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AIMS AND PROJECTS OF KURDISH INSTITUTE OF ISTANBUL

Istanbul Kurdish Institute was established on 18th of April 1992 by Kurdish and Turkish intellectuals such as Musa Anter, Dr. İsmail Beşikçi, Dr. Cemşid Bender, İbrahim Gürbüz and Feqi Huseyn Sağnıç. The aim of the Institute is to examine and research on Kurdish language, literature and history. İstanbul Kurdish Institute gives effort to make a standard on Kurdish language and to supply use of Kurdish as science language.

Istanbul Kurdish Institute is governed by the Presidency, Board of Directors, Management Section and it continues its scientific research by Linguistic, Literature and Folklore, History and the chairs of the Documentations and sub-commissions.

Goals of Kurdish Institute;

To open Kurdish Language Courses, in order to encourage Kurdish, and create opportunities for training period and scholarships;

To cultivate expert Kurdish teachers based on language, history and literature;

To establish Kurdish Ethnography Museum;

To establish a Documentation Headquarter that is mostly on Kurdish culture and history.

Our institute that has limited resources gives a serious effort to achieve these mentioned goals.

The following books have been published since our institute foundation, are; Kurdish Learning Set that consists of four books for primary school kids, 29 books consist of fairy tales and stories, study book called “Modern Kurdish”, a book presents Kurdish language in Turkish, Kurdish and English, Big Turkish-Kurdish Dictionary contains 40 thousand words and Big Kurdish-Turkish Dictionary contains 131 thousand words and History of Kurdish Literature. Eight collections related with verbal folk literature, four researches on big Kurdish intellectual Ahmedê Xanî, examination on Kurdish journalism, published hand-writing Divan (classical Kurdish poetry). Aryan, Urartu Clan, Kurdish Sultan Selahattin and an investigation on Eyyubi Clan, a book included the presentation of sixty popular Kurdish intellectuals and a book written on People’s medical science with original Kurdish names, are in our Institute’s publications. On the other hand, a book explaining our Institute history in Kurdish, Turkish and English was published too.

Several symposiums, conferences, panel and language courses on country and abroad was prepared by our institute.

Istabul Kurdish Institute announces its studies via “Zend” which is being published once in three months.

Our Institute has been faced with lots of difficulties and obstacles since its establishing. On the first day of the opening of our institute its sign was got down by the police officers. Our founder president Musa Anter was shot by gangs related with “innergovernment” in Diyarbakır after 5 months of establishment despite he was 80 years old. Lots of lawsuits opened against our institute president Şefik Beyaz and lots of executive managers because of their speeches. Our institute was raided in several times with different reasons, staff disturbed many times, materials damaged and confiscated.

Despite the fact that Istanbul Kurdish Institute is an academic foundation and continue all its activities on legal bases, and also taken invitations from government foundations and from President of Republic, still it has no legality on behalf of government and could not continue its work in comfort. Despite our institute is an academic foundation that works for public benefits, because of some legal obstacles, try to survive as a company.

Kurds are in historical faith union with Turks for one thousand year in Anatolia , likewise the protection of Ottoman Empire , they have big share on establishment of Turkish Republic . Unfortunately, despite of this reality Kurdish language, culture and identity have not been recognized and their developments were prevented. Just like Kurds, this unjust and unfair situation prevents Turks to become free as well.

Our Institute believes that Turkey is a country which has multi-language, multi-cultural structure and this structure has to be protected and developed. This multi-language and multi-cultural structure is the wealth of Anatolia . As the inheritors of Anatolian and Mesopotamian civilizations to protect this healthiness and to supply people with different identities and cultures to live together is our democratic duty as human beings. Our institute continues its work with this believes.