Exiles of Digor

In our childhood, the only means of communication that enabled our elders to communicate with the world was the Kurdish broadcast of Radio Yerevan. Since we children did not know Turkish like our elders, we had to listen to this radio. We enjoyed it very much because it was broadcasting in our native language. We used to look forward to the radio's half-hour broadcast every day in the evening.

We would listen to children's theatres, fairy tales, poems, stories and folk songs every day in the broadcast stream of the radio. Even though we were illiterate, this radio enriched our imagination. Every five- or six-year-old Kurdish child would sing the radio's dengbejs and stans with high-pitched voices while herding lambs in the countryside, on the slopes, on the plateaus. I, on the other hand, was never good at singing lines.

My curiosity on this subject developed differently. The names and lives of narrators, dengbejs, literary figures and poets have always been in my area of interest. Erebe Şemo's novel ŞIWANE KURMANCA, given as a gift by my high school teacher Orhan Alpaslan, was a turning point for me. My curiosity on this subject developed day by day. Then I acquired the author's other works. Then I was introduced to the works of Heciyê Cindî, Celilê Celil, Şikoyê Hesen, Ferikê Usıv, Mikailê Reşid and similar geniuses. Then I found myself in a sea. I learned that all of these cultural geniuses were born in Digor and were the founders of Yerevan Radio and Riya Teze Newspaper. It is not well known, but I learned years later that all of the people who defeated Hitler's fascism were awarded state decorations by the USSR.

I considered it my duty to present the lives of these cultural geniuses and heroes of Digor origin to you with a biographical work. I wanted Digorians to examine the lives of these immortals and for the world to know that these geniuses were Digor-born.

I hope that you will encounter many colorful personalities in this work and that you will enjoy reading it.