Treasures buried in memories, say musicians
Treasures buried in memories, say musicians
We publish the second part of the Metin and Kemal Kahraman interview.
*And how long did it take to complete the oral part of the work, where did you go and whom did you visit during that process?
- We looked into the local sources and listened to oral sources in Dersim, Erzincan, Mardin, Hakkari, Diyarbakýr, Hatay and Tarsus. Our workfellows met with researches in those places and we tried to reach the former records of researchers. However, our work hasn't finished yet and it will progress until all these works are gathered and published into a book. We will give the information in original languages as it will be comprehensible for the people searching this subject.
* Your brother Kemal lives in Germany and you in Turkey. So, how did you progress this work from separate places?
- Our workings were performed at Istanbul Technical University (ITU) and mostly in Germany where 90 percent of the recordings were made. Kemal had to take refuge in Germany 20 years ago and he is not allowed into Turkey. So, we made a task sharing; he dealt with recordings while I was gathering the sources. And with Alisan Önlü, we put the work on the stage in Germany, Vienna and Berlin. We don't interfere in the original telling of the tales, we just tried to create a poetic expression for each song which are fostered with Kemal's poems.
* In the album, music falls behind the oral narrative and lyrics. The position and duration of music seems to serve for the oral narrative in songs.
- The musical fiction and the array of the album were arranged in accordance with the tale told by Mirisai Süleyman but the booklet of the album was designed basing on the sources which use several languages. The fiction of the album is the fiction of the tale in Zazaki.
* Will the work also have a visual side?
- Sure, it could have a visual side as during our workings we also tried to collect the different versions of the wall-hung Sahmaran pictures from many houses in Anatolia. The snake in the tale, doesn't only refer to the Sahmaran; it is a thing plying between this world and the dark world.
TREASURES BURIED IN MEMORIES
* What kind of themes did you discover during your researches?
- Just like the archaeological excavations made to discover buried civilizations, we also need to excavate the memories of this geography to unearth the buried treasures and oral cultures in memories. We can for instance understand the history of Dersim if we explore thousand of sacred spaces, their stories, the oral cultures and the four sacred books. Sahmaran is only a small piece of this history. We have been doing researches for 20 years and we still have some uncompleted and even uninitiated works. However, a true research and work can better be made through an institutional discipline.
* What has modernism taken away from this tradition, oral culture, Alawism and Kurdism?
- Long before modernism, the assimilation process of Alewis, who were targeted in every age due to their belief, had begun even before the Karbala. Therefore, together with the nationalism movements, modernity dealt the biggest blows in peoples like us (Alewis). Ezidis and Assyrians all left these lands and took many things with them as the state policy of the republic intended to destroy these cultures and to create a single culture. Therefore, Kurds, Alewis, Ezidis and other different societies were at the furthest affected by these policies. It is attention-grabbing that there was also an extreme savagery in other places of the world where Indians and many other communities in Africa were being destroyed in the same period.
* Sahmaran is not a modern narration. Which methods did you use during this work?
- Cultures have been quenched or extincted through the presentation of the beauties of different cultures in other languages rather than the original. In order to remain loyal to the original form and not to interfere in the texts, we tried to record, protect and shape the themes in their originals form.
* Nature sounds are in the foreground in the album which also includes a song with liturgical music that resembles church music. What is the reason to prefer that music? Is Sahmaran related with Christianity?
- No, it isn't. Rituals appear in all beliefs. Inspired by the massive woman criers in Mesopotamian stories who tell events from an outside eye, we performed a choir-work. Sahmaran is related with the history of all religions. In fact, choir and religion are not irrelevant to each other, as we can see many similarities between the church music and examples from Anatolian music such as dengbejs.
* What does such a work mean to you in terms of your musical course after the former album Ferfecir? Did you have any concerns concerning your musical course?
- No, we didn't and wouldn't have any concern in that sense because we have the freedom of shaping our works ourselves. Our listeners already know that each album of us has a different style and they generally expect different works from us.
* How do you evaluate the current phase of the Kurdish music?
- Music is the first thing to come to mind in Mesopotamia in terms of culture and music has become more prominent within the last 30 years, especially among Alewis. The Kurdish music, which can now be listened and played everywhere, has been enriched by young musicians and performed in different styles including pop, rock and metal. Dersim also has a great musical richness which played a big role in recording the oral culture of Dersim with a higher music quality in comparison to the average of Turkey. We should now think about what should be done henceforwards.
* What should be the way to be followed by Kurdish artists and then following the politicization process of the Kurdish music and its involvement in modernism?
- At this stage, weapons should be silenced and the area should completely be left to culture, art and the literate to enable the mutual recognition of the peoples living on a common geography. The urgent step to be taken should be to reveal the values of all peoples and enable these peoples face with each other cultures. This geography can manage to turn into a whole country in this way.
* Which kind of obstacles does the assimilation on Kurds create in revealing the oral culture?
- The discovery and recording of the Kurdish culture could be an advantage in an age when nationalism is gradually dying and nation-states are being destroyed in the world. The latency of the strengthening of the Kurdish music could lead to a positive situation because we might have tried to create a single culture and destroy the others if we had the current strength and opportunity a hundred or fifty years ago. We have more opportunities today when we are observing the fall of modernism, which is an advantage for us. The cultures now belong to the peoples of the world, they don't remain as our cultures any more. It is no wonder difficult to fight against modernity but this latency can now be turned into an advantage through the usage of the techniques of the modern world. It is a matter of cultures, not nations. We have the opportunity to impress the world culture.
