Basil Nikitin

Basil Nikitin (* 1885 in Sostonovit , Russian Empire ; † June 7, 1960 in France ) was a Russian orientalist and Kurdologist .

Basil Nikitin comes from a family of orientalists. Therefore he had a great interest in the Orient from an early age. His first trips were to the Black Sea and the Caucasus . After graduating from high school in 1904, he went to Moscow to study Arabic , Persian and Turkish at the Lazarev Institute . In 1908, Basil Nikitin applied for a position at the Russian Foreign Ministry in Petersburg . He was sent to the embassy in Afghanistan for the first time as an interpreter . After a year he returned to Moscow and married the French H. Laure.

In 1911 he was transferred to the Russian consulate in Rasht in Gilan . After 1915 Basil Nikitin became consul in Persian Azerbaijan in Urmia . He stayed there from May 1915 to April 1918. During this time, when the First World War was taking place and the Ottoman Empire was falling, Basil Nikitin witnessed the upheavals in the region. Basil Nikitin also learned Kurdish during this time . After the October Revolution and the fall of the Tsar , Basil Nikitin did not return to Russia, but emigrated to France. From there on he withdrew from politics and wrote several works. Many of them are about Kurds but also about other peoples of the Middle East.

Basil Nikitin knew a lot about the Kurdish problem and the newly awakened nationalism. He divided Kurdish nationalism into three phases:

1. Unorganized or poorly organized and chaotic uprisings that had no specific goal. As an example, Basil Nikitin cites the uprising of the Baban of 1806 and of Bedirxan Beg .
2. The beginning of the organization and order of the uprisings. This period lasted from 1880 to 1918. During this period the first Kurdish parties and associations were founded.
3. The period when the Kurds entered the international political arena. Examples of this are the Treaty of Sèvres 1920, the Mosul question and the establishment of the Azadi Committee.

Works (selection)

• Quelques observations on the Kurdes in Mercure de France
• Les Valis d'Ardalan in Revue de monde musulman magazine
• Les Kurdes et le Christianisme in the magazine Revue de l'historie des religions , Paris 1922
• La vie domestique Kurd in the magazine Revue d'ethnographie et des traditions populaires , Paris 1922
• The tale of Suto and Toto in the Bulletin of School of Orient and Africa Studies , London 1923
• Kurdish Stories from my collection in the Bulletin of School of Orient and Africa Studies , London 1926