The Armenian Factor in the Formation of a Yezidi Identity, or: Who Is “Inventing” the Yezidis?

Abstract

The article deals with the problems of ethnic and religious identity of the Yezidis who have been traditionally classified as Kurds but have increasingly disassociated themselves from them in recent years. This development was reflected in post-Soviet censuses in Russia, Georgia, and Armenia, where the vast majority of Yezidis defined their ethnic identity as Yezidi rather than Kurdish. In Kurdish studies, the process of separating Yezidis from Kurds has also traditionally been associated exclusively with the policies of the Armenian authorities, particularly in the context of the national and ideological role of Armenian scholars in the Armenian-Kurdish discourse. However, the article shows that the ethnicization of the Yezidis is a general trend in the Yezidi community, regardless of the factor of Armenia. The author claims that it is the attitude of the Kurdish-Muslim community towards the Yezidis in their historical homeland — in Iraq and Iraqi Kurdistan — that is a predictor of the Yezidi identity. This was most clearly seen after the ISIS attack on the Yezidi populated area in Sinjar (Northern Iraq) in August 2014, as a result of which thousands of Yezidi men were executed, and the captured Yezidi women enslaved. These events are understood by the Yezidis within the framework of the Yezidi-Kurdish relations, since the Kurdish armed forces — which had guaranteed the security of the Yezidis and protection from ISIS — unexpectedly withdrew their troops from Sinjar shortly before the terrorist attacks. This led to an increase in anti-Kurdish sentiments in the Yezidi community.