The art and culture collective Hunergeha Welat from North and East Syria has released a new music video dedicated to the Kurdish love epic Derwêş û Edûlê. The 16-minute clip was recently shown publicly for the first time at the Mihemed Şêxo Cultural Center in Qamishlo and is now also available on the institution’s official YouTube channel.
The project was directed and written by Şêro Hindê and accompanied musically by the well-known Kurdish artist Mehmûd Berazî. The vocal parts of the epic text are performed by Dengbêj Delîl Mîrsaz, one of the renowned voices of traditional Kurdish storytelling. Actors Barîn Hemo and Şêrwan Mele took on the roles of the main characters, Edûlê and Derwêş.
According to Rozelin Dêrik, a representative of Hunergeha Welat, the project was developed over a six-month period. The aim is to adapt a central work of Kurdish oral tradition using contemporary forms of expression for a younger audience, thereby contributing to cultural preservation. “We want to contribute to the visibility of Kurdish storytelling and protect cultural heritage from political eradication and social oblivion,” said the artist.
The epic “Derwêş û Edûlê”
“Derwêş û Edûlê” is one of the best-known epics in the Kurdish oral literary tradition. At the heart of the story is the tragic love affair between Derwêş, a humble shepherd, and Edûlê, a young woman from an influential tribe. Their relationship fails not because of a lack of affection, but because of the strict social norms of their environment.
The epic deals with the conflict between personal attachment and the constraints of traditional structures: class differences, family pressure, and collective expectations prevent the free development of individual decisions.
Like many Kurdish dengbêj tales, “Derwêş û Edûlê” is at once a love story, a social critique, and a cultural testimony to a time when social order was placed above personal freedom. The story has been passed down orally for generations and lives on primarily through the performances of the dengbêj—bards who recount historical events, myths, and social phenomena in a specific style of spoken song.