Hijri Dede
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Hijri Dede was a celebrated poet from Kirkuk, Iraq. His poems were written mainly in the Turkmen language but he also composed works in Persian and Kurdish. He was believed to belong to the heterogeneous community of the Kakais. The Kakais have their own language, Macho, which differs from Kurdish and Turkmen.
The poet's ethnicity and religious beliefs are still a source of controversy, reflecting the ethnic nature of Kirkuk city. While the Turkmen consider him as the most famous Turkmen poet, he is considered by Kurds as a Kurdish poet who simply wrote in the Turkmen language. The poet, as almost all of the other Kakais, was usually quite secretive about his religious beliefs and practices: when asked by outsiders, he would often claim to be Orthodox Sunni or, sometimes, Twelver Shi'a. According to some Turkmen sources, Hijri Dede died in December 1952. [1] [2]
