The era culminating in World War I saw a transition from multinational empires tonation-states. Large empires such as the Austro-Hungarian and the Ottoman searched for ways tocope with the decline of their political control, while peoples in these empires shifted their politicalloyalties to nation-states. The Ottoman Empire offers a favorable canvas for studying newnationalisms that resulted in many successful and unsuccessful attempts to form nation-states. Asan example of successful attempts, Arab nationalism has received the attention that it deserves inthe field of Middle Eastern studies.1 Students have engaged in many complexdebates on different aspects of Arab nationalism, enjoying a wealth of hard data. Studies onKurdish nationalism, however, are still in their infancy. Only a very few scholars have addressedthe issue in a scholarly manner.2 We still have an inadequate understanding of thenature of early Kurdish nationalism and its consequences for the Middle East in general andTurkish studies in particular. Partly because of the subject's political sensitivity, manyscholars shy away from it. However, a consideration of Kurdish nationalism as an example ofunsuccessful attempts to form a nation-state can contribute greatly to the study of nationalism inthe Middle East.