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<h1>Wells of Knowledge: <p>Streams of poetry, music and resistance in Turkey</h1>
<h2>Merve Kılıçer</h2>
<p><i>“If history writing does not emancipate, it must be serving tyranny.”
Cemal Kafadar, ‘Kendine ait bir Roma’, <sup>1</sup></i><br></p>

<p>
In 2012, rumors started circulating about a shopping mall to be built in the place of Gezi Park<sup>2</sup> near Taksim Square in Istanbul. It had been a while since the park had been in good shape, but it was the last bit of green space in the concrete face of our cosmopolitan home. The redevelopment project was called “Taksim Yayalaştırma Projesi” (project for the pedestrianization of Taksim) and the ruling government of Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi (justice and development party) was insistent on realizing it despite the opposition of Türk Mühendis ve Mimar Odaları Birliği (the union of engineering and architecture chambers) and organizations in solidarity against gentrification like Istanbul Kent Savunması (Istanbul city defence) and Taksim Dayanışması (Taksim solidarity). </p>
<p>
In fact, many protestors had resisted construction projects nearby that demolished historic buildings in the name of so-called urban transformation. Things started to intensify when Emek Sineması, an historic movie “palace,” was demolished to make way for a shopping mall in the spring of 2013 and more people started joining the environmentalist groups to raise awareness and prevent the destruction of this historical place. On the twenty-ninth of May, many people including myself were notified through friends and social media that the trees of Gezi Park were being uprooted by the construction company and that the police had attacked people who tried to resist them. When the police blocked all entrances to Taksim Square and the park, it marked the beginning of one of the biggest protests in the history of the Republic of Turkey (Öymen, 2020). Demonstrations started in Istanbul, around Taksim and spread across the country with the slogan “Her yer Taksim Her yer Direniş” (everywhere is Taksim, resistance everywhere). </p>
<p>
As I had spent most of my youth in Taksim, in the nearby neighborhood of Beyoğlu, and wasn’t going to remain seated while they unlawfully destroyed my home town, I was also on the streets with the protestors. After two days of protests and battles with the police, security forces finally stepped out, hence starting the two-week-long occupation of Taksim Square and Gezi Park<sup>3</sup>: during which the area became fully pedestrianized, and monetary exchange became unnecessary due to the donations of emerging solidarity movements. </p>
<p>
The occupation was an historic event for all of the country. It was like falling in love. It was terrifying. It was traumatizing. It took lives. And it brought lives together. It was a reverberation of those un/under/misrepresented by Turkey’s state governance. And we were clueless about where to go from there. I remember an international journalist asking me if the occupation was a political protest. I said, “No, there are no political parties behind this movement,” as my understanding of what politics could be was limited. At the time it had seemed that we were just an “apolitical generation” who rebelled out of nowhere, surprising the entire country.   </p>
<p>
After seven years, I’m still trying to figure out how and why we managed to come together. Surely protecting a green area that belonged to our home, protecting friends, and preventing the increasing level of oppression were my instinctive triggers. However, my real question is: how did the spirit of Gezi Park come to life?  </p>
<p>
In search of answers, this essay follows a path of folkloric production through the Gezi Park experience that relates to current political dynamics (Sakallıoğlu (1997), Bayket (2016)) and represents the different historical and ethnic communities of this land. The occupation brought together people from different economic backgrounds, ethnicities and beliefs, manifesting the idea that when we stand together we are heard. Together, our collective voice carried the tunes, rhythms and stories of Anatolia.4 While I have been listening closely to the echoes of this voice through cultural and folkloric production I asked myself: Could the accumulation of these voices and words be the substances that formed the Gezi spirit? What kind of knowledge do we inherit from the land of our roots? Which stories had we been raised with and how have they shaped our perception of the world and the “other” people we share it with? </p>
