This paper addresses the contested issue of the ‘true’ identity of Kurds in eastern Anatolia, as presented, through the lenses of the Armenian intelligentsia, during the crucial period between 1878 and 1914. In the Armenian nationalist writings of the time, ‘the Kurd’ had multiple, and often conflicting, images. Kurds were frequently portrayed as merciless plunderers and fanatic aggressors in the service of the Ottoman rule; for others, Kurds symbolized a rival ethnic group, or nation, with interests -- due to religious and territorial reasons—essentially at odds with those of Armenians. Yet, and in stark contrast with the aforementioned interpretations, the writings of particular Armenian intellectuals deemed Kurds potential or prospective allies, should they become conscious of their ‘true’ ethnic selves and attain a separate national identity detaching themselves from the religious and political influence of the Ottomans. For the latter group of intellectuals, Kurds turned into an object of ethnographic interest. In the search for an “authentic” and “true” Kurdish identity, many Armenian intellectuals, including professional ethnographers, inquired into Kurdish language, culture and history. Meanwhile the tension between Armenians and Kurds continued to escalate, eventually culminating – in the majority of areas cohabited by Kurds and Armenians – in the en masse participation of Kurdish groups in the genocide of 1915. In this paper, utilizing ethnographies written by Armenian nationalist intellectuals, Armenian journals and newspapers published between 1878 and 1914, I examine the imagining and the attempts at construction of Kurdish nation by certain Armenian intelligentsia and political actors as a strategy towards Armenian nation building projects. In doing so, my purpose is to rethink the formation of Kurdish subjectivity as an effect of manifold processes, operating not only in the confrontational encounter with the ‘host-nations’ and the Kurds but through contacts at the very margins as well.