Kurdish mythology

Kurdish mythology is the collective term for the beliefs and practices of the culturally, ethnically or linguistically related group of ancient peoples who inhabited the Kurdistan mountains of northwestern Zagros, northern Mesopotamia and southeastern Anatolia.

In Kurdish mythology, the ancestors of the Kurds fled to the mountains to escape the oppression of a king named Zahhak. It is believed that these people, like Kaveh the Blacksmith who hid in the mountains over the course of history created a Kurdish ethnicity.[1]

The Sasanian king Chosroes II Parvez is highly esteemed in the Kurdish oral tradition, literature and mythology.[2]

Mountains, to this day, are still important geographical and symbolic figures in Kurdish life.

In common with other national myths, Kurdish mythology is used for political aims.[3][4]

See also

References

  1. ↑ John Bulloch, Harvey Morris (1993), No Friends but the Mountains: The Tragic History of the Kurds, p. 50
  2. ↑ "Kurdish Library - Kurdish Museum". Summer 1991. pp. 117–123.
  3. ↑ O'SHEA M. T. Between the map and the reality : some fundamental myths of Kurdish nationalism.
  4. ↑ RÖ DÖNMEZ (2012). "CONSTRUCTING KURDISH NATIONALIST IDENTITY THROUGH LYRICAL NARRATIVES IN POPULAR MUSIC" (PDF). Alternative Politics/Alternatif Politika. Archived from the original (PDF) on September 12, 2014. The narrative is based on Kurdish mythology for political targets and the aesthetics of territory


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