Past and Present

In Izmir, I had met Toba and Kursat Terci. Toba was the cousin of Cem, whose house I stayed at in Canakkale, with his wife Basak and son Dogu. That night, Toba, Kursat, me and two of their friends were all sitting on the grass of a factory turned public space. The old windows of the brick buildings were lit up in a soft red, and it gave the sprawling place an eerie congruity. It reinforced that it was out of use, but now used for something entirely different. A good use I think-cafes and an outdoor stage, where acts played in open air concerts.
The band playing that night was a jazz quartet. They were playing standards and the woman singing was belting them out in a loud, smoky, Turkish accented English. The band was alright, but they were missing the backbeat, the subtle force that makes us Americans unique in the music world.
I was to there to meet Kursat, who was a classical guitar teacher at the university, and it would be a possible chance to track down some Turkish instruments. The plan for the next day was that we head to the university and go to the traditional Turkish and folk music section of the conservatory. There we could watch luthiers making hand made traditional instruments, and meet some of the teachers and students of these musical forms. Kursat, however, let me know that his school, the western classical section, was kept ideologically separated from the traditional school. He said professors and students of these schools rarely interacted and shared their music. And he explained how it actually was related to the political history of the young Turkish republic:
Bear in mind I don’t have a perfect memory-far from it- and that this is nowhere near an exhaustive history; But he explained it something like this:
The long and incredibly varied history of these lands is reflected in the dozens of folk forms found in Turkey. Influences come from all around this region, incorporated over the last few thousand years. About 700 years ago, the Ottoman empire tightened it’s grip on the surrounding area, and maintained that grip for 600 years. The breadth of the empire, consisting of present day Greek, Persian, Middle East, Arabian, and North African lands, influenced the Ottoman culture, and you see that reflected even today in the food, music and traditions of the Turkish people.
Over time, and especially during the very complicated political events of the late 19th century, into the 20th and in large part because of the first world war, the Ottoman empire dwindled, and was and sectioned off by European powers (pick up a history book for this part). The dramatic beginnings of the Turkish republic involved Ataturk and his army essentially saving Istanbul and Thrace- the remaining parts of the once huge Ottoman empire- from attacking Greek and European powers, along with the remnants of the defeated Ottoman rulers. These dramatic years alone are a source of great pride for many Turks, not to mention what he did afterwards, and what lead Turks to claim Ataturk as the father of their nation.
He then, in the 1920‘s, instituted major reforms, such as outlawing Arabic and creating a roman based Turkish alphabet. Also making the new government secular, breaking with the religious rulers of the past, outlawing the traditional Islamic dress of men and women, and giving women the right to vote before European nations did the same. It didn’t stop there. It was a sudden and forceful shift, and essentially a shift towards the west.
And, as Kursat explained, the political necessities of the new republic- when Ataturk founded a new state going away from the traditions of the past- made it necessary for Turkey to look away from it’s traditions and folk forms a little. In the supposed interest of a successful nation, Ataturk banned many traditional Turkish cultural expressions. Kursat further explained that folk music, and the music of the Ottoman empire, was not as valued as before, and sometimes associated with the “sick man of Europe”, as the Ottoman Empire grew to be known in the late 19th century. So entered western classical music, among other forms of western music. The changes instituted in the 20’s made it possible for these forms to thrive here, while certain folk forms languished.
But now, he said, this was changing, and as an example, he used the folk section of the conservatory. This was a relatively new idea in a major university, and there was now a struggle to reconcile the paths of these two very different musical forms in the school. Now, he said, Turkish people were reaching back to their roots, and becoming more interested in the folk music. He thought this was necessary- to reconcile these two histories, these two ideas. So as good as this was, the intentions and ideologies of the two sections of his school were still at odds. He said that most people in the two respective schools didn’t interact with the other, and the sharing of knowledge between the schools was limited.
He related this to present day Turkey, where people are proudly reaching back to their roots, while at the same time reaching towards the west, EU accession being the prime issue.
The way I made sense of it, it seemed that now that the Turkish people have a functioning, stable and in many ways self sufficient country has allowed them to look back and be proud of who they are, but they still have to contend with an ever changing world. One in which the ideas and money of the west are always beckoning from next door.