For the 28th time, the Association of Students from Kurdistan is calling everyone to submit their work to the Hüseyin Çelebi Literature Festival. For the Kurdish youth and the freedom movement, literature and language are essential parts of the resistance.

Hüseyin Çelebi is a brilliant example of this. Born in Hamburg in 1976 as the son of a Turkish mother and a Kurdish father, he loved writing and had already won a prize for one of his texts while he was in primary school. Later he got to know the Kurdish liberation struggle and became active in the political movement in Germany. During the period of his political activism in Germany, the massive and brutal persecution of the Kurdish movement by the German state also began. Hüseyin Çelebi was directly affected by this repression and was arrested in 1988. He spent his imprisonment in Wuppertal. He continued writing under isolation-like conditions. Poems, but also correspondence with other political prisoners, were written during this time.

After his imprisonment, Hüseyin Çelebi did not stay in the diaspora much longer. He set out for his homeland in 1991 and joined the guerrilla struggle. There, too, he continued to write poems. In 1992, the Turkish state, together with the KDP, planned a fatal blow against the Kurdish movement. The resulting war cost many friends their lives. Hüseyin Çelebi fell as a martyr in October 1992.

Guerrilla Çelebi left a legacy as a revolutionary, author, friend and guide. The Kurdish student associations YXK and JXK, to which Hüseyin Çelebi gave a voice with his work and who appointed him honorary chairman, today see it as their duty to live up to his legacy, to continue his struggle, to continue his path and to get him to know.

Bringing Hüseyin Çelebi's spirit into the present day

“Hüseyin Çelebi has shown what enormous value language and literature have and what role they play in the resistance. Carrying on the culture and language that have been denied for centuries and the use of which is still considered a crime in parts of the world today is a resistance in itself. To give form and strength to our calls for freedom, which too often just fade away in our heads, with the help of literature, is also a resistance in itself,” said the YXK and JXK in their call for submissions. With this year's literature festival, the Kurdish youth want to remember Hüseyin Çelebi and bring his spirit into the present day. On the occasion of the festival there is traditionally a literary competition. Activists and artists are invited to submit poems and short stories in Kurdish, Turkish, English and German by September 30th.

The YXK / JXK invited everyone to Freiburg im Breisgau on 23 October to celebrate literature, culture and resistance together for the 28th time. The day will see the participation of Koma Hivron and Hozan Şemdin.

Instagram: huseyincelebi_festival2021
Email: [email protected]