| Simko Shikak Revolt | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Part of1921 Persian coup d'état andKurdish separatism in Iran | |||||||
.png) Map showing the main locations and zones controlled by Simko Shikak during his revolt (1918–1922) | |||||||
| |||||||
| Belligerents | |||||||
Rebels Ottoman Empire |
Assyrian volunteers[3] Azerbaijani volunteers[4] | ||||||
| Commanders and leaders | |||||||
| Simko Shikak (WIA)[5] Amar Khan Shikak Seyyed Taha Shamzini Sardar Moazzaz Bojnurdi Kâzım Karabekir[6] Mustafa Kemal Atatürk[7] | Reza Khan Mirpanj Amir Arshad Hasan Arfa[8] Major Malakzadeh † Mohammad Taqi Pessian † Khalo Ghorban † Masoud Divan †[9] Zafar al-Dowleh[10] General Hassan Moqaddam[10] Agha Petros[3] Shimun XIX Benyamin X Malik Khoshaba[3] Malik Yaqo[11] | ||||||
| Strength | |||||||
1,000 (early stage) | 37,000 (1918)[1] 33,000 (1921–1922)[1] | ||||||
| Casualties and losses | |||||||
4,500 killed, captured and wounded | 8,500 killed, captured and wounded[12][18][19]
| ||||||
| Total: ~21,000 killed | |||||||
TheSimko Shikak revolt was an armedOttoman-backed[13][21] tribal Kurdish uprising against theQajar dynasty ofIran from 1918 to 1922, led byKurdish chieftainSimko Shikak from theShekak tribe.[12] During 1920–1922 under the leadership of Agha Simko,Kurdish tribal forces in Kurdish areas of the new born Iran challenged the authority of the centralPersian government.[22]
After Brigadier-GeneralReza Khan deposed the Qajars in a1921 coup, he defeated Simko Shikak as well as several prominent rebel commanders such asKuchik Khan andColonel Pessian during theIranian events of 1921. Following the assassination ofMar Shimun by Simko, the forces ofAgha Petros carried out aretaliatory massacre in the city of Urmia in 1918, in which an estimated 10,000-15,000 Kurds and Turks—men, women, and children—were killed.[23][16][24][25]
By summer 1918, Simko had established his authority over the regions west ofLake Urmia.[26] In 1919, Simko organized an army of 20,000Kurds and managed to secure a self-governed area in northwestern Iran, centered in the city ofUrmia. Simko's forces had been reinforced with several hundred soldiers and mercenaries from theOttoman Empire, including Kurdish deserters and nationalists.[13] After taking over Urmia, Simko appointed Teymur Agha Shikak as the governor of the city. Later, he organized his forces to fight the Iranian army in the region and managed to expand the area under his control to the nearby towns and cities such asMahabad,Khoy,Miandoab,Maku andPiranshahr in a series of battles.
In March 1921, Simko defeated the Iranian army under Zafar al-Dowleh (later Brigadier General Hasan Muqaddam) at Tasuj, north of Lake Urmia.[10]
In September 1921, a detachment led byHasan Arfa, which was reinforced fromTehran toTabriz, wasattacked by Simko and his 4,000 men. The detachment was completely defeated and half of the army died.[8]
In the battle of Gulmakhana, Kurdish forces under the command of Simko Shikak took control over Gulmakhana and the Urmia-Tabriz road from Iranian forces. Simko ordered his advisor and commander-in-chief of the armed forces,Amar Khan Shikak, to attack the enemy forces. Amar Khan, along with an armed force and 200 warriors, destroyed enemy positions in the battle ofShekar Yazi and killedAmir Arshad.[27] In theBattle of Sawcubilax,Reza Shah, dispatched Khaloo Qurban to counter Kurdish expansion, but he was defeated and killed by Simko's forces in 1922. In the battle for the conquest of Mahabad (then named Savoujbolagh Mokri), Simko himself commanded his forces with the help of Seyyed Taha Shamzini. After a tough battle in October 1921, Iranian forces were defeated and their commander Major Malakzadeh along with 600 IranianGendarmeries was killed. Simko also conqueredMaragheh and encouraged theLurs tribes of western Iran to revolt.
At this time, the government inTehran tried to reach an agreement with Simko on the basis of limited Kurdishautonomy.[28] Simko had further organized a Kurdish army, which grew stronger and stronger. Since the central government could not control his activities, he continued to expand the areas of western Iran under his control. By 1922, the cities ofBaneh andSardasht were under his administration.[29]
In the battle of sari Taj in 1922, Simko's forces could not resist the Iranian Army's onslaught in the region ofSalmas and were finally defeated and the castle of Chari, where Simko's forces were camping, was occupied. The strength of the Iranian Army force dispatched against Simko was 10,000 soldiers.[30] Simko and one thousand of his mounted soldiers, took refuge in what was nowTurkey, where they were forced to lay down their weapons.
