Sheikh Riza Talabani (Kurdish: شێخ ڕەزای تاڵەبانی, romanized: Şêx Rizayê Talebanî)[1][2] was a celebrated Kurdish poet from Kirkuk, Iraq. Talabani wrote his poetry in Kurdish, Persian, and Arabic. Most of his poetry consists of Satire, Ribaldry, Flyting and creative insults.

Sheikh Riza Talabani (Raza)
شێخ ڕەزای تاڵەبانی
A statue of Sheikh Riza Talabani, in Sulaymaniyah (Iraq)
A statue of Sheikh Riza Talabani, in Sulaymaniyah (Iraq)
Born1835
Kirkuk, Ottoman Empire
Died1910
Sulaymaniyah
Pen nameRiza Talabani
OccupationPoet
NationalityOttoman Empire
Period(1835) – (1910)
GenreSatire, Ribaldry, Flyting and Creative Insults

The poet in one of his famous poems recalled his childhood in the Kurdish Emirate of Baban before it was ruled by the Persians or the Ottomans.[3][4]

As a young man of age twenty-five or so, the poet went to the Ottoman capital, Constantinople (Istanbul), and in the course of his journey, he visited the grave of the Kurdish Sufi, Sheikh Nurredin Brifkani. At the graveside he recited a long poem in Persian, telling of how he had journeyed from the Emirate of Sharazur to visit The Country of the Rom. In 1879, when the Ottoman Empire annexed the Wilayah of Sharazur to the Wilayah of Mosul, Riza expressed his sadness and disappointment in a poem, in Turkish, in which he told the people that Mosul had now become the capital of their Wilayah and Nafi’i Effendi was the Wali.[5][6]

Riza Talabani is one of the foremost Kurdish poets. To date, seven editions of his poetry have been published: in Baghdad in 1935 and 1946, in Iran, in Sweden in 1996, in As Sulaymaniyah in 1999 and, most recently, in Arbil in 2000.

See also edit

References edit

  1. ^ "Şêx Riza Talebanî" (in Kurdish). Retrieved 25 December 2019.
  2. ^ "شێخ ڕەزای تاڵەبانی، شاعیری ڕەخنەگر و قسە خۆش و خاوەن هەڵوێستی جوامێرانە". Retrieved 25 December 2019.
  3. ^ Sheikh Raza Talabani. "The Lover's Malady". iwp.uiowa.edu.
  4. ^ Edmonds, C. J. (January 1935). "A Kurdish Lampoonist: Shaikh Riza Talabani". Journal of the Royal Central Asian Society. 22: 111–123. doi:10.1080/03068373508725356.
  5. ^ Shene Mohammed (8 November 2016). "A Trip to Translate Poetry". The American University of Iraq Sulaimani.
  6. ^ Fair Observer (16 June 2013). "Translating Kurdish Poetry: Not for the Faint of Heart". www.fairobserver.com.
  1. The Displacement of the Population of the Kirkuk Region, Dr. Nouri Talabany at the Wayback Machine (archived October 27, 2009)