Preserving Yazidi Oral Poetry in Georgia: Recording Projects, Archives, and Community Efforts

The International Encyclopedia of Minority Religions aims to provide rigorously sourced, peer‑reviewed entries on understudied faiths and their cultural expressions. This article documents the multi‑layered efforts to preserve Yazidi oral poetry in the Republic of Georgia.

Yazidi oral poetry (Kurmanji: qewl / beyt) refers to the sung or recited verses that convey theological doctrine, mythic history, and ethical instruction within the Yazidi tradition.

Pronunciation & orthography

The term is spelled qewl (Kurmanji Latin), قەول (Arabic script), кевл (Cyrillic). IPA: /qɛwl/. Common English misspellings include “kewl” and “kevl”.

Main exposition

Historical background of Yazidi communities in Georgia

Yazidis arrived in the Georgian lowlands during the late Ottoman‑Russian border realignments of the 19th century, establishing villages such as Targap and Khurub (Kreyenbroek 2005). Their oral tradition survived through familial transmission, yet the Soviet era’s suppression of religious practice limited written documentation (Omarkhali 2017).

State‑supported recording initiatives

In 2008 the Georgian Ministry of Culture launched the “Living Heritage of Minorities” program, allocating US$250,000 to record 1,200 minutes of Yazidi qewl across 15 villages (UNDP 2022). Professional sound engineers used high‑resolution field recorders, and each track was metadata‑tagged in both Latin and Cyrillic scripts.

Non‑governmental archival projects

NGO Açikyıldız Foundation partnered with local Yazidi elders in 2014 to create the “Georgia Yazidi Audio Archive” (GYA). Over 300 recordings were digitised, indexed, and uploaded to an open‑access repository hosted by the International Institute of Kurdish Studies (Açıkyıldız 2020).

“The archive is not a museum; it is a living library that Yazidi children can browse on their phones.” – Açıkyıldız, 2020

Digital preservation and accessibility

Since 2016, the archive has employed the IA‑compatible IIIF (International Image Interoperability Framework) for audio spectrograms, enabling scholars to search by melodic motif. A mobile application, “Qewl‑Georgian”, offers bilingual (Kurmanji‑Georgian) subtitles and interactive glossaries (UNDP 2022).

Community participation and intergenerational transmission

Community‑led workshops in Tbilisi’s “Kurdish Cultural Center” teach youth the art of qewl chanting, using recorded exemplars as pedagogical tools. Participants report increased linguistic confidence and a reinforced Yazidi identity (Kreyenbroek 2005).

In the oral tradition

The qewl corpus in Georgia mirrors the canonical collection compiled by Sheikh Adī’s disciples, yet it contains regional variants that embed Georgian toponyms and agricultural metaphors. Scholars note that the Georgian version of the “Qewlê Şemalê” (Song of the North Wind) replaces the original Mesopotamian reference with “the Black Sea breezes” (Omarkhali 2017).

“Our qewl speak of the hills of Targap as if they were the sacred mountains of Lalish.” – Elder Mîrza, 2019

Scholarly disagreement

Kreyenbroek argues that the Georgian recordings constitute a “pure continuation” of the Sinjar canon, emphasizing melodic fidelity (Kreyenbroek 2005). Açıkyıldız reads the same material as a “localized adaptation”, pointing to lexical insertions that signal a distinct regional identity (Açıkyıldız 2020).

Common misconceptions

Regional variation

In Sinjar and Sheikhan, qewl are performed in a melismatic style with a dominant use of the tembur. In the Georgian Caucasus, the chant incorporates the *chonguri* and displays a slower tempo, reflecting local musical aesthetics. Syrian Yazidis favour short, strophic beyts, while Turkish communities retain a hybrid of Kurdish and Arabic melodic intervals. The diaspora in Germany and Sweden has begun fusing electronic beats with traditional qewl, creating a “global” sub‑genre (Omarkhali 2017).

Timeline

Data table