Page 32 - 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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glasbene migracije: stičišče evropske glasbene raznolikosti
turn’ through the Internet, a transnational vie bifurquée (involving a hybrid
identity), and finally full settlement, though there are obstacles of differ-
ent qualities – legal, bureaucratic, political and emotional – to full settle-
ment. Making choices is by no means straightforward, not least because
there are certain essential differences between the profiles of home and di-
aspora communities, mainly concerning the role and importance of Islam.
Very broadly, religion is a much more fundamental dimension of Circas-
sian identity in Turkey, at least for older and middle generations, than in
the Caucasus (as I saw for myself, the Imam is a figure of veneration in the
associations). One informant told me that he was in the habit of telling peo-
ple in Nalchik that they needed to learn from the diaspora in this respect
(‘they are all atheists there’), just as the diaspora Circassians could learn
more about the particularities of Adigag (which incorporates khabze and
is virtually a religion in itself) from Maykop and Nalchik. Such differenc-
es can prove unsettling – sometimes literally so – for those who travel in
either direction. There are generational differences, too, though I will pass
over those. And there is reverse nostalgia, of a kind I have also encountered
among returnees in other cultures, including the Crimean Tatars.
What I think potentially emerges from these reflections is a sermon
on culture and nation. One obvious inference is that culture and nation
are functioning here in counterpoint. But counterpoint is not the same as
opposition. To be synoptic, I propose that nations are not only political,
and that cultures are also political. The stories of the Georgian borderlands
and the Circassian migrations have in common politically motivated ap-
propriations of culture. In the Georgian borderlands such appropriations
were initially external to the practice. But practitioners themselves can be
rather easily converted, and when that happens the propaganda becomes
self-propaganda, blissfully indifferent to any contradiction between what is
claimed and what is truly believed (there really are nuances in all this). In
the case of the Circassian diaspora it was self-propaganda from the start,
and non-practitioners more often than not either ignored or misread the
signals. I am quite unable to resist adding that according to Wikipedia,
whose virtues were recently extolled by John Julius Norwich in an issue of
The Times, self-propaganda can be a form of self-deception.15
15 John Julius Norwich, “All hail Wikipedia,” letter to The Times (June 14, 2015).
30
turn’ through the Internet, a transnational vie bifurquée (involving a hybrid
identity), and finally full settlement, though there are obstacles of differ-
ent qualities – legal, bureaucratic, political and emotional – to full settle-
ment. Making choices is by no means straightforward, not least because
there are certain essential differences between the profiles of home and di-
aspora communities, mainly concerning the role and importance of Islam.
Very broadly, religion is a much more fundamental dimension of Circas-
sian identity in Turkey, at least for older and middle generations, than in
the Caucasus (as I saw for myself, the Imam is a figure of veneration in the
associations). One informant told me that he was in the habit of telling peo-
ple in Nalchik that they needed to learn from the diaspora in this respect
(‘they are all atheists there’), just as the diaspora Circassians could learn
more about the particularities of Adigag (which incorporates khabze and
is virtually a religion in itself) from Maykop and Nalchik. Such differenc-
es can prove unsettling – sometimes literally so – for those who travel in
either direction. There are generational differences, too, though I will pass
over those. And there is reverse nostalgia, of a kind I have also encountered
among returnees in other cultures, including the Crimean Tatars.
What I think potentially emerges from these reflections is a sermon
on culture and nation. One obvious inference is that culture and nation
are functioning here in counterpoint. But counterpoint is not the same as
opposition. To be synoptic, I propose that nations are not only political,
and that cultures are also political. The stories of the Georgian borderlands
and the Circassian migrations have in common politically motivated ap-
propriations of culture. In the Georgian borderlands such appropriations
were initially external to the practice. But practitioners themselves can be
rather easily converted, and when that happens the propaganda becomes
self-propaganda, blissfully indifferent to any contradiction between what is
claimed and what is truly believed (there really are nuances in all this). In
the case of the Circassian diaspora it was self-propaganda from the start,
and non-practitioners more often than not either ignored or misread the
signals. I am quite unable to resist adding that according to Wikipedia,
whose virtues were recently extolled by John Julius Norwich in an issue of
The Times, self-propaganda can be a form of self-deception.15
15 John Julius Norwich, “All hail Wikipedia,” letter to The Times (June 14, 2015).
30