Translation: Berna Ozgencil
*And how long did it take to complete the oral part of the work, where did you go and whom did you visit during that process?
- We looked into the local sources and listened to oral sources in Dersim, Erzincan, Mardin, Hakkari, Diyarbakýr, Hatay and Tarsus. Our workfellows met with researches in those places and we tried to reach the former records of researchers. However, our work hasn't finished yet and it will progress until all these works are gathered and published into a book. We will give the information in original languages as it will be comprehensible for the people searching this subject.
* Your brother Kemal lives in Germany and you in Turkey. So, how did you progress this work from separate places?
- Our workings were performed at Istanbul Technical University (ITU) and mostly in Germany where 90 percent of the recordings were made. Kemal had to take refuge in Germany 20 years ago and he is not allowed into Turkey. So, we made a task sharing; he dealt with recordings while I was gathering the sources. And with Alisan Önlü, we put the work on the stage in Germany, Vienna and Berlin. We don't interfere in the original telling of the tales, we just tried to create a poetic expression for each song which are fostered with Kemal's poems.
* In the album, music falls behind the oral narrative and lyrics. The position and duration of music seems to serve for the oral narrative in songs.
- The musical fiction and the array of the album were arranged in accordance with the tale told by Mirisai Süleyman but the booklet of the album was designed basing on the sources which use several languages. The fiction of the album is the fiction of the tale in Zazaki.
* Will the work also have a visual side?
- Sure, it could have a visual side as during our workings we also tried to collect the different versions of the wall-hung Sahmaran pictures from many houses in Anatolia. The snake in the tale, doesn't only refer to the Sahmaran; it is a thing plying between this world and the dark world.
TREASURES BURIED IN MEMORIES
* What kind of themes did you discover during your researches?
- Just like the archaeological excavations made to discover buried civilizations, we also need to excavate the memories of this geography to unearth the buried treasures and oral cultures in memories. We can for instance understand the history of Dersim if we explore thousand of sacred spaces, their stories, the oral cultures and the four sacred books. Sahmaran is only a small piece of this history. We have been doing researches for 20 years and we still have some uncompleted and even uninitiated works. However, a true research and work can better be made through an institutional discipline.
* What has modernism taken away from this tradition, oral culture, Alawism and Kurdism?
- Long before modernism, the assimilation process of Alewis, who were targeted in every age due to their belief, had begun even before the Karbala. Therefore, together with the nationalism movements, modernity dealt the biggest blows in peoples like us (Alewis). Ezidis and Assyrians all left these lands and took many things with them as the state policy of the republic intended to destroy these cultures and to create a single culture. Therefore, Kurds, Alewis, Ezidis and other different societies were at the furthest affected by these policies. It is attention-grabbing that there was also an extreme savagery in other places of the world where Indians and many other communities in Africa were being destroyed in the same period.
* Sahmaran is not a modern narration. Which methods did you use during this work?
- Cultures have been quenched or extincted through the presentation of the beauties of different cultures in other languages rather than the original. In order to remain loyal to the original form and not to interfere in the texts, we tried to record, protect and shape the themes in their originals form.
* Nature sounds are in the foreground in the album which also includes a song with liturgical music that resembles church music. What is the reason to prefer that music? Is Sahmaran related with Christianity?
- No, it isn't. Rituals appear in all beliefs. Inspired by the massive woman criers in Mesopotamian stories who tell events from an outside eye, we performed a choir-work. Sahmaran is related with the history of all religions. In fact, choir and religion are not irrelevant to each other, as we can see many similarities between the church music and examples from Anatolian music such as dengbejs.
* What does such a work mean to you in terms of your musical course after the former album Ferfecir? Did you have any concerns concerning your musical course?
- No, we didn't and wouldn't have any concern in that sense because we have the freedom of shaping our works ourselves. Our listeners already know that each album of us has a different style and they generally expect different works from us.
* How do you evaluate the current phase of the Kurdish music?
- Music is the first thing to come to mind in Mesopotamia in terms of culture and music has become more prominent within the last 30 years, especially among Alewis. The Kurdish music, which can now be listened and played everywhere, has been enriched by young musicians and performed in different styles including pop, rock and metal. Dersim also has a great musical richness which played a big role in recording the oral culture of Dersim with a higher music quality in comparison to the average of Turkey. We should now think about what should be done henceforwards.
* What should be the way to be followed by Kurdish artists and then following the politicization process of the Kurdish music and its involvement in modernism?
- At this stage, weapons should be silenced and the area should completely be left to culture, art and the literate to enable the mutual recognition of the peoples living on a common geography. The urgent step to be taken should be to reveal the values of all peoples and enable these peoples face with each other cultures. This geography can manage to turn into a whole country in this way.
* Which kind of obstacles does the assimilation on Kurds create in revealing the oral culture?
- The discovery and recording of the Kurdish culture could be an advantage in an age when nationalism is gradually dying and nation-states are being destroyed in the world. The latency of the strengthening of the Kurdish music could lead to a positive situation because we might have tried to create a single culture and destroy the others if we had the current strength and opportunity a hundred or fifty years ago. We have more opportunities today when we are observing the fall of modernism, which is an advantage for us. The cultures now belong to the peoples of the world, they don't remain as our cultures any more. It is no wonder difficult to fight against modernity but this latency can now be turned into an advantage through the usage of the techniques of the modern world. It is a matter of cultures, not nations. We have the opportunity to impress the world culture.
Translation: Berna Ozgencil
