26 September 2026 at the Sprachenatelier Berlin
As part of the 16th Kurdish Film Festival Berlin
Focus: Kurds in the Soviet Union – Between Memory, Identity, Deportation and Renewal
How did Kurds and Yezidis live in Armenia and the former Soviet Union? What traces have history, displacement, and political upheavals left on their culture and religious life? And how were language, traditions, and collective memory preserved across generations?
These questions are explored by Prof. Dr. Khanna Omarkhali, Professor of Kurdish Studies at the Institute of Iranian Studies at Freie Universität Berlin and one of the world's leading scholars in Kurdish Studies and Yezidi Studies.
Born in Armenia and raised in a Yezidi Pîr family, Khanna Omarkhali combines academic excellence with a profound insider's understanding of Kurdish and Yezidi culture. Her extensive fieldwork has taken her to the historical regions of Kurdistan, Armenia, Georgia, other parts of the former Soviet Union, and the diaspora. Over many years, she documented orally transmitted religious texts and researched the history and contemporary life of Yezidi communities.
In her lecture, Prof. Dr. Omarkhali takes the audience on a journey through the history of Kurds and Yezidis in Armenia and the former Soviet Union. She sheds light on their cultural and religious life, their historical experiences, and their remarkable ability to preserve identity, language, and traditions across generations.
Following the lecture, students from Freie Universität Berlin will present a short musical performance featuring a Kurdish song and an instrumental piece. Lasting approximately ten minutes, the performance offers a vivid impression of everyday Kurdish life and cultural traditions in Armenia and the Soviet Union, creating a meaningful bridge between academic scholarship and lived culture.
Khanna Omarkhali is the author of around 120 scholarly publications and the editor of numerous landmark works in Kurdish and Yezidi Studies. Since 2025, she has served as co-editor of the book series Non-Mainstream Religion in the Middle East published by Brill. In the same year, she received the Jemal Nebez Prize for her outstanding contributions to Kurdish and Yezidi Studies and was included by Der Tagesspiegel among the "100 Most Influential Minds in Berlin Science."
The event concludes with a discussion, giving visitors the opportunity to engage with Prof. Dr. Khanna Omarkhali on the history, memory, identity, and cultural heritage of the Kurds and Yezidis.
