Dersim Rebellion is the rebellion of Seyid Riza of Kizilbash elites who was chief of the Abbasuşağı tribe against Turkey led by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk. Shows the Location of the Province Tunceli Tunceli is a province in eastern Turkey. ... Kizilbash (Turkish: KızılbaÅŸ, Azerbaijani: QızılbaÅŸ, Persian: قزلباش Qezelbāsh) - Red Heads - name given to a wide variety of extremist Shiite militant groups (ghulāt) who helped found the Safavid Dynasty of Iran. ... Mustafa Kemal Atatürk (1881 – November 10, 1938) was an army officer, revolutionary statesman, the founder of the Republic of Turkey and its first President. ...

During the Ottoman period, the authorities had been unable to make the Dersimlis pay taxes or recognise any authority other than their own. This situation continued in the early years of the Republic of Turkey. This situation had a lengthy background dated back to 1926. In an Interior Ministry report in 1926, it was considered necessary to use force against Dersimlis.^[1] On November 1st, 1936, during a speech in parliament Atatürk acknowledged Dersim as Turkey's most important interior problem.^[2] Year 1926 (MCMXXVI) was a common year starting on Friday (link will display the full calendar). ... Year 1926 (MCMXXVI) was a common year starting on Friday (link will display the full calendar). ... Mustafa Kemal Atatürk Mustafa Kemal Atatürk (1881–November 10, 1938), Turkish army officer, revolutionary, and anti-imperialist statesman, was the founder and first President of the Republic of Turkey. ...

A letter sent by Dersim's tribal chiefs to the Secretary-General of the League of Nations in November 1937 details what it claimed were measures taken by Turkish authorities to: deprive Kizilbash children even of a basic education in Turkish language schools; to prevent Kizilbash becoming officers in the Turkish army or becoming employed in civil posts in the region; to eliminate all references to Kizilbash or Dersim from scientific works; to force the people into slave labour in construction projects; to deport and disperse another part of the population; to uproot young women and girls from their families and place them in illegal concubinage and, finally, to Turkify a part of the nation and to exterminate the other part, through different means.^[3] The League of Nations was an international organization founded as a result of the Paris Peace Conference, 1919. ... Year 1937 (MCMXXXVII) was a common year starting on Friday (link will take you to calendar). ... Turkish () is a Turkic language, spoken mainly in Turkey, with smaller communities of speakers in Bulgaria,[3] the Republic of Macedonia,[4] Uzbekistan,[5] Cyprus,[6] Greece,[7] as well as by several million emigrants in Western Europe. ... Kizilbash (Turkish: Kızılbaş, Azerbaijani: Qızılbaş, Persian: قزلباش Qezelbāsh) - Red Heads - name given to a wide variety of extremist Shiite militant groups (ghulāt) who helped found the Safavid Dynasty of Iran. ... Tunceli is a province in eastern Turkey. ... Slavery is any of a number of related conditions involving control of a person against his or her will, enforced by violence or other clear forms of coercion. ...

Active stage

Local intellectual cadres also played a role in the rising's leadership, according to one source^{[citation needed]}.

The rebellion was led by the local traditional Kizilbash elites, at the head of whom stood Seyid Riza, chief of the Abbasuşağı tribe. It was at the Kizilbash heartland of Dersim, which was itself part of a region marked for total evacuation by Ankara.^[4]

The 1937-38 Dersim uprising can be seen as actually two separate uprisings, separated by a particularly hard winter. The first went from late March 1937 to November 1937, while the second war began in April 1938 and lasted until December 1938. Year 1937 (MCMXXXVII) was a common year starting on Friday (link will take you to calendar). ... Year 1937 (MCMXXXVII) was a common year starting on Friday (link will take you to calendar). ... Year 1938 (MCMXXXVIII) was a common year starting on Saturday (link will take you to calendar). ... Year 1938 (MCMXXXVIII) was a common year starting on Saturday (link will take you to calendar). ...

Turkey mobilized 50,000 troops to suppress the rebellion. Since Dersim region was closer to Ankara than the previous rebellious regions, Turkish Air Force was used more effectively against the uprising. Sabiha Gökçen, Turkey's first female pilot and the adopted daughter of Atatürk, took part in the bombing raids against the Dersim Zazas and Kurds^[5] Finally, a top secret 4 May 1938 decision of the Turkish Cabinet resolved that Turkish military forces which had previously been massed in the area would attack Nazimiye, Keçigezek Sin and Karaoglan very strongly, and "This time all the people in the area will be collected and deported out of the area and this collection operation will attack the villages without warning and collect the people. To do this, we will collect the people as well as the arms they have. At the moment, we are ready to deport 2,000 people".^[6] Ankara is the capital of Turkey and the countrys second largest city after Ä°stanbul. ... Sabiha Gökçen with Mustafa Kemal Atatürk Sabiha Gökçen (March 22, 1913, Bursa—March 22, 2001, Ankara) was the first Turkish female aviator and the first female combat pilot in the world. ... Year 1938 (MCMXXXVIII) was a common year starting on Saturday (link will take you to calendar). ... A cabinet is a body of high-ranking members of government, typically representing the executive branch. ...

Seyid Riza was himself captured on 5 September 1937 and was hanged, together with ten of his lieutenants, on 18 November. Immediately before his death, Seyid Riza made a speech, in Zazaki (Dimli): I am 75 years old, I am becoming a martyr for my own people. Down with the fickle and liars! (Dersimi, 1988: 299-303). Then, defiant to the end, Seyid Riza put the noose on his own neck, pushed the executioner out of the way and executed himself. Year 1937 (MCMXXXVII) was a common year starting on Friday (link will take you to calendar). ... Zazaki (Zazakî, Zazaish) or Dimli is a language closely related to the Persian and , spoken by the Zaza in eastern Anatolia Zazaland Zazaistan, (Turkey), an ethnic minority related to the Iranians. ...

Aftermath

This was the most devastating political defeat until that point for the Turkish Kurmancî Kurds - as well as for the ethnically different Zazas and Kizilbash. The resistance movement of the latter was shattered for the next three decades. Retribution by Turkish forces claimed at least 40,000 Dersimlis, who were deported and massacred following this defeat^[7][8]

Notes