<p>
Learning and unlearning the tenets of my upbringing is an ongoing process of growth. At the park, we, the park commune, witnessed a clash between all the false and accurate knowledge we had been introduced to throughout our lives. This clash brought us a little closer to understanding the question of “what is political?” and how can we have our voice included to build a different future. Starting this research was not easy because history is always somehow mystified and obscured by state-related—deep/parallel/military—organizations (Sakallıoğlu (1997), Bayket (2016)). The type of historiography which glorifies nationalistic qualities is common all around the world and eliminates stories of minorities and critical thinking methods. To emancipate myself and my research practice, it has been meaningful to investigate the past through the folkloric productions that have reached our present day.</p>
<p>
This process has felt like looking down into a well with my eyes twinkling and trying to see the bottom. Instead, as I was looking at my reflection on the fluctuating surface of the deep dark water, I started listening to the memorized songs of my childhood years, looking into what or who they actually represent, and learning about the history of poetry, music and resistance. By following the development of oral and folkloric production, specifically storytelling traditions, I had access to an abundance of alternative streams of volatile knowledge5 that was previously hidden from me. </p>
<p id="textdedekorkut">
In most antique societies such as the Greek, Persian or Hittites, for the sake of memory, poetry and music develop in parallel with each other. The first poets of the nomadic Turkic tribes were shamans whom were named Kam, Baksı, and Ozan (Kuloğlu (2009), Bars (2018)), alongside many others. Before the state of Turkey, these shamanic figures were often wanderers or minstrels who traveled from land to land, chanting their own poems and those of their predecessors. They were storytellers who narrated with poetry, music and dance during ceremonies, a common method of preserving cultural knowledge that has remained part of our everyday lives.  </p>
<p id="textdadaloglu">
Kalktı Göç Eyledi Avşar Elleri,<br>
Ağır Ağır Giden Eller Bizimdir.<br>
Arap Atlar Yakın Eder ırağı,<br>
Yüce Dağdan Aşan Yollar Bizimdir.<br>
/<br>
Risen and migrated the Avşar tribes, <br>
The folk slowly moving is ours.<br>
Arabic horses render the distances close,<br>
The paths overrunning the mighty mountains are ours.<br>
<br>
Dadaloğlu, “Kalktı Göç Eyledi Avşar Elleri”<sup>6</sup>

</p>
<p>
The Islamic religion and culture spread through pre-republic Turkey with similar traditions of poetry, migrating from regions known today as Iran (Horasan) and Afghanistan. In time, many nomadic tribes of Central Asia with polytheistic beliefs, like the shamanic Tengriism<sup>7</sup>, started joining Islam as they shared a ritualistic way of relating with nature and the world beyond. Sufi teachings were being carried through the poetry and melodies of dervish followers and minstrels called Ashik who used similar musical instruments and poetic forms as the shamans had. It was through these figures, who improvised and chanted stories of the past and present, that Islamic myths and epic stories started spreading in Anatolia. When Ottoman rule first started spreading through the region in the thirteenth century, other Turkic dominions joined and gradually a powerful empire was born. <span id="textyunus">Newly-built Sufi schools <span id="textahmedY">and their follower Ashik figures had a key role in educating people and spreading specific rhetoric of Sufism. Some of the guiding figures and masters of this process were famous Islamic thinkers and folk poets such as Yunus Emre, and Hacı Bektaş-i Veli (Kuloğlu (2009), Bars (2018)) whom were greatly influenced by their revered predecessors Ahmed Yesevi </span> and Mevlana Celaleddin Rumi. </span>
