Examining early Kurdish nationalists' views regarding the Kurdish masses and traditional structures within Kurdish society is necessary to understand their imagined community. Following the failure of the Ararat Rebellion against Turkey in 1931, Syria and Lebanon became the centers of Kurdish literary activities in the 1930s and 1940s. Two brothers, Celadet Ali Bedirkhan and Kamuran Ali Bedirkhan initiated a cultural movement under the auspices of French mandate authorities in Syria and Lebanon. Key to this movement was the publication of Kurdish journals and newspapers: Hawar, Roja Nu, Ster, and Ronahi. In these publications, Kurdish intellectual elites, most of them either educated in Europe or under the influence of European ideas, promoted a Kurdish national discourse and attempted to reach out to the Kurdish masses in a presumed homeland, Kurdistan, that was divided into four parts by recently designated political borders. They followed two primary approaches in order to address Kurdish populations. In a positive, romantic vein contributors to the journal collected and analyzed folk songs, legends, and stories of wars among Kurdish tribes and glorified traditional feudal values such as manhood and generosity. In their writings, tribes and religious orders appear central to Kurdish society. In a negative, reformist vein they argued that the Kurdish masses are culturally backward and easily duped by enemy states, land lords and religious officials. Thus, the Kurds should be educated, awakened and enlightened for their good and for the sake of their divided country. Some of them harshly criticized tribal leaders and religious officials whom, they believed, were responsible for the backwardness of Kurdish masses. Through a close examination of these two approaches I will show how the nascent Kurdish elites viewed traditional religious and tribal structures within Kurdish society. I will also demonstrate how they explained Kurdish people's relation with the ruling state, first the Ottoman Empire and then Turkish Republic, both as cooperation and oppression. Moreover, I will try to explain what kind of a Kurdish polity they implied in reference to their analysis of traditional authorities within Kurdish society. Lastly, I will show how the Kurdish nationalists' view regarding traditional structures within Kurdish society reflected Turkish state modernizers' elitist view of Turkish society which Kurdish nationalists were watching closely.This presentation will be based on a critical reading of above mentioned Kurdish journals and newspapers published in Syria and Lebanon along with secondary sources in Kurdish, Turkish, English and French.