The Kurds in the Classical Persian Poetry

With a heritage spanning more than a thousand years, the boundaries of Persian literature encompass a wide range of themes, discourses, and historical events. It serves as a collage of identities representing various religions and nationalities. This literature has close connections with Kurdish society, thus presenting diverse images of the Kurdish people, their culture, and their language. This paper focuses on the representation of Kurds in classical Persian poetry from the fourth to the thirteenth century of the Hijri calendar. By "Persian literature," we refer to the body of poems written by Persian poets and others. This paper adopts both textual representation and stereotype as its methodological approaches. The findings indicate that the images of Kurds in classical Persian poetry can be divided into two main groups: first, the primary and common representation of Kurds as an ethnic community, which includes three categories—positive, negative, and neutral. Second, the implied representation of Kurds as desert dwellers and shepherds which carries connotations of ignorance, thievery, and banditry. Some negative images, akin to fossils, have persisted for centuries and have been reproduced multiple times. It is important to note that most of these images consider the implied meanings of the terms used.