1960’s

The 1960s were a formative decade in modern Kurdish history, defined by both renewed resistance and the quiet consolidation of Kurdish identity across borders. In Iraq, armed struggle reemerged under Mullah Mustafa Barzani, who returned from exile in the Soviet Union in 1958, leading the Kurdish revolution against the central government throughout the 1960s. The conflict culminated in a 1966 military standoff, followed by a temporary peace in 1970. During this era, Kurdish women in Iraq played crucial yet often underacknowledged roles in sustaining resistance life—serving as medics, educators in mountain encampments, and protectors of oral traditions and community memory. In Turkey, the 1960 military coup brought a brief liberalization of political life, allowing for limited Kurdish expression in leftist circles, student movements, and labor organizing. Kurdish women, particularly from educated and urban backgrounds, began to engage in literacy campaigns, cultural preservation, and political discussion, laying early foundations for later feminist organizing. In Syria, Kurdish identity remained suppressed, but underground networks of poets, teachers, and musicians kept Kurdish culture alive, often with women as transmitters of song, dance, and oral histories. Meanwhile, Soviet Armenia continued to be a rare haven for Kurdish-language education and broadcasting, with Yerevan’s Kurdish radio and Rya Taza maintaining literary and folkloric traditions—spaces in which Kurdish women’s voices increasingly appeared in storytelling and performance. Across all regions, the 1960s represent a period in which Kurdish women sustained the cultural infrastructure of a people under pressure, appearing in photographs and memory not only as mothers and caretakers, but as early pillars of resilience, intellect, and cultural continuity.