(Mis)representations of the Kurds in Missionary Press : re-reading The Kurdistan Missionary (1910-1928)

The article presents the circumstances under which the periodical titled The Kurdistan Missionary developed to become an important Protestant source of information concerning Kurdistan. Referring to the editorial staff and to the missionaries who were engaged in the work in Kurdistan, carried out in present-day Mahabad in Iran, special attention is given to Ludvig O. Fossum, a prolific author, translator, and missionary, as well as to his various accounts of Kurdistan. Focused on the production of knowledge about the Kurds and the region they inhabited in the missionary writings, the article seeks to answer the question on how Kurdistan was described and how the Kurds were depicted. Following the contents of the articles published in the periodical, the problems of borders, locality and Kurdish Christian converts are taken into account with an attempt to assess the value of such materials for socio-cultural study of non-European communities.