By 1926, Simko had regained control of his tribe and begunanother rebellion.[12] When the army engaged him, half of his troops betrayed him to the tribe's previous leader and Simko fled to Iraq.[12]
In 1930, the commander of the Iranian Army, General Hassan Muqaddam sent a letter to Simko, who was residing in the village of Barzan, and invited him for a meeting in the town ofOshnaviyeh. After consulting with his friends, Simko along with Khorshid Agha Harki went to Oshnaviyeh and were invited to the house of the local army commander, Colonel Norouzi, and were told to wait for the Iranian general. Colonel Norouzi convinced Simko to go to the outskirts of the town to welcome the general's arrival. However, this was a trap, and Simko was ambushed and killed on the evening of June 30, 1930.
TheIranian government accused Britain and Iraq of encouraging unrest amongst the Kurds, and deeply resented the asylum given by the Iraqi government to Simko in 1922 and to Sardār Rashid in 1923.[31]
According to an article published byThe New York Times on July 10, 1922:
It is said that Simko commanded 85,000 men and was assisted byMustafa Kemal Pasha, former Turkish [Ottoman] War Minister, with the fighting lasting several days.[32]
Simko's forces joined with theOttoman forces in reportedly killing many of the escaping Christians inWest Azerbaijan.[33]
Simko's revolts are seen by some as an attempt by a powerful tribal chief to establish his personal authority over the central government throughout theregion.[34] Although elements ofKurdish nationalism were present in this movement, historians agree these were hardly articulate enough to justify a claim that recognition of Kurdish identity was a major issue in Simko's movement.[34] It lacked any kind of administrative organization and Simko was primarily interested inplunder.[34]Government forces and non-Kurds were not the only ones to suffer in the attacks, theKurdish population was also robbed and assaulted.[34] Simko's men do not appear to have felt any sense of unity or solidarity with fellow Kurds.[34] In the words ofKurdologist andIranologistGarnik Asatrian:[35]
In the recent period of Kurdish history, a crucial point is defining the nature of the rebellions from the end of the 19th and up to the 20th century―fromSheikh Ubaydullah’s revolt to Simko’s (Simitko) mutiny. The overall labelling of these events as manifestations of the Kurdish national-liberation struggle against Turkish or Iranian suppressors is an essential element of the Kurdish identity-makers’ ideology. (...) With the Kurdish conglomeration, as I said above, far from being a homogeneous entity―either ethnically, culturally, or linguistically (see above, fn. 5; also fn. 14 below)―the basic component of the national doctrine of the Kurdish identity-makers has always remained the idea of the unified image of one nation, endowed respectively with one language and one culture. The chimerical idea of this imagined unity has become further the fundament of Kurdish identity-making, resulting in the creation of fantastic ethnic and cultural prehistory, perversion of historical facts, falsification of linguistic data, etc. (for recent Western views on Kurdish identity, see Atabaki/Dorleijn 1990).
On the other hand,Reza Shah's military victory over Simko andTurkic tribal leaders initiated a repressive era toward non-Persian minorities.[34] In a nationalistic perspective, Simko's revolt is described as an attempt to build a Kurdish tribal alliance in support of independence.[12] According to the political scientist Hamid Ahmadi:[36]
Though Reza Shah’s armed confrontation with tribal leaders in different parts of Iran was interpreted as an example of ethnic conflict and ethnic suppression by the Iranian state, the fact is that it was more a conflict between the modern state and traditional socio-political structure of pre-modern era and had less to do with the question of ethnicity and ethnic conflict. While someMarxist political activists (see Nābdel 1977) and ethno-nationalist intellectuals of different Iranian groups (Ghassemlou 1965; Hosseinbor 1984; Asgharzadeh 2007) have introduced this confrontation as a result of Reza Shah’s ethnocentric policies, no valid documents have been presented to prove this argument. Recent documentary studies (Borzū’ī 1999; Zand-Moqaddam 1992; Jalālī 2001) convincingly show that Reza Shah’s confrontation with BaluchDust Mohammad Khan, Kurdish Simko and ArabSheikh Khaz‘al have merely been the manifestation of state-tribe antagonism and nothing else. (...) While the Kurdish ethno-nationalist authors and commentators have tried to construct the image of a nationalist hero out of him, the local Kurdish primary sources reflect just the opposite, showing he was widely hated by many ordinary and peasant Kurds who suffered his brutal suppression of Kurdish settlements and villages.
Simko's forces joined with the Turks and killed many escaping Christians.
