The Kurds in Ukraine ( uk, Курди в Україні, Kurdy v Ukrayini, ku, Kurdên Ûkraynayê) form a part of the historically significant Kurdish population in the post-Soviet space, and are located mainly in the southern and

eastern Eastern may refer to: Transportation *China Eastern Airlines, a current Chinese airline based in Shanghai *Eastern Air, former name of Zambia Skyways *Eastern Air Lines, a defunct American airline that operated from 1926 to 1991 *Eastern Air Li ...

parts of the country. They descend from migrants and refugees from the

Caucasus The Caucasus () or Caucasia (), is a region between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea, mainly comprising Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia (country), Georgia, and parts of Southern Russia. The Caucasus Mountains, including the Greater Caucasus range ...

(

Armenia Armenia (), , group=pron officially the Republic of Armenia,, is a landlocked country in the Armenian Highlands of Western Asia.The UNbr>classification of world regions places Armenia in Western Asia; the CIA World Factbook , , and ' ...

Azerbaijan Azerbaijan (, ; az, Azərbaycan ), officially the Republic of Azerbaijan, , also sometimes officially called the Azerbaijan Republic is a transcontinental country located at the boundary of Eastern Europe and Western Asia. It is a part of t ...

, and

Georgia Georgia most commonly refers to: * Georgia (country), a country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia * Georgia (U.S. state), a state in the Southeast United States Georgia may also refer to: Places Historical states and entities * Related to the ...

) and have had a presence in

Ukraine Ukraine ( uk, Україна, Ukraïna, ) is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the second-largest European country after Russia, which it borders to the east and northeast. Ukraine covers approximately . Prior to the ongoing Russian inv ...

since the early 20th century.

History

The sharp population rise from 1989 to 2001, where the Kurdish population augmented from 238 to 2,088 was caused by the Spitak earthquake which shook the Kurdish areas of Armenia in 1988. Furthermore, the fall of the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...

facilitated the migration of Kurds from the former Soviet Union to Ukraine. Most of these Kurds were from the

Yezidi Yazidis or Yezidis (; ku, ئێزیدی, translit=Êzidî) are a Kurmanji-speaking endogamous minority group who are indigenous to Kurdistan, a geographical region in Western Asia that includes parts of Iraq, Syria, Turkey and Iran. The ma ...

minority. Another wave of refugees came to Ukraine as a consequence of the first Nagorno-Karabakh War in 1993, which occurred in the region which was historically known as

Red Kurdistan Kurdistan uezd,, ku, Кӧрдӧйәзд, Kurduyezd also known colloquially as Red Kurdistan,, ku, Кӧрдьстана Сор, Kurdistana Sor was a Soviet administrative unit that existed for six years from 1923 to 1929 and included the dist ...

. This wave of migration included both Muslim and Yezidi Kurds.

Language

In the 1989 Soviet Census, out of the 238 ethnic Kurds in Ukraine, 132 of them (55.5%) had Kurdish as first language, while 77 (32.3%) had

Russian Russian(s) refers to anything related to Russia, including: *Russians (, ''russkiye''), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries *Rossiyane (), Russian language term for all citizens and peo ...

and 13 (5.5%) had

Ukrainian Ukrainian may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to Ukraine * Something relating to Ukrainians, an East Slavic people from Eastern Europe * Something relating to demographics of Ukraine in terms of demography and population of Ukraine * So ...

. The numbers for Kurdish and Ukrainian rose to 56% and 11% respectively in 2001.

References

{{Kurdish diaspora

Ethnic groups in Ukraine