A similar version of this musical chanting practice, along with poetry, made its way into the Ottoman Palace and helped create Ottoman classical music following the initiative of Sultans from different eras. In the palace, men were taught at the Enderun Saray Okulu (Enderun palace school) and women received musical training at Topkapı Saray Haremi (harem of Topkapı palace). These two paths of music and literature, in folkloric production and in palace music, led my curiosity and this research through different parts of history. It was only while researching the history of saray müziği (palace music) that I learned about the involvement of female musicians and their increased presence in the public sphere during the Western reform period of the Ottoman Empire. </p>

<p id="pir">
Bize de Banaz'da Pir Sultan derler<br>
Bizi de kem kişi bellemesinler<br>
Paşa hademine tembih eylesin<br>
Kolum çekip elim bağlamasınlar<br>
Hüseyin Gazi Sultan binsin atına<br>
Dayanılmaz çarh-ı felek zatına<br>
Bizden selâm söylen ev külfetine<br>
Çıkıp ele karşı ağlamasınlar<br>
/<br>
They call me Pir Sultan in Banaz<br>
Do not suppose I’m the sinister one<br>
Pasha should advise his servants <br>
Not to pull my arm and tie my hands<br>
May Hüseyin Gazi Sultan* ride his horse<br>
Irresistible to his çarh-ı felek** self<br>
Send our salutes to the burdened household<br>
They should not shed tears in the presence of strangers<br>
<br>
*An important Islamic war hero celebrated by the Bektaş-i Alevi community<br>
**The navy rifle that turns and sparks when lit<br>

Pir Sultan Abdal, “Bize de Banaz’da Pir Sultan derler”<sup>8</sup> <br>

</p>
<p>
In Anatolian lands, when the majority of people converted to Islam, it influenced how the Turkic languages<sup>9</sup> spread in the region and the way people related with their surroundings. Gradually, the Islamic lodges became institutional entities with political power within the Ottoman Empire. <span id="texthaci">The lodge of Hacı Bektaş-ı Veli had central importance for the Alevi<sup>10</sup> communities, with the Ashik tradition playing a key role in communicating their beliefs and world views. For instance, Pir Sultan Abdal, a dervish and poet, follower of Hacı Bektaş-ı Veli, became a political figure and defender of social equality with a critical approach towards the Ottoman Empire.</span> In fact, in Turkey, Alevi culture is often associated with socialist ideologies due to the similarities in their approach to commonality and thus has been systematically silenced under Ottoman rule for expressing critical views or starting riots against authority. The oppressive attitude of the ruling authorities towards Alevi communities has continued long since the collapse of the empire (Minority Rights Group International Report, 2007). </p>
<p>
After the fall of the Ottoman Empire following World War I, the folk of Anatolia, comprised of different ethnicities and cultures, came together in order to save the land from Western colonizers and to fight the War of Independence with the leadership of Atatürk, the founder of the Republic of Turkey. After negotiations with the invaders were complete and reforms were made through new laws (abolition of the Sultanate, terminating religious tariqas,<sup>11</sup> changing the alphabet and traditional clothing, etc.) the republic settled in order to start a new secular state (Ayvalıoğlu, 2012). The intention of forming a new country in Anatolia led the new state to evolve through nationalistic ideologies, ones which gradually eliminated the diverse fabric of the land. This politic was reflected in the themes of its anthems and torch songs that narrated epic stories about the war of independence and glorified the Turkish nation. With the arrival of new sound recording technologies (gramophones, phonographs) and communication lines (telegraph, radio) these ideologies quickly propagated throughout the country. However, despite the first radio broadcast airing in 1927, it was not until after the 1950’s that radio and the nationalistic propaganda it conveyed was able to reach all regions of central Anatolia.
</p>
<p>
