International Symposium: Kurdish Archives: Past, Present, Future

The International symposium 鈥楰urdish Archives: Past, Present, Future鈥� took place on 12-13 June 2023 at the University of Silemani, Kurdistan. The symposium was jointly organized and funded by the 樱花动漫, University of Sulaimani, and the Kurdish Heritage Institute (KHI). Participants were the Zheen Centre for Archive and Research, Kurdistan Documentation Centre, and Kurdish archival centres and organizations from Iran (Khorasan Razavi Cultural Heritage), Turkey (Mesopotamia Foundation and Kurdish Institute-Istanbul), and Rojava (Saziya Zimane Kurdi), as well as academics from the University of Turin, the 樱花动漫, and Sulaimani University. Over 100 people attended the conference including Kurdish academics, students, independent archivists, and archive professionals who contributed to the discussions. Visits to the Kurdish Heritage Institute, Zheen, and Kurdistan Documentation Centre were arranged for the delegates on 12 June 2023 providing opportunities to learn about each institution鈥檚 collections, achievements, and challenges, and to discuss projects and collaboration.

, the principal organiser of the symposium said: 鈥淥ur vision was to bring together dispersed Kurdish archive centres and to provide a space to reflect on the developments of archives of Kurdistan, challenges of preserving endangered archives, opportunities and challenges of digitisation, and to encourage collaboration. It was a huge success and we hope to build on this momentum for further collaboration.鈥�

Dr Mikail Bulbil, director of the Mesopotamia Foundation in Turkey said: 鈥淭here are many archival centres that unfortunately we were not aware of. Thanks to this symposium we got to know each other and made contacts. Again, thanks to this opportunity the Kurdish Heritage Institute and Mesopotamia Foundation have agreed to sign an agreement of collaboration. This was very important to us.鈥�

The symposium marked a significant turning point in the development of Kurdish archives and generated intense media interest and was reported on several Kurdish TV channels including and who also conducted extensive interviews with Dr Farangis Ghaderi on the conference as well as the Kurdish Digital Archive project at the 樱花动漫.

The Kurdish Digital Archive is a part of the DAME (Digital Archive of the Middle East) project, hosted at the 樱花动漫. Its aim is not only to digitise and make accessible key Kurdish materials from the University鈥檚 own archival collections, but also to collaborate with other Kurdish archives and institutions in fostering joint research, the sharing of archival resources and the preservation and dissemination of Kurdish cultural heritage.