Republic of Mahabad

The Republic of Mahabad (also Republic of Kurdistan), established in Iranian Kurdistan, was the second independent Kurdish state of the 20th century after the Republic of Ararat in Turkey. Its capital was the Kurdish city of Mahabad in northwestern Iran. The Republic was part of the Iran crisis a conflict between the United States and USSR.

The republic was led by President Qazi Muhammad and Minister of Defense Mustafa Barzani. Prime Minister was Hadschi Baba Scheich. The Republic of Mahabad declared independence on January 22, 1946, but the movement was defeated a year later by the army of the central government of Iran.  . After the collapse of the republic in 1947, Qazi Muhammad was hanged in public in Chuwarchira Square in the center of Mahabad.

Massoud Barzani, the current President of Iraqi Kurdistan, was born in Mahabad when his father, the late General Mustafa Barzani, was chief of the military of Mahabad declared in Iranian Kurdistan  .

Archibald Roosevelt son of the former US-President Theodore Roosevelt, wrote in "The Kurdish Republic of Mahabad", that a main problem of the peoples Republic of Mahabad, was the Kurds needed the power of the USSR. Only with the Red army they had a chance. But these close relationship to Stalin and the USSR let many Kurdish tribes to be in opposition with this Kurdish state.

 References 
 "The Republic of Kurdistan: Fifty Years Later," International Journal of Kurdish Studies, 11, no. 1 & 2, (1997). 
 The Kurdish Republic of 1946, William Eagleton, Jr. (London: Oxford University Press, 1963)
 Moradi Golmorad: Ein Jahr autonome Regierung in Kurdistan, die Mahabad-Republik 1946 - 1947 in: Geschichte der kurdischen Aufstandsbewegungen von der arabisch-islamischen Invasion bis zur Mahabad-Republik, Bremen 1992, 
 M. Khoubrouy-Pak: Une république éphémère au Kurdistan, Paris u.a. 2002, 
 Archie Roosevelt, Jr., "The Kurdish Republic of Mahabad", Middle East Journal, no. 1 (July 1947), pp. 247–69.
 Kurdish Republic of Mahabad, Encyclopedia of the Orient.  
 The Kurds: People without a country, Encyclopædia Britannica 
 Meiselas, Susan Kurdistan In the Shadow of History, Random House, 1997.  
 McDowall, David A Modern History of the Kurds, I. B. Tauris, 1996 (Current revision at May 14, 2004). 
 Yassin, Burhaneddin A., Vision or Realty: The Kurds in the Policy of the Great Powers, 1941-1947, Lund University Press, Lund/Sweden, 1995. ,  Lund University Press. ou  Chartwell-Bratt Ltd.

Related pages
 Republic of Ararat
 Kurdish Autonomous Region
 Ethnic minorities in Iran

 Other websites 
 Mahabad Republic at Britanica encyclopedia
 Kurds at the crossroad
 The Encyclopedia of World History 
 The kurdish Republic of Mahabad at PDKI-Canada  

Category:History of Iran
Category:Kurdistan
Category:Former countries in the Middle East
Category:Former republics