Metin and Kemal Kahraman - INTERVIEW
Metin and Kemal Kahraman - INTERVIEW
Sahmaran, the latest work of Dersim born artists Metin and Kemal Kahraman who achieved a durable musical course with former albums Ferfecir and Deniz Koydum Adýný, has met with music-lovers as a rich oral history. Compiling different versions of the Sahmaran legend, Kahraman brothers signed under a classical study. Metin Kahraman tells that the Sahmaran is the oral cover of Gilgamesh and the meeting cradle of four sacred books.
With Metin Kahraman, we talked about the Sahmaran album, which is a harmony of epic stories and music, about the Sahmaran legend and its various parameters in religions and cultures, the Kurdish music, oral cultures, the modernism theme and the effects of modernism on Kurdish music and culture.
* To start with, which needs directed you to the idea of harmonizing the Sahmaran legend with music and releasing an album inspired by this legend?
- For about 20 years, we have carried out an oral history research work in the whole Anatolia, in Dersim in particular. We have a relation with all oral narratives and we give an effort to record these stories. In this age, a language is extincting in front of our eyes. If you ask us the reason why we perform this work, we can say that it is the conscientious scruple of us to see the extinction of a language. The album Sahmaran is also the result of such an effort.
THE WEDDING OF FAIRY TALES
We were also interested in the etymological relationship of the references and hero names of the tales with Zaza and Kurdish languages.The Evrensel publication initiated a discussion with the title 'What kind of a Turkey we want' which we, as artists, joined with a proposal. We firstly launched a project 'The Wedding of Tales' which gathered eight different tales of the peoples on these lands and after a work of three months, we prepared the theatrical production Sahmaran together with Seyri Mesel theater group. Our work afterwards progressed over the tale itself. Through a friend named Ceylan, we came into contact with people on the subject and created a serious work in Mardin. As well as the sources gathered since the Ottoman period and the sources of local compilers in Hatay and Tarsus, we also applied to the people we visited in the districts of Mardin. We brought great complete works together.
THE EFFECT OF KURDISH FREEDOM MOVEMENT
Basing on the heroes, their missions and names, we can understand that the Sahmaran legend is a tale belonging to Mesopotamia but the story, just like the stories of Kurds and Alewis, was never undersood in real terms as the stories are learned and handed down in Turkish, not in their native languages. The Kurdish Freedom Struggle has today raised a consciousness among all the peoples of Anatolia in this respect and it made a contribution to the peoples in terms of refusing a single nation and a single language. We can understand this geography better only if we bring the languages of these lands into the open. Therefore, the Sahmaran legend, which is the oral form of the epic of Gilgamesh, is of a great importance in this sense for serving as an evidence and source of the richness of differences on these lands.
* If we handle the relation with Alewism, Zazaki and Kurmanci, how is the Sahmaran story situated in other languages and beliefs and what are the differences between these situations?
- This issue is so deep... All the fictions since the creation consist of a heaven, the expulsion of Adam and Eve from the paradise, the demon and the snake which keeps the gate of the paradise. The demon deceives the snake, enters into the paradise and convinces Adam and Eve to eat the forbidden apple. The Sahmaran tale also consists of all these themes of the next world, this world, love-betrayal, death-life and love. As to the language, the names of the Sahmaran and the heroes are referred bilingual apart from the Sorani and Gorini versions of the legend. From this respect, we can't say that it is purely a Persian-Iranian mythology.
THE SAHMARAN IN KURDISTAN
There are more reliable references in other languages. The Kurdistan geography is the Alamut Castle of Mesopotamia, it is actually a great shelter and castle with its mountains rising more and more towards Dersim. Kurds and Zazas are the highlander peoples of these communities. It is apparent that the oldest narratives are hidden at mountains. The Cudi Mountain for example; Cudi means the place where Noah saw his ark. Therefore, while approaching the oral cultures from Mesopotamia and Anatolia, we will all together discover that these oral references perhaps remained the same with the written versions that come from thousands of years away or that they even include more realistic examples. The communities on these lands all knew each other 150 years ago and each community spoke several languages. Now, when we look at the present situation on these lands, we need to make a completely new research about the policy of the Republic to create a monist nation and language. This policy protected the history that served its purpose and shelved those that it didn't manage to change. The Sahmaran tale was shelved too for pointing out to other addresses in all references.
RICHNESS DESTROYED BY THE REPUBLIC'S POLICIES
The legends is a kind of history summary of religions which according to the telling of a dengbêj in Hakkari consists of all figures in the history, since the creation. Sahmaran therefore has a very specific fiction which has reached until today but all the richness of that time have been destroyed through the policies of the Republic.
* Which sensitivities did you bear at the stage of building Sahmaran's spiritual, religious and folkloric elements with music?