The Westernization in music had already started in the last decades of the Ottoman Empire with European notation techniques being introduced to archive songs composed in the palace. During the first years of the new republic, the aforementioned radio broadcasts also had an important role in spreading the reforms of Westernization and educating the rural (folk) population. Even though Turkey was a so-called free republic, located at the crossroads of East and West, its urgent need to catch up with new technologies and the remaining debts of the Ottoman Empire rendered it vulnerable to cultural colonization.</p> <span id="textkaracaoglan"> <span id="textmuharrem">With the aim of defining the identity of “national music” from 1926 until the end of the 1940’s, trips were organized to archive (notate and record on vinyl) the cultural production in Anatolia. The archived content was used to teach Western-educated Turkish musicians to perform folkloric tunes that were broadcast on a few of the radio programs that transmitted folk music. At times, these programs invited Ashik figures to play live.</span> </span> <span id="textasikV">Ashik Veysel, one of the most famous Ashik of the late Ottoman and early republic times, was the only Ashik with Alevi roots to be played on the radio. Even though in the 1930’s he was given the title of “milli şair” (national poet of the state), his Alevi roots were still not recognized. In the 1940’s Veysel was teaching children to play cura12 at several “Village Institutes” spread throughout Anatolia. <sup>13</sup> There it’s said that he encountered Ruhi Su and many other musicians and intellectuals from Istanbul.</span>
</p>
<p id="textasikA">
The cultural production of those years can serve as a record of the political climate around the new republic. Starting from the 1950’s, Western-educated musicians like Ruhi Su, Tülay German, Sümeyra Çakır and Fikret Kızılok started combining folkloric tunes and themes with popular Western instruments and methods in order to stay connected to their roots. While Tülay German adopted folkloric songs into jazz tunes and collaborated with Ashiks that migrated to the city, Fikret Kızılok went to study with Ashik Veysel in Anatolia and made records with the songs of his mentor. This new approach was the result of the emigration of Anatolian folk (especially the minorities) to big cities to work in factories or study at universities and technical schools. Universities became the meeting point for Western-educated city youth and the Anatolian youth who were brought up with local traditions. This possibility of exchange created a synthesis of ideas, traditions and culture that then shaped the left- or right-winged political groups joining together in solidarity. The socialist movement of 1970’s Turkey was influenced by the neighboring Soviet Union, and it sided with the Kurdish and Alevi minorities who already had a history of disobedience and resistance through their preservation of cultural production, which propagate ideas of equality (Aysan, 2013). These leftist groups were showing resistance to the economic sanctions of the United States who had been providing financial support to Turkey. <span id="textneset">The folkloric music helped to create a bridge between urban intellectuals, factory workers (in Turkey and Europe) and farmers of the rural areas.</span></p>
<p id="textatilla">
Şenlik dağıldı bir acı yel kaldı bahçede yalnız <br>
O mahur beste çalar Müjgan’la ben ağlaşırız <br>
Gitti dostlar şölen bitti ne eski heyecan ne hız <br>
Yalnız kederli yalnızlığımızda sıralı sırasız<br>
O mahur beste çalar Müjgan’la ben ağlaşırız<br>
Bir yangın ormanından püskürmüş genç fidanlardı<br>
Güneşten ışık yontarlardı sert adamlardı<br>
Hoyrattı gülüşleri aydınlığı çalkalardı<br>
Gittiler akşam olmadan ortalık karardı<br>
Bitmez sazların özlemi daha sonra daha sonra<br>
Sonranın bilinmezliği bir boyut katar ki onlara <br>
Simsiyah bir teselli olur belki kalanlara<br>
Geceler uzar hazırlık sonbahara<br>
/<br>
The carnival has dispersed only a bitter breeze remained in the garden <br>
That Mahur tune plays Müjgan and I keep weeping<br>
Friends are gone the feast has ended old thrills are no more nor is the haste<br>
Solely mournful in our loneliness timely untimely<br>
That Mahur tune plays Müjgan and I keep weeping<br>
Young saplings they were erupted from a forest of fire<br>
They would sculpt the light from the sun they were tough men<br>
