Simko Shikak revolt (1918–1922)
Simko Shikak Revolt | |||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Part of 1921 Persian coup d'état and Kurdish separatism in Iran | |||||||
Simko (center) | |||||||
| |||||||
Belligerents | |||||||
Rebels
|
| ||||||
Commanders and leaders | |||||||
Seyyed Taha Shamzini |
Reza Khan Mirpanj
Amir Ershad † Major Malakzadeh † | ||||||
Strength | |||||||
1,000 (early stage) – 5,000 (later stage)[4] Several hundred Ottoman soldiers and Turkish mercenaries[5] [6] | 10,000 | ||||||
Casualties and losses | |||||||
2,500 killed, captured and wounded[4] | 200 killed, captured and wounded[4] | ||||||
Total: ~5,000 killed |
The Simko Shikak revolt refers to an armed
After Brigadier-General
History
Revolt
By summer 1918, Simko had established his authority over the regions west of Lake Urmia.[9] In 1919, Simko organized an army of 20,000 Kurds and managed to secure a self-governed area in northwestern Iran, centered in the city of Urmia. Simko's forces had been reinforced with several hundred soldiers and mercenaries from the Ottoman Empire, including Kurdish deserters and nationalists.[5] After taking over Urmia, Simko appointed Teymur Agha Shikak as the governor of the city. Later, he organized his forces to fight the Iranian army in the region and managed to expand the area under his control to the nearby towns and cities such as Mahabad, Khoy, Miandoab, Maku and Piranshahr in a series of battles.
In the battle of Gulmakhana, Kurdish forces under the command of Simko Shikak took control over Gulmakhana and the Urmia-Tabriz road from Iranian forces. In the battle of
At this time, the government in Tehran tried to reach an agreement with Simko on the basis of limited Kurdish autonomy.[10] Simko had further organized a Kurdish army, which grew stronger and stronger. Since the central government could not control his activities, he continued to expand the areas of western Iran under his control. By 1922, the cities of Baneh and Sardasht were under his administration.[11]
In the battle of sari Taj in 1922, Simko's forces could not resist the Iranian Army's onslaught in the region of Salmas and were finally defeated and the castle of Chari, where Simko's forces were camping, was occupied. The strength of the Iranian Army force dispatched against Simko was 10,000 soldiers.[12] Simko and one thousand of his mounted soldiers, took refuge in what was now Turkey, where they were forced to lay down their weapons.
Aftermath
By 1926, Simko had regained control of his tribe and begun
In 1930, the commander of the Iranian Army, General Hassan Muqaddam sent a letter to Simko, who was residing in the village of Barzan, and invited him for a meeting in the town of
Foreign involvement
The Iranian government accused Britain and Iraq of encouraging unrest amongst the Kurds, and deeply resented the asylum given by the Iraqi government to Simko in 1922 and to Sardār Rashid in 1923.[13]
According to an article published by The New York Times on July 10, 1922:
It is said that Simko commanded 85,000 men and was assisted by Mustafa Kemal Pasha, former Turkish [Ottoman] War Minister, with the fighting lasting several days.[14]
Simko's forces joined with the
Legacy
Simko's revolts are seen by some as an attempt by a powerful tribal chief to establish his personal authority over the central government throughout the
In the recent period of Kurdish history, a crucial point is defining the nature of the rebellions from the end of the 19th and up to the 20th century―from Sheikh Ubaydullah’s revolt to Simko’s (Simitko) mutiny. The overall labelling of these events as manifestations of the Kurdish national-liberation struggle against Turkish or Iranian suppressors is an essential element of the Kurdish identity-makers’ ideology. (...) With the Kurdish conglomeration, as I said above, far from being a homogeneous entity―either ethnically, culturally, or linguistically (see above, fn. 5; also fn. 14 below)―the basic component of the national doctrine of the Kurdish identity-makers has always remained the idea of the unified image of one nation, endowed respectively with one language and one culture. The chimerical idea of this imagined unity has become further the fundament of Kurdish identity-making, resulting in the creation of fantastic ethnic and cultural prehistory, perversion of historical facts, falsification of linguistic data, etc. (for recent Western views on Kurdish identity, see Atabaki/Dorleijn 1990).
On the other hand, Reza Shah's military victory over Simko and Turkic tribal leaders initiated a repressive era toward non-Persian minorities.[16] In a nationalistic perspective, Simko's revolt is described as an attempt to build a Kurdish tribal alliance in support of independence.[4] According to the political scientist Hamid Ahmadi:[18]
Though Reza Shah’s armed confrontation with tribal leaders in different parts of Iran was interpreted as an example of ethnic conflict and ethnic suppression by the Iranian state, the fact is that it was more a conflict between the modern state and traditional socio-political structure of pre-modern era and had less to do with the question of ethnicity and ethnic conflict. While some Marxist political activists (see Nābdel 1977) and ethno-nationalist intellectuals of different Iranian groups (Ghassemlou 1965; Hosseinbor 1984; Asgharzadeh 2007) have introduced this confrontation as a result of Reza Shah’s ethnocentric policies, no valid documents have been presented to prove this argument. Recent documentary studies (Borzū’ī 1999; Zand-Moqaddam 1992; Jalālī 2001) convincingly show that Reza Shah’s confrontation with Baluch Dust Mohammad Khan, Kurdish Simko and Arab Sheikh Khaz‘al
See also
References
- ^ Ismael, Yaqou D'Malik. "Assyrians and Two World Wars: Assyrians from 1914 to 1945".
- ^ a b c "آغا بطرس: سنحاريب القرن العشرين" (PDF). نينوس نيراري. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2018-08-12.
- ^ Ismael, Yaqou D'Malik. "Assyrians and Two World Wars: Assyrians from 1914 to 1945".
- ^ a b c d e f g Smith, B. (2009). "Land and Rebellion: Kurdish Separatism in Comparative Perspective" (PDF). Working Paper.
- ^ OCLC 56455579.
- OCLC 463216238.
- OCLC 1102813.
- ^ Maria T. O'Shea, "Trapped Between the Map and Reality: Geography and Perceptions of Kurdistan", Routledge, 2004. p. 100: "Simultaneously, a 1000 Christians were killed in Salmas, in a massacre instigated by Simko."
- JSTOR 3017874.
- ISBN 0946690928. Archived from the originalon September 29, 2007.
- ISBN 0-415-07265-4.
- S2CID 154157577.
- Encyclopedia Iranica. Retrieved 2012-08-03.
- ^ "Kurdish Republic Formed; Simko, Bandit Leader, Said to Have Defeated Iranian Troops" (PDF). New York Times. July 10, 1922.
- ISBN 0521029740.
Simko's forced joined with the Turks and killed many escaping Christians.
- ^ OCLC 24247652.
- .
- .