Artur Rodziewicz
Securitologia, No 1 (27), 2018, pp. 67 - 78
https://doi.org/10.4467/24497436SCU.18.006.9929Both the current increasing nationalistic discourse of the Yezidis and the discussion about their “Kurdishness” result from the growing political significance of the Kurds and the inclusion of the Yezidis into the geopolitical game in the Iraqi Kurdistan region. The paper concerns the traditional Yezidi understanding of their millet, still valid, but starting to change, which is based on the mystical and metaphysical ideas incompatible with the approach preferred by contemporary political science.
Artur Rodziewicz
Studia Religiologica, Volume 52, Issue 2, 2019, pp. 109 - 125
https://doi.org/10.4467/20844077SR.19.008.11194The paper is devoted to the holy day of the Yezidis, Wednesday, and the Spring festival of Çarşemiya Sor. I propose an interpretation of the meaning of this day, pointing to the supposed relationship between the meaning of Wednesday and the description of ‘fourth day’ in the Old Testament tradition. I also show that the annual feast of Çarşemiya Sor, just like every Wednesday of the week, for the Yezidis commemorate the creation of the material world and subjecting it to the power of angels (especially to the Peacock Angel) and heavenly bodies. I rely mainly on the Yezidi sources and materials gathered during my own field research in Iraq and the South Caucasus.