Erebê Şemo

Arab Shamilov

Arab Shamilov (* 23. October 1897 in Kars , † 1978 ) also Erebê Semo was a jesidischer writer.

Life

Shamilov was born to Yazidi parents. At that time, Kars was part of the Russian Empire. During the First World War he served as a translator for the Russian army. He later became a member of the Central Committee of the Armenian Communist Party.

In 1931 he began his research on Kurdish literature at the Oriental Institute in Leningrad , where he met Qanatê Kurdo . He worked on the development of a Latin alphabet for Kurdish. He worked on the Kurdish magazine Riya Teze (The New Way), which appeared in Yerevan from 1930 to 1937 .

His first novel was Şivanê Kurmanca (The Shepherd of the Kurmans ) in 1935 . This novel was the first Kurmanji novel of modern times. In 1937 Shamilov was exiled by Stalin and did not return to the USSR until 1956, after Stalin's death . In 1959 he published his first novella Jiyana Bextewer and in 1966 his first historical novel Dimdim , which was inspired by the ancient Kurdish story Kela Dimdimê (The Castle of Dimdim). This story centers around the castle that was the site of the Battle of Dimdim in the 17th century . Two Italian operas, Il pastore curdo and Il castello di Dimdim, were written for this story . In 1967 Shamilov published a collection of Kurdish folk tales.

Arab Shamilov died in 1978.

Works

• Şivanê Kurmanca (1935)
• Jiyana Bextewar (1959) (Roja Nû, 1990)
• Dimdim (1966) (Roja Nû, 1983)
• Hopo (1969) (Roja Nû, 1990)