Page 25 - Weiss, Jernej, ur. 2017. Glasbene migracije: stičišče evropske glasbene raznolikosti - Musical Migrations: Crossroads of European Musical Diversity. Koper/Ljubljana: Založba Univerze na Primorskem in Festival Ljubljana. Studia musicologica Labacensia, 1
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there and back: circassians in anatolia
can be found at various points along these two lines of travel. Needless-to-
say, this is a somewhat oversimplified mapping. There was in reality a much
wider dispersal, and in numerous cases there was secondary displacement
and renewed settlement. But the model does have some explanatory value
when we look at the geography of the diaspora in Turkey today. The West-
ern line was made up mainly of western Circassians, including Abazins
and Ubyks, while the eastern line was mainly Kabardians. There are signif-
icantly different musical idioms between these two groups – indeed there is
a preference for dance in the eastern line and for music in the western – but
I will pass over that here.
By any account, Kayseri is of central significance for Circassians. The
present-day Circassian population of the city was initially based in around
seventy villages in the nearby district of Uzunyayla, with the process of set-
tlement intensified following the Russo-Turkish war of 1877-78. The layout
of Uzunyayla, and in particular the names of its villages and streets, has
been examined in a project on ‘landscapes of memory’ by Eiji Miyazawa,
focusing especially on how changes in the names spelt out changing con-
nections between the ancestral homeland and the adopted homeland.10 Mi-
yazawa documents the on-going defensive struggle to maintain an ethnic
identity, a process he regards as both heavily contested within the commu-
nity and of its nature incomplete. Yet, however much a separate Circassian
identity may have been subject to internal dissension and the politics of
envy in this and other relatively closed communities (bearing in mind the
tribal diversity of these peoples), it was preserved in a relatively stable state
in the late nineteenth century, and for much of the subsequent history of
the diaspora. This did not preclude Circassians achieving distinction with-
in the ranks of the Ottoman administration and military, but it did mean
relatively little intermarriage with the Turks, and even a form of Islam that
was essentially different from Ottoman traditions (many of the Imams had
studied in Egypt). The Uzunyayla villages in particular were insulated from
their immediate surroundings. Aside from living ‘in khabze’ (a ubiquitous,
if untranslatable, Kabardian word embracing traditional values and cus-
toms, codes of etiquette, property and inheritance, and the pedigreed prac-
tices of hospitality and of everyday social life), their population, including
the younger generation, spoke the mother tongue, even when they became
10 E. Miyazawa, Memory Politics: Circassians of Uzunyayla, Turkey. PhD Diss., School
of Oriental and African Studies (London, 2004).
23
can be found at various points along these two lines of travel. Needless-to-
say, this is a somewhat oversimplified mapping. There was in reality a much
wider dispersal, and in numerous cases there was secondary displacement
and renewed settlement. But the model does have some explanatory value
when we look at the geography of the diaspora in Turkey today. The West-
ern line was made up mainly of western Circassians, including Abazins
and Ubyks, while the eastern line was mainly Kabardians. There are signif-
icantly different musical idioms between these two groups – indeed there is
a preference for dance in the eastern line and for music in the western – but
I will pass over that here.
By any account, Kayseri is of central significance for Circassians. The
present-day Circassian population of the city was initially based in around
seventy villages in the nearby district of Uzunyayla, with the process of set-
tlement intensified following the Russo-Turkish war of 1877-78. The layout
of Uzunyayla, and in particular the names of its villages and streets, has
been examined in a project on ‘landscapes of memory’ by Eiji Miyazawa,
focusing especially on how changes in the names spelt out changing con-
nections between the ancestral homeland and the adopted homeland.10 Mi-
yazawa documents the on-going defensive struggle to maintain an ethnic
identity, a process he regards as both heavily contested within the commu-
nity and of its nature incomplete. Yet, however much a separate Circassian
identity may have been subject to internal dissension and the politics of
envy in this and other relatively closed communities (bearing in mind the
tribal diversity of these peoples), it was preserved in a relatively stable state
in the late nineteenth century, and for much of the subsequent history of
the diaspora. This did not preclude Circassians achieving distinction with-
in the ranks of the Ottoman administration and military, but it did mean
relatively little intermarriage with the Turks, and even a form of Islam that
was essentially different from Ottoman traditions (many of the Imams had
studied in Egypt). The Uzunyayla villages in particular were insulated from
their immediate surroundings. Aside from living ‘in khabze’ (a ubiquitous,
if untranslatable, Kabardian word embracing traditional values and cus-
toms, codes of etiquette, property and inheritance, and the pedigreed prac-
tices of hospitality and of everyday social life), their population, including
the younger generation, spoke the mother tongue, even when they became
10 E. Miyazawa, Memory Politics: Circassians of Uzunyayla, Turkey. PhD Diss., School
of Oriental and African Studies (London, 2004).
23
