Marco Conceptual

The political music tradition in Turkey, from which Kurdish protest and nationalistic music tradition partly derived in terms of ideation, approach, and style, started in the mid-1960s (Gündoğar, 2005, p. 28). In this respect, musical connection between Turkish public opposition and that of Kurdish was paralleled by the development of Turkish leftist and Kurdish leftist ethnonationalist movement. Turkish pop and rock music culture influenced by Western popular music had already established itself since the 1950s in Turkey when a reactionary movement that focused on combining folk music materials with popular music styles begun in 1960s (Gündoğar, 2005, p. 28). Ruhi Su, who received Western opera and vocal training in the 1940s, pioneered this movement by concentrating on Anatolian culture and folklore. Contrary to mainstream musical behavior, Su collected and compiled folk songs and sung them according to his educational background in the 1960s, as well as composing poems of Turkish poets such as Yunus Emre (1240?-1321?) and Pir Sultan Abdal (1480- 1550) and making songs regarding social issues. Revolutionary socialist ideas, a significant part of which was a reaction to western imperialism, that swept especially in urbanized areas in this period was another reason why folk culture, literature, and music was of great value to many intellectuals. By the early 1970s, folk songs referring to social injustices were important sources for a number of musicians’ music making strategies (Gündoğar, 2005, p. 29). Some modernized folk songs with new arrangements, instruments and vocal styles, and some created new songs that musically resemble folk songs, and some composed songs in popular music style but under the influence of musical texture of folk songs in many ways. The main themes were, accordingly, honor, fight against injustice, and virtue (Gündoğar, 2005, p. 29). In the 1970s, new themes about labor struggles and system of exploitation, troubles of urban life, financial uneasiness, gradually integrated into many songs in composed in various genres and rich musical instrumentation. New lyrics or completely new songs seeking a way out for better life and justice gradually replaced themes of many

folk songs that mostly centered on the expression of “that’s just the way it goes” (Gündoğar, 2005, p. 30). Critical but at the same time submissive discourse bowing solemnly to the inevitable yielded to a more aggressive and organizer discourse. Running in parallel with growing labor and socialist movements, many political organizations, parties and labor unions took advantage of these musicians and vice versa in various propaganda activities throughout the 1970s (Gündoğar, 2005, p. 31). These activities, and suchlike that socialist organizations arranged were going to be adapted more or less in the same way by Kurdish political movement in the following years. Late 1970s also witnessed Turkish musicians such as Melike Demirağ, who mentioned, albeit implicity, hardship of the eastern Turkey or women’s burden under feudal conditions (Gündoğar, 2005, p. 32).

Kurdish intelligentsia that begun to develop after the late 1950s were not much different than the Turkish leftist community regarding their approach to local culture. Kurdish music was mostly concealed and sequestered. The most important channel through which Kurdish music met with masses in Kurdish-inhabited areas in eastern and southeastern Turkey, as mentioned above, was a number of radio stations that partly broadcasted in Kurdish language outside Turkey. Even though there are few Kurdish music recordings made in the comparatively libertarian political conditions of the 1960s, and in the early 1970s, the performance of Kurdish music and the production and dissemination of Kurdish music recordings in Turkey were largely restricted, and record players and albums were both costly for the region’s economic circumstances and unsafe to possess. Eyşe Şan was one of the most important singers of this period who made Kurdish music recordings.

Music in Kurdish language was performed in clandestine settings or in remote rural and local areas. Musical culture of rural areas, on the other hand, was mostly degraded as the symbol of feudal structure by urbanized and educated Kurds. In the late 1960s, many Kurdish musicians started to perform Kurdish folk tunes with Turkish lyrics in radio stations of the TRT (Radio and Television Corporation of Turkey) found in Diyarbakır and Erzurum whose coverage was Kurdish-populated areas while many others were forced to relocate in neighboring countries and found relatively unconstrained circumstances in order to make their music heard through radios (Gündoğar, 2005 p. 34). Broadcasting recordings of many Kurdish singers who had died, in addition, radios enabled Kurdish music of previous years to reach

masses. Kurdish folk music or newly composed music resembling traditional Kurdish tunes mostly dominated the radio repertory of this time. Rediscovery of folk music in the 1970s generated a new type of commercial behavior in which many musicians collect Kurdish folk songs to perform them with newly written Turkish lyrics (Gündoğar, 2005, p. 34). With the fresh dynamism of Kurdish opposition movement in the late 1960s created musical gatherings called Dayanışma Geceleri (Solidarity Nights) organized by Kurdish students and notables in several Kurdish cities in which many Kurdish singers performed Turkish versions of Kurdish songs. Nascent tradition of protest and political music that was rooted in folk music and literature in Turkey, in addition, also began to transform Kurdish music that centered on Kurdish identity and nationalism. The breakaway of Kurdish national movement from Turkish leftist movements in political arena after mid-1970s (following the amnesty of 1974) planted the seeds of a musical movement that sprung from Kurdish language, culture, national symbols, along with the lexicon and sociopolitical philosophy of Marxism and socialism (Gündoğar, 2004, p. 97; 2005, p. 36). Significant portion of musical language of this new genre, in addition, was influenced by Turkish and a number of protest music traditions across the world, and political propaganda and nation-building efforts spreaded through and teamed up with cultural regeneration movement. Şivan Perwer is probably the strongest figure that marked the beginning and progression of this musical movement, as will be discussed below.