Martin van Bruinessen explains to Ozan Ozavci how travels around the Middle East in the 1970s led him to devote his career to tracing the hopes and disappointments faced by the Kurds.
Martin is Emeritus Professor of the Comparative Study of Contemporary Muslim Societies at Utrecht University.
After the 1971 military coup Turkey became a doubly intriguing place for many politically curious young people in Europe. Martin van Bruinessen was one of them. He travelled widely in the Middle East in the 1970s, met local intellectuals, and learned Turkish, Persian and Kurdish at teahouses, before writing his doctoral thesis on the Kurds of Turkey, which is now one of the seminal books in the field: Agha, Shaikh, and State: The Social and Political Structures of Kurdistan.
Recorded on 30 September 2022, in this episode Ozan talks to Martin about his story as a scholar specialising in the Kurds and their early twentieth-century expectations and disappointments. The second part of the podcast, focusing on developments since 1960 will be published next week.
Episode 22 – Part I: “They Take Books Seriously in Turkey”
Podcasts are published by TLP for the purpose of encouraging informed debate on the legacies of the events surrounding the Lausanne Conference. The views expressed by participants do not necessarily represent the views or opinions of TLP, its partners, convenors or members.
MAIN IMAGE: ‘DOLMUŞ’ (MINIBUS), COURTESY OF MARTIN VAN BRUINESSEN.
The Lausanne Project 