Their laughter was wild shaking the brightness of the day<br>
As they left it all went dark before the evening came<br>
The longing of the curas will not end then and then<br>
The obscurity of the afterwards adds a dimension to them<br>
And perhaps they become a pitch-black solace for the ones left behind<br>
Nights are getting longer preparation is for the fall<br>
<br>
Atilla İlhan, “Mahur”<sup>14</sup>
</p>
<p id="textasikM">
The resistance included many intellectuals and cultural workers who persistently retold the political history of their land through poetry. Musicians who adopted folkloric traditions used these same methods to pass on this knowledge and started to compose contemporary poetry into songs. <span id="textnazim">Poems of leftist intellectuals like Nazım Hikmet,<span id="textahmedA"> Ahmed Arif, Atilla İlhan and many more continued to be composed for decades by famous musicians in response to the local and global politics.</span> Still today young musicians, jazz soloists, rappers and pop singers voice the songs of famous Ashik figures or folkloric ballads in various styles and spread the voices of the Anatolian folk around the world (see, for example, the works of Selda Bağcan, Erkin Koray).</span> </p>
<p>
These songs carry not only the melodies and world views of important intellectuals but also the struggle and pain caused by political exiles, imprisonments, torture and executions in different stages of the history of Turkey. I would like to think of the telling of history through poetry and song as a cycle of growth that happens in our collective consciousness, and suddenly surfaces in moments like the Gezi Park Occupation. In this perspective, the spirit of Gezi Park is an accumulation of ideas and methods that flow through different streams of knowledge. It gets carried forward at moments and spaces of interaction by the audience, culture workers, and the creators who translate it to their era. </p>
<p>
The online map that you can reach through this publication creates a well of accessible knowledge gathered mostly through open sources. Short biographic information about names mentioned above and their proximity to or influence on other artists can be met through this online space. You can find more information about “Wells of Knowledge” at https://wellsofknowledge.wdka.nl/  </p>


<h2>Bibliography</h2>
<p>Books</p>

<p>Aysan, Y., 2013, “Let’s Go to Postering” 1963-1980: The Visual Journey of the Left. Istanbul: İletişim Publishing.</p>
<p>Kafadar, C., Kendine Ait Bir Roma - Diyar-ı Rum’da Kültürel Coğrafya ve Kimlik Üzerine (a Rome of one’s own: reflections on cultural geography and identity in the lands of rum). Istanbul: Metis Publishing, 2017.</p>
<p>Ortaylı, İ., Tarihimiz ve Biz (our history and us), 15th ed. Istanbul: Timaş Publishing, [2008] 2018.</p>
<p>Sayın, Z., Kötülük Cemaatleri (congregations of evil). Istanbul: Tekhne Publishing, 2016.</p>
<p>Articles, catalogues and compilations</p>
<p> Alpyıldız, E., “Yerelden ulusala taşınan müzik belleği ve yurttan sesler” (the memory of music carried from the local to the international and voices from the homeland). Milli Folklor (national folklore), year 24, issue 96, 2012. </p>
<p>Ayas, O. G., Kemalist Oryantalizm ve Osmanlı-Türk Müziği (Kemalist Orientalism and Ottoman-Turkish music). Muhafazakar Düşünce (conservative thinking), 2014: 189–212. </p>
<p>Ayvalıoğlu, N., “Cultural revolution of atatürk.” Psikoloji Çalışmaları (psychology studies), no. 15(0), 2012: 49–58. Retrieved from https://dergipark.org.tr/tr/pub/iupcd/issue/9418/118046 </p>
<p>Azar, B., “Sözlü kültür geleceği açışından türk saz şiiri (Turkish saz poetry in terms of oral culture future).” Fırat University Journal of Social Science, volume 17, no. 2, 2007: 119–33. </p>
<p>Bars, M.E., “Şamanizmden Tasavvufa” (from Shamanism to Sufism). Türkbilig, no. 36, 2018: 167–86.</p>
<p> Başer, F.A., 2006, Türk halk ve klasik müziklerinin oluşum ve ilişkilerine tarihten bakmak-1 (looking at the formation and relations of Turkish folk and classical music from history-1). Uluslararası insan bilimleri dergisi (international j 1303-5134.</p>
<p> Bayket, S., “The anatomy of a parallel state: Gülen’s FETÖ,” Hürriyet Daily News, August 18, 2016. Accessed December 20, 2020. https://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/the-anatomy-of-a-parallel-state-gulens-feto--102959 </p>