- First of all, we tried to figure out the fiction of the tale. We tried to bring the points we considered as important forward and we tried to shape these points with a musical fiction. With a conception which points out to the details of the tale, we tried to create a music to call the listener into the tale. It was not a easy work and the listeners are to decide how much we could manage that.
Second part tomorrow.
Translation: Berna Ozgencil
With Metin Kahraman, we talked about the Sahmaran album, which is a harmony of epic stories and music, about the Sahmaran legend and its various parameters in religions and cultures, the Kurdish music, oral cultures, the modernism theme and the effects of modernism on Kurdish music and culture.
* To start with, which needs directed you to the idea of harmonizing the Sahmaran legend with music and releasing an album inspired by this legend?
- For about 20 years, we have carried out an oral history research work in the whole Anatolia, in Dersim in particular. We have a relation with all oral narratives and we give an effort to record these stories. In this age, a language is extincting in front of our eyes. If you ask us the reason why we perform this work, we can say that it is the conscientious scruple of us to see the extinction of a language. The album Sahmaran is also the result of such an effort.
THE WEDDING OF FAIRY TALES
We were also interested in the etymological relationship of the references and hero names of the tales with Zaza and Kurdish languages.The Evrensel publication initiated a discussion with the title 'What kind of a Turkey we want' which we, as artists, joined with a proposal. We firstly launched a project 'The Wedding of Tales' which gathered eight different tales of the peoples on these lands and after a work of three months, we prepared the theatrical production Sahmaran together with Seyri Mesel theater group. Our work afterwards progressed over the tale itself. Through a friend named Ceylan, we came into contact with people on the subject and created a serious work in Mardin. As well as the sources gathered since the Ottoman period and the sources of local compilers in Hatay and Tarsus, we also applied to the people we visited in the districts of Mardin. We brought great complete works together.
THE EFFECT OF KURDISH FREEDOM MOVEMENT
Basing on the heroes, their missions and names, we can understand that the Sahmaran legend is a tale belonging to Mesopotamia but the story, just like the stories of Kurds and Alewis, was never undersood in real terms as the stories are learned and handed down in Turkish, not in their native languages. The Kurdish Freedom Struggle has today raised a consciousness among all the peoples of Anatolia in this respect and it made a contribution to the peoples in terms of refusing a single nation and a single language. We can understand this geography better only if we bring the languages of these lands into the open. Therefore, the Sahmaran legend, which is the oral form of the epic of Gilgamesh, is of a great importance in this sense for serving as an evidence and source of the richness of differences on these lands.
* If we handle the relation with Alewism, Zazaki and Kurmanci, how is the Sahmaran story situated in other languages and beliefs and what are the differences between these situations?
- This issue is so deep... All the fictions since the creation consist of a heaven, the expulsion of Adam and Eve from the paradise, the demon and the snake which keeps the gate of the paradise. The demon deceives the snake, enters into the paradise and convinces Adam and Eve to eat the forbidden apple. The Sahmaran tale also consists of all these themes of the next world, this world, love-betrayal, death-life and love. As to the language, the names of the Sahmaran and the heroes are referred bilingual apart from the Sorani and Gorini versions of the legend. From this respect, we can't say that it is purely a Persian-Iranian mythology.
THE SAHMARAN IN KURDISTAN
There are more reliable references in other languages. The Kurdistan geography is the Alamut Castle of Mesopotamia, it is actually a great shelter and castle with its mountains rising more and more towards Dersim. Kurds and Zazas are the highlander peoples of these communities. It is apparent that the oldest narratives are hidden at mountains. The Cudi Mountain for example; Cudi means the place where Noah saw his ark. Therefore, while approaching the oral cultures from Mesopotamia and Anatolia, we will all together discover that these oral references perhaps remained the same with the written versions that come from thousands of years away or that they even include more realistic examples. The communities on these lands all knew each other 150 years ago and each community spoke several languages. Now, when we look at the present situation on these lands, we need to make a completely new research about the policy of the Republic to create a monist nation and language. This policy protected the history that served its purpose and shelved those that it didn't manage to change. The Sahmaran tale was shelved too for pointing out to other addresses in all references.
RICHNESS DESTROYED BY THE REPUBLIC'S POLICIES
The legends is a kind of history summary of religions which according to the telling of a dengbêj in Hakkari consists of all figures in the history, since the creation. Sahmaran therefore has a very specific fiction which has reached until today but all the richness of that time have been destroyed through the policies of the Republic.
* Which sensitivities did you bear at the stage of building Sahmaran's spiritual, religious and folkloric elements with music?
- First of all, we tried to figure out the fiction of the tale. We tried to bring the points we considered as important forward and we tried to shape these points with a musical fiction. With a conception which points out to the details of the tale, we tried to create a music to call the listener into the tale. It was not a easy work and the listeners are to decide how much we could manage that.
Second part tomorrow.
Translation: Berna Ozgencil
