Page 26 - 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
P. 26
glasbene migracije: stičišče evropske glasbene raznolikosti
Turkish citizens with the establishment of the Republic (which limited their
language rights), and this remained the case until the 1980s.
At this point things began to change, partly because of a renewed
Turkification of both schools and mosques, and partly because, under the
more general imperatives of modernity, Circassians from the villages be-
gan to drift towards the cities, with a consequent weakening of the oral tra-
dition, and increasing intermarriage with the Turks. Today the villages of
Uzunyayla are largely depleted, and it is only in summer that people return
there to tend their plots. It is generally considered that the move to the cit-
ies (Ankara as well as Kayseri) was hugely detrimental to a strong sense
of Circassian identity, mainly because the younger generation developed
more and more points of contact with their coevals in the Turkish commu-
nity. In the terms adopted by some critical theorists, genealogical thinking
(the ways of the fathers) began to yield to a form of generational (or cohort)
thinking associated with a shared, and increasingly global, youth culture.11
Ironically enough, this tendency was reinforced by the pedigreed separa-
tion of the generations in traditional Circassian society; even in modern
households today, it is deemed inappropriate for a daughter-in-law to initi-
ate conversation with the man of the house, for example.
This opening out to Turkey has continued apace, but after the break up
of the Soviet Union, there has also been a contrary process, as Circassians
have simultaneously closed in on themselves, renewing their culture, re-in-
vesting in its traditions, and re-forging a sense of national identity in de-
fiance of assimilationist tendencies and policies of Turkification. The pro-
cess was facilitated by easier travel to Sukhum, Maykop and Nalchik, by
the renewed possibility of direct dialogue between the ancestral homeland
and diasporic communities, and – as recently as 2013 – by the government’s
eventual acceptance of Abkhaz and Adygean as official minority languag-
es (it should be stressed that even those younger people to whom the lan-
guage is lost can preserve a cultural identity through investment in khabze).
This cultural renewal was no longer a matter of preservation but of recon-
struction, and the prime movers in the reconstruction were the Circassian
Associations. The associations were really products of the migration of Cir-
cassian populations to the cities, and they effectively set out to recreate the
villages within the cities by re-vivifying the culture, albeit in a newly ho-
mogenized form. There are more than sixty such associations in Turkey to-
11 Stephen Lovell, “From Genealogy to Generation: The Birth of Cohort Thinking in
Russia,” Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History, 9/3 (2008): 567–94.
24
Turkish citizens with the establishment of the Republic (which limited their
language rights), and this remained the case until the 1980s.
At this point things began to change, partly because of a renewed
Turkification of both schools and mosques, and partly because, under the
more general imperatives of modernity, Circassians from the villages be-
gan to drift towards the cities, with a consequent weakening of the oral tra-
dition, and increasing intermarriage with the Turks. Today the villages of
Uzunyayla are largely depleted, and it is only in summer that people return
there to tend their plots. It is generally considered that the move to the cit-
ies (Ankara as well as Kayseri) was hugely detrimental to a strong sense
of Circassian identity, mainly because the younger generation developed
more and more points of contact with their coevals in the Turkish commu-
nity. In the terms adopted by some critical theorists, genealogical thinking
(the ways of the fathers) began to yield to a form of generational (or cohort)
thinking associated with a shared, and increasingly global, youth culture.11
Ironically enough, this tendency was reinforced by the pedigreed separa-
tion of the generations in traditional Circassian society; even in modern
households today, it is deemed inappropriate for a daughter-in-law to initi-
ate conversation with the man of the house, for example.
This opening out to Turkey has continued apace, but after the break up
of the Soviet Union, there has also been a contrary process, as Circassians
have simultaneously closed in on themselves, renewing their culture, re-in-
vesting in its traditions, and re-forging a sense of national identity in de-
fiance of assimilationist tendencies and policies of Turkification. The pro-
cess was facilitated by easier travel to Sukhum, Maykop and Nalchik, by
the renewed possibility of direct dialogue between the ancestral homeland
and diasporic communities, and – as recently as 2013 – by the government’s
eventual acceptance of Abkhaz and Adygean as official minority languag-
es (it should be stressed that even those younger people to whom the lan-
guage is lost can preserve a cultural identity through investment in khabze).
This cultural renewal was no longer a matter of preservation but of recon-
struction, and the prime movers in the reconstruction were the Circassian
Associations. The associations were really products of the migration of Cir-
cassian populations to the cities, and they effectively set out to recreate the
villages within the cities by re-vivifying the culture, albeit in a newly ho-
mogenized form. There are more than sixty such associations in Turkey to-
11 Stephen Lovell, “From Genealogy to Generation: The Birth of Cohort Thinking in
Russia,” Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History, 9/3 (2008): 567–94.
24
