Spaces of Intercommunal Musical Relations in Ottoman Istanbul

Year 2019, , 181 - 189, 27.12.2019

Panagiotis C. Poulos

https://doi.org/10.53979/yillik.2019.11

Abstract

The overall aim of this article has been to address those understated intermediary spaces
that were produced in the context of musical interaction among the various communities
residing in Istanbul in the Ottoman era. The underpinning theme in defining those spaces
and tracing their dynamic trajectory throughout the history of the city has been the quest
for voicing the diverse elements that composed them. This task has shown that the internal
stratification of communities was often quite more multifaceted than previously thought
and that the subsequent layers are not always easily traceable. As demonstrated, the internal
diversity of communities was based both on the cultural and the social background of its
members. Moreover, the makeup of each community and its musicians was constantly
renewed through immigration. A consequent challenging question that needs to be
addressed is whether and how this diversity was expressed in musical terms.

Keywords

ottoman music, Istanbul, communal, space

Osmanlı İstanbul'unda Cemaatler Arası Müzik İlişkileri Mekânları

Abstract

Bu makale, Osmanlı İstanbul'unda farklı cemaatler arası müzikal ilişkiler kurulmasına izin veren mekânların izini sürmektedir.

Keywords

osmanlı müziği, mekân, İstanbul, cemaatler

References

• 1 Walter Feldman, Music of the Ottoman Court: Makam, Composition and the Early Ottoman Instrumental Repertoire, Intercultural Music Studies 10 (Berlin: VWB- Verlag für Wissenschaft und Bildung, 1996), 52-54.
• 2 This essay has been republished, see Cem Behar, “Müziğin Mekân Boyutu (Bir Oda Müziği: Geleneksel / Osmanlı Türk Musıkisi),” in Osmanlı Türk Musıkisinin Kısa Tarihi, ed. Cem Behar (Istanbul: YKY, 2015), 43-66.
• 3 Ibid., 43
• 4 Halil İnalcık, Has-bağçede ‘Ayş u Tarab. Nedîmler, Şâîrler, Mutrîbler (Istanbul: Türkiye İş Bankası Kültür Yayınları), 281-292.
• 5 Feldman, Music of the Ottoman Court, 93-102. For the participation of Mevlevi musicians in the Ottoman Court, see in particular, 93-94.
• 6 Shirine Hamadeh, The City’s Pleasures: Istanbul in the Eighteenth Century (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2004), 11, 56, 75.
• 7 Cem Behar, Şeyhülislam’ın Müziği. 18. Yüzyılda Osmanlı/Türk Musıkisi ve Şeyhülislâm Esad Efendinin Atrabül-âsârı (Istanbul: YKY, 2010), 172; Bülent Aksoy, Geçmişin Musıki Mirasına Bakışlar (Istanbul: Pan, 2008), 32-33.
• 8 Georgina Born, “Introduction – Music, Sound and Space. Transformations of Public and Private Experience,” Music Sound and Space: Transformations of Public and Private Experience, ed. Georgina Born (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), 16, 17.
• 9 Born, Music Sound and Space, 20.
• 10 A detailed analysis of the importance of the subject as well as a detailed review of intercommunal musical relations in Ottoman/Turkish music is beyond the scope of this article. For a brief summary of recent publications and research topics, see Panagiotis C. Poulos, “Greek Orthodox Music in Ottoman Istanbul: Nation and Community in the Era of Reform, by Merih Erol,” Middle Eastern Studies 53, no. 4 (2017): 673-675. In addition, for a critical discussion of the construction of the category ‘minority musician’ in modern Turkish historiography on Ottoman music, see Panagiotis C. Poulos, “Greeks and Turks Meet the Rum: Making Sense of the Sounds of ‘Old Istanbul,’” in When Greeks and Turks Meet: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on the Relationship since 1923, ed. Vally Lytra (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2014), 88–91. 11 Feldman, Music in the Ottoman Court, 48-49.
• 12 Rifa’at ‘Ali Abou-El-Haj, Formation of the Modern State: The Ottoman Empire, Sixteenth to Eighteenth Centuries (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 2005), 86-92.
• 13 Maureen Jackson, Mixing Musics: Turkish Jewry and the Urban Landscape of a Sacred Song (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2013). For various recent contributions on the study of the ‘Phanariot song’ tradition see in particular, Julia Hatzipanagioti-Sangmeister et al., eds., Phanariotika kai astika stichourgimata stin epochi tou Ellinikou Diaphotismou [Φαναριώτικα και αστικά στιχουργήματα στην εποχή του Ελληνικού Διαφωτισμού] (Athens: Academy of Athens and University of Cyprus, 2013).
• 14 Jacob Olley, Writing Music in Nineteenth-Century Istanbul. Ottoman Armenians and the Invention of the Hampartzum Notation (PhD diss., King’s College London, 2017), 181.
• 15 Bülent Aksoy, “Tanzimat’tan Cumhuriyet’e Musıki ve Batılılaşma,” in Tanzimat’tan Cumhuriyet’e Türkiye Ansiklopedisi, ed. Murat Belge and Fahri Aral (Istanbul: İletişim Yayınları, 1985), 122.
• 16 Onur Öner, “A Collective Biography Study of Musicians: Patterns, Networks and Music as a “Profession” in the Late Ottoman Era and the Early Republican Years in Istanbul” (PhD diss., Istanbul Şehir University, 2019), 131-333. For the general picture of the Istanbul’s urban transformation in the eighteenth century, see also Hamadeh, The City’s Pleasures.
• 17 Cem Behar, Musıkiden Müziğe. Osmanlı/Türk Müziği: Gelenek ve Modernlik (Istanbul: YKY, 2015), 23–24. For the concept of cultural broker in this particular context, see Henk Driessen, “Mediterranean Divides and Connections: The Role of Dragomans as Cultural Brokers,” in Agents of Transculturation: Border-crossers, Mediators, Go-betweens, ed. Sebastian Jobs and Gesa Mackenthun (Münster, New York, München, Berlin: Waxmann, 2013), 25-38.
• 18 For an annotated edition of the two folk songs and an analytical discussion on their possible sources and transmission, see Panagiotis C. Poulos, “Μεταξύ Π. Νικουσίου και Α. Μαυροκορδάτου: o Wojciech Bobowski/Ali Ufkî (1610;-1675) και οι διαπολιτισμικές σχέσεις των διερμηνέων της Υψηλής Πύλης,” Proceedings of the International Conference Από τη Χίο στην Πόλη και από εκεί στη Μολδοβλαχία. Η αρχή μιας δυναστείας: Αλέξανδρος ο Εξ Απορρήτων (1641-1709) και Νικόλαος, Ηγεμόνας Μολδοβλαχίας (1680-1730), ed. Nicolaos Mavrelos (Athens: Gutenberg, forthcoming).
• 19 Tahir Sezan, Osmanlı Yer Adları (Alfabetik Sırayla) Yayın Nu. 21, T.C. Başbakanlık Devlet Arşivleri Genel Müdürlüğü, Ankara, 2006, p. 342. 20 Apart from the intriguing cross-cultural and spatial aspects of the abovementioned encounters, we should not underestimate their musical value. Although these two Greek folk songs are certainly exceptional with regard to their origin and quantity, the overall inclusion of folk material in Ali Ufkî’s collections is important in the wider discussion of the historical processes in Ottoman music from the seventeenth century onwards.
• 21 Abou-El-Haj, Formation of the Modern State, 86-89.
• 22 Feldman, Music of the Ottoman Court, 61. For a recently organized academic meeting on this topic visit https://nyuad.nyu.edu/en/events/2018/february/a-locally-generated-modernity-the-ottoman-empire-in-the-long-18t.html, accessed June 11, 2019.
• 23 Panagiotis C. Poulos, “At the House of Kemal: Private Musical Assemblies in Istanbul from the Late Ottoman Empire to the Turkish Republic,” Theory and Practice in the Music of the Islamic World: Essays in Honour of Owen Wright, ed. Rachel Harris and Martin Stokes (London: Routledge, 2017), 109-110.
• 24 Öner, A Collective Biography, 131-333.
• 25 Bruce Masters, Christians and Jews in the Ottoman Arab World: The Roots of Sectarianism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2004), 8.
• 26 Bjørn Thomassen, “Anthropology and its Many Modernities: When Concepts Matter,” The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 18, no. 1 (2012): 163-164.
• 27 For a thorough comparison of the use of garden in the Phanariot literature and the Ottoman lyrical poetic tradition, see Matthias Kappler, “Two Cities of Beloveds, One Garden of Love: The Case of Erotos Apotelesmata,” Φαναριώτικα και αστικά στιχουργήματα στην εποχή του Ελληνικού Διαφωτισμού, ed. Julia Hatzipanagioti–Sangmeister et al. (Athens: Academy of Athens and University of Cyprus, 2013), 103-105.
• 28 Ibid., 89, 90, 91.
• 29 Anteia Frantzi, “Εισαγωγή,” in Μισμαγιά. Ανθολόγιο φαναριώτικης ποίησης κατά την έκδοση Ζήση Δαούτη, ed. Anteia Frantzi (Athens: Estia, 1993[1818]), 29–30. On the transition from the handwritten to the print mismagia, see also Julia Hatzipanagioti-Sangmeister, “Old Tunes, New Tones: (Re-)Defining the “Phanariot Verses” of the Greek Enlightenment,” The Historical Review/La Revue Historique 10 (2013): 170-171.
• 30 Katy Romanou, Great Theory of Music by Chrysanthos of Madytos (New Rochelle: The Axion Estin Foundation, 2010).
• 31 Hâşim Bey, Mecmû‘â-ı kârhâ ve nakışhâ ve şarkıyât, (Dersaadet [Istanbul], 1269/1852-1853).
• 32 Olley, Writing Music in Nineteenth-Century Istanbul, 85.
• 33 Ibid., 126
• 34 For a preliminary comparison of the Greek musical collections and important remarks concerning their content and lines of transmission, see Cem Behar, Musıkiden Müziğe, 244-268.
• 35 Ioannis G. Zographos, Απάνθισμα ή Μεδζμουαϊ μακαματ περιέχον μεν διάφορα τουρκικά άσματα (Istanbul, 1856).
• 36 In fact, both in the first and the second editions of his collection, Zographos reproduces a theoretical section on rhythmic cycle from Haşim Bey’s mecmua as an introductory guide to the notated pieces.
• 37 For a reference to non-Muslim musical house gatherings in Istanbul, see Balıkhane Nazırı Ali Rıza Bey, Eski Zamanlarda İstanbul Hayatı, ed. Ali Şükrü Çoruk (Istanