BEDIR (BADR) KHAN FAMILY

   Bedir Khan Beg had many sons who played a role in nascent Kurdish politics. Uthman and Husayn carried out a brief rebellion in Botan in 1879. Midhat published a bilingual Kurdish-Turkish journal called Kurdistan in Cairo beginning in 1898. During World War I, Kamil and Abdurrazzaq were apparently appointed governors of Erzurum and Bitlis by the Russians. The latter was arrested by the Turks after the war and was reportedly poisoned in prison in Mosul.Yet another son, Emin Ali, was one of the founders of the Society for the Rise and Progress of Kurdistan, or the Kurdish National Committee, and had to flee when the Ottoman government condemned him to death.

   The three sons of Emin Ali—Thurayya (Sureya) Bedir Khan (1883-1938), Jaladet (Celadet/Djaladet) Bedir Khan (1893-1951), and Kamuran Bedir Khan (1895-1978)—dedicated their lives to the Kurdish national cause and were also noted figures in Kurdish literature. Thurayya, who spent several years in prison for his nationalist activities, resumed publishing the newspaper Kurdistan in Constantinople after the Young Turk coup in 1908 and was an early member of the transnational Kurdish party, Khoybun. His brother, Jaladet, was elected the first president of Khoybun. Subsequently, he devoted himself to literary work and helped to develop a Kurdish alphabet in Latin characters. Kamuran became a noted Kurdish author, spokesman, editor, and professor teaching Kurdish at the Ecole des Langues Orientales in Paris, where Joyce Blau was one of his students. In addition, he worked for a newspaper and radio in Beirut. In the 1960s he also served as a spokesman for Mulla Mustafa Barzani at the United Nations. His daughter Sinem (1938- ) currently lives in Irbil and possesses a considerable amount of archives concerning the family.