Tradition and Revival : How do Musical Styles of Karachays Living in Turkey Change?

Sipos, János (2013) Tradition and Revival : How do Musical Styles of Karachays Living in Turkey Change? Journal of Endangered Languages - Turkic Languages (Jofel), 2 (2). pp. 187-196.

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Abstract

János Sipos, Tradition and revival : how do musical styles of Karachays living in Turkey change? It is not indifferent for the ethnomusicology to study how musical styles of different people change, and how new forms take shape on the base of earlier styles. We can study these phenomena among Karachays, whose first generation escaped from the Russian occupation and migrated from the Caucasus Mountains to Turkey. They had a living traditional culture, but the second generation was occupied with the mere existence and adaptation to the hard circumstances. Though they did not forgot their language, dissociated themselves from the songs of the ancestors. Now the third and fourth generation is searching for the traces of the old culture and songs to strengthen their identity in the Anatolian melting pot with a very strong assimilating power. Without written tradition, they unearth the old melodies from two sources. One is knowledge of the grandmothers and grandfathers who while looking after grandchildren sing and hum, teaching them melodies skipping over a generation. The other source comes from the Caucasus, where with the loosening of the Soviet pressure nations become more self conscious, which induced new musical processes. Since the 90’s CDs flow from Kabardino-Balkaria and Karachay-Cherkessia to the Karachays living in Turkey. Young people learn these songs with great enthusiasm, accepting them expressing their identity, though in many instances these melodies have nothing to do with traditional Karachay musical culture. In the present paper I examine this learning and re-learning process, touching how new musical forms take shape while several element of older styles continue to live after seemingly dying out. I examine too if it is possible to connect specific musical forms to individual people, and whether they can express and/or symbolize national character and feelings. In connection with the musical universalias I direct attention to the necessity of continuing the comparative work on larger areas.

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