Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Sulkunen, Pekka

Titel

The Kurdish Question: The Black Holes of Democracy

Ist Teil von

• Telos (New York, N.Y.), 2015-07, Vol.2015 (171), p.27-27

Ort / Verlag

New York: Telos Press, Ltd

Erscheinungsjahr

2015

Quelle

Worldwide Political Science Abstracts

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• The Kurdish Question arose when the Republic of Turkey was formed after the First World War, covering a territory with a significant part of the Kurdish ethnic population. Ernest Gellner showed that modern nation-states had to be built in areas he called 'Ruritanias,' rural areas with weak or non-existent aristocracies, on the basis of cultural identities that were only in the process of formation. Language, mythical genetic histories of national origins, folklore, and religion were all key elements of this formation, which is why the educated middle class, who joined forces with artists and intellectuals, enjoyed a key position during the 'discovery' of these imagined communities of nations. The Republic of Turkey, built on the ruins of the Ottoman Empire, was a typical case, but it had important special features, one of which is the Kurdish Question. Here, Sulkunen analyzes the Turkish nation-building process and compares it to other similar ones, especially those of the Nordic countries. Adapted from the source document.