowledge and the Status of Authority
The Yezidi system of transmission of religious knowledge is currently undergoing changes in response to the technical advances and increasing circulation of religious written literature. Writing and media culture have come to play a role in the daily life of Yezidis both in their homeland and in Diaspora, and this shows an increasing influence on the Yezidi oral tradition. Yezidism is going through a new stage in its development, namely transition to a written tradition. This crucial change in the tradition leads to significant changes in the status of authority in the Yezidi society. The role of spiritual master (hosta) in the training of reciters of religious hymns (qewlbêj) was a key one. However, we are now witnessing an artificial renaissance of the tradition, where young Yezidis learn the texts from printed collections and the authority of the spiritual master is replaced by that of printed works. The main difference between the oral and written traditions lies in the mode of transmission. In the Yezidi society of today, there are different ways of transmission of religious texts; verbatim transmission taught by a preceptor, which now coexists with the use of written texts, CD recordings, Internet, and TV broadcastings for memorizing the sacred texts. The paper investigates the current changes of the system of transmission of the Yezidi religious knowledge, and the influence of the writing and media culture - which is in part informed by political considerations - on the Yezidi oral tradition. Developments in the different home countries of Yezidis will be compared, and the question will be raised, to what extent they are influenced by the political climate in the respective countries.
Dr Joanna Bocheńska
Yezidi Inspirations of Contemporary Kurdish Literature.
It is not a new discovery if we say that Yezidi religious and cultural heritage belongs to the most important sources of inspiration for both oral and written Kurdish literature. Significant connections can be traced especially in Mem û Zin of Ehmedê Xanî which is considered an example of Kurdish and Muslim literary heritage. However, closer scrutiny of the text points out its more diverse origin and possibly a few more important motifs taken from Yezidi tradition too. Contemporary Kurdish (Kurmanji dialect) literature seeks its links with the Yezidi past. Besides the oral and classical literature the Yezidi religious texts belong to the most read ones among the writers. The most significant names of Kurdish (Kurmanji) contemporary literature such as the late Mehmed Uzun, Hesenê Metê or Jan Dost explore Yezidi tradition in many different ways. Yezidis become main characters in the novels (Biro in Hawara Dicleyê of M.Uzun). Religious Yezidi motifs create meaningful literary images (the sea in Mijabad of Jan Dost), which can be interpreted by the prism of Mircea Eliade's archetype. Finally, Kurdish contemporary literary works take on, develop and reinterprete some of Yezidi religious and philosophical concepts. Hesenê Metê seems the most notable figure in this field. The paper explores some of the motifs and archetypes which possibly connect Yezidi heritage with contemporary Kurdish literature and its powerful ethical and aesthetical dimension.
Karol Kaczorowski
Yezidism and the complex of Proto-Indo-Iranian religion.
Classical scholars of Religious Studies such as Max Muller and Georges Dumézil devoted their works to comparative inquiry about archaic religion that had a crucial impact on beliefs and mythologies of Indo-Europeans. Referred to as "Archaic Indo-European", "Vedic" or "Proto-Indo-Iranian" religion, was supposedly the root of major themes and regularities in religious systems of all Indo-European peoples. This broad hypothesis was based on existence of similarities in cosmologies, theologies and religious practices. In the second part of twentieth century the idea of unifying all Indo-European mythologies by reconstruction of one archaic religious complex was widely rejected among historians of religions and linguists, however there were still scholars who pursued this topic. Geo Widengren in his studies in phenomenology of religion proposed many regularities among belief systems around the world that in his opinion originated in Proto-Indo-Iranian religion. The main aim of my presentation is to propose combination of classical theories of religious studies and modern studies about Kurdish religiosity and culture in order to shed light on Proto-Indo-Iranian religion's heritage in Yezidism. The presentation will argue that such an inquiry can enrich both understanding of Yezidism and reconstruction of beliefs of first Indo-Europeans.
Dr Marcin Rzepka
Discovering communities, inventing beliefs. Christian missionary attitudes towards Yezidis in the 19th century.
The Protestant missionary movement spreading across Kurdistan from the beginning of the 19th century was the result of the religious and social changes occurring among American and European societies at that time. The missionaries, mainly Americans, deeply inspired by their religious thoughts and ideas, such as millenialism, premillennialism or dispensationalism, categorized the “discovered” communities through the lens of Christianity placing them in their own religious concepts. The main problems which will be considered in this presentation are how the Yezidi people were portrayed in the missionary writings and how their beliefs were interpreted, reconstructed or simply invented by the Protestant missionaries.
