Early Kurdish nationalism

The nationalist movement among the Kurdish people first emerged in the late 19th century with an uprising in 1880 led by Sheik Ubeydullah. Many Kurds worked with other opponents of the Ottoman regime within the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP). A growth in ethnic consciousness at the start of the 20th century was spearheaded by the Society for the Advancement of Kurdistan (SAK). Some Kurdish nationalist groups agitated for secession, others for autonomy.

During the First World War, while some Kurdish nationalists were working with the British and Russian enemy powers, Kurdish tribal forces were fighting alongside Ottoman troops on the Russian front. Deaths and displacements occurred on a large scale among Kurdish civilians due to wartime conditions and deliberate ethnic cleansing policies.

There was a brief opportunity for Kurdish nationalism after World War I with the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire. Western powers (particularly the United Kingdom) promised the Kurds they would act as guarantors for Kurdish freedom, a promise they subsequently broke. Some of the autonomist Kurdish groups received British support leading up to the Treaty of Sèvres (1920), which prepared for local autonomy for the Kurdish regions and envisaged later independence. Opposition from Kemal Atatürk, leader of the new nation-state of Turkey, and changes in British policy, prevented such a result. Following the Treaty of Lausanne (1923) the Kurdish territory was partitioned between Turkey, the French mandate of Syria, the British mandate of Iraq, and Persia.

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