The Pioneer of Change at the Crossroads from Sinjar to the Caucasus: Prince (Mîr) Ismail Chol-beg and the Struggle for Modern Yezidi Identity

Abstract

The Yezidi Prince Ismail Chol-beg (d. 1933) is one of the most intriguing and contested Yezidi figures of the twentieth century. Although his life and activities have been described in several works, including his own autobiography, the question of how he perceived Yezidi identity has remained largely unexplored to date. This study represents the first systematic attempt to analyse his understanding of Yezidi identity and to assess the extent to which it was shaped by the rise of nationalism. To this end, the article first examines Chol-beg’s encounters with nationalist ideas, and then reconstructs his concept of Yezidi identity on the basis of his statements and utterances. His reflections on identity are fragmentary and dispersed, making it necessary to draw upon a wide range of sources, such as his letters and other dictated texts, as his autobiography and two published works, reports by European travellers who met him, as well as hitherto unpublished archival materials scattered across multiple languages, including Armenian, Georgian, German, Russian, French, Ottoman Turkish, Arabic, and English, they collectively illustrate the broad range of his activities, his networks and his sphere of influence. This study therefore aims to collate and contextualise Chol-beg’s references to Yezidi identity in order to reconstruct a comprehensive picture of his thought.