ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – The national anthem of the Kurdistan Region and northeast Syria – Ey Raqib (Oh Enemy) – has existed for years but was not written down for symphony orchestra and military band until a famous Kurdish musician did so two years ago.
Ey Raqib (Oh Enemy) is the national anthem of the Kurdistan Region and northeast Syria (Rojava): “Let no one say Kurds are dead. Kurds are alive, are alive. Their flag will never fall.”
Dalshad Said, a Kurdish musician and conductor living in Austria, scored the music for both military band and symphony orchestra in 2021, with a previous lack of musical score preventing the score from being done, making it difficult for bands to play the anthem.
The Kurdish national anthem is one of the rare viewpoints which are unanimously recognized by Kurds across party and ideological lines. The lyrics of the anthem were written by poet Dldar (1918-1948) and it was declared the official anthem of the short-lived Mahabad Republic in present-day Iran around 77 years ago.
The score sheet of the national anthem can be found here.
In his publication of the music, Said explained that the score was requested by the French government to use during a ceremony to receive Masoud Barzani, former president of the Kurdistan Region, at Elysee Palace on September 7, 2016.
“Unfortunately, the only hindrance that prevented the ceremony from taking place was not having the music score of the Anthem. Therefore, their initiative was the real incentive for me to execute the arrangement with the orchestration of Ey-Reqib in a manner suited to the standard requirements of military bands (wind orchestras) and symphony orchestras,” Said wrote at the time.
Ey Raqib is regularly played during ceremonies and celebrations in the Kurdistan Region, and is regularly sung by students of the Region’s schools before classes commence in the morning.
Said was born in Duhok in 1958. He graduated from Baghdad Fine Arts Institute in 1977 and established Duhok Music Band in 1979. He later moved to the UK, receiving a Master’s Degree before moving to Austria, where he has lived since 1991, teaching music. He studied traditional Kurdish music and dance and, in 2018, received his doctorate.
He is known for mixing elements of Western classical music with traditional Kurdish styles. His symphonic and choral compositions Peshmerga and Shingal, released in 2015 and sponsored by Rudaw, were performed by the Czech National Symphony Orchestra.
“We, the Kurds who want to build our own state in the future, need to protect our language and culture. An important element of culture is music, so we need to protect our folk music,” he told Rudaw in a 2015 interview. “Without culture and language no nation can survive.”