<p>Bir eşitlik arayışı: Türkiye’de azınlıklar - Rapor (a quest for equality: minorities in Turkey - report), September 2007, Minority Rights Group International. </p>
<p>Erensü, S., and Karaman, O., “The Work of a Few Trees: Gezi, Politics and Space.” International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 41(1), 2017: 19–36. DEPO (catalogue of exhibition and lecture series). Kind of Electricity Appeared in Outer Space: Musical Turkey in the 1960’s. Istanbul: Anadolu Kültür/Depo, 2012. </p>
<p> Göner, G., “Konargöçer Türkler kim?” (who are the nomad Turks?). Rusen, December 12, 2017. Accessed December 2020. http://www.rusen.org/konargocer-turkler-kim/ </p>
<p>Kaya, H., and Çeti̇n, N., “Pir Sultan Abdal’ın bir mecmuada yer alan şiirleri I” (Pir Sultan Abdal’s poems published in a journal I). HUMANITAS - Uluslararası Sosyal Bilimler Dergisi (Humanitas – international journal of social sciences), no. 4, volume 8, 2016: 131–56. DOI: 10.20304/humanitas.277542 </p>
<p>Koç, N., “Cumhuriyet’in ilk yıllarında radio” (radio in the first years of the republic). Cumhuriyet Tarihi Araştırmaları Dergisi (journal of republic history studies), year 8, issue 15, 2012. ISSN: 1305-1458 E-ISSN: 2147-1592</p>
<p> Köprülü, F., “Bektaşiliğin Menşe’leri” (the origins of bektashism). Türk Yurdu (Turkish homeland), no. 7, 1925. Accessed January 5, 2021. https://www.alevibektasi.eu/ </p>
<p>Kuloğlu, Ü., 2009, “Müzik: Türklerin anadolu öncesi müzik gelenekleri ve islamiyet etkisi” (Music: Pre-Anatolian musical traditions of Turks and the influence of Islam.). T.C. Kültür ve Turizm Bakanlığı Türkiye Kültür Portalı Projesi (T.R. Turkey's culture ministry of culture and tourism portal project), Ankara. </p>
<p>Öymen, Ö. K., “‘Gezi’ Türkiye’nin onurudur” (‘Gezi’ is the honor of Turkey). Cumhuriyet Newspaper, February 24, 2020. Accessed May 20, 2020. https://www.cumhuriyet.com.tr/yazarlar/orsan-k-oymen/gezi-turkiyenin-onurudur-1722887 </p>
<p>Özdamar, F., “Dede Korkut Kitabı’nın çağdaş müzik sanatçıları üzerindeki tesiri (the effect of the Dede Korkut book on contemporary music artists).” Mili Folklor, year 26, no. 101 (2014). ISSN 2146-8087. </p>
<p>Sakallıoğlu, Ü.C., “The Anatomy of the Turkish Military’s Political Autonomy.” Comparative Politics, vol. 29, no. 2 (January, 1997): 151–66. Accessed January 31, 2019. https://www.jstor.org/stable/422077</p>
<p> Sarı, Ç.G., “Osmanlı’dan Cumhuriyet’e kadın müzisyenler: Taş plak geleceğinde Lale ve Nerkis Hanımlar CD’si” (female musicians from the Ottoman Empire to the Republic: CD of Madame Lale and Nerkis in the future of stone records). Toplumsal Cinsiyet (gender), no. 6, 2013. </p>
<p>NTV Tarih Magazine, “Stüdyo Yapım-Proje (studio production project): Gezi 1-year anniversary print.” NTV Tarih Magazine, no. 1, (2014). Maslak, İstanbul: Doğuş Grubu İletişim Yayıncılık.</p>
<p>Millı̂ Folklor Araştırma Dairesi (folklore research office of Millî), Türk Folkloru Araştırmaları Yıllığı (almanac of Turkish folklore studies), 1975, Ankara: Ankara University Publishing House.</p>
<p>Uluskan, Seda Bayındır, Atatürk’ün sosyal ve kültürel politikaları (Atatürk’s social and cultural policies). Ankara: AKDTYK Atatürk Araştırma Merkezi (AKDTYK Atatürk research center), 2010.</p>

<p>Online platforms and resources </p>
<p>Ahmet Yesevi University, Turkish Literature Name Dictionary. Accessed January 5, 2021. http://teis.yesevi.edu.tr/madde-detay/asik-veysel-satiroglu</p>
<p>Bi’bak (have a look) video lecture series “Yerli Müzik” (local music). Recorded March 9, 2018. Accessed December, 2020. https://vimeo.com/bibak</p>
<p>Istanbul Research Institute, “History of the Taksim Promenade,” exhibition text, June 7, 2013. Accessed January 4, 2020. https://blog.iae.org.tr/en/other/history-of-the-taksim-promenade</p>
<p>Gezi için müzik / Music for Gezi, playlist. Accessed January 4, 2020, https://gezimusic.tumblr.com/playlist</p>
<p>Musiki Dergisi. Accessed January 5, 2021. http://www.musikidergisi.net/</p>
<p>Ottoman History Podcast, “Cemal Kafadar Between Past and Present, Part 2,” episode 474, September 2020. Accessed December 2020. http://www.ottomanhistorypodcast.com/2020/08/kafadar-2.html</p>



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