Iran: The Soviets, Reza Shah & Simko Agha (the Kurds)

Today's voicemail is taken from the Kurdish epic, Mem û Zîn, written in 1692 by the Kurdish intellectual, author and poet, Ahmed Khani.

Persia was (and is) at the crossroads of Asia. From the 1850s, Persia became everything on the spectrum from a chessboard to a battlefield, fought mainly between the Brits and the Russians, vying for control of its strategic location and its famed oil wells. Caught in the maelstrom of Persian and global politics between 1850-1939, the Kurds instigated one of the 20th century's earliest examples of Kurdish resistance.

What do you think? How much did Simko Agha's actions show he was working for a Kurdish homeland, or to simply carve out a kingdom of his own?

References:

Frankopan, Peter. The silk roads: A new history of the world. Bloomsbury Publishing, 2015.

McDowall, David. A modern history of the Kurds. Bloomsbury Publishing, 2021.

Jwaideh, Wadie. The Kurdish national movement: its origins and development. Syracuse University Press, 2006.

APAhttps://archive.org/details/kurdsconcisehan00izad/page/n1/mode/2up

Leezenberg, M., 2015. "A People Forgotten by History": Soviet Studies of the Kurds. Iranian studies, 48(5), pp.747–767.

Shareen Blair Brysac; A Very British Coup: How Reza Shah Won and Lost His Throne. World Policy Journal 1 June 2007; 24 (2): 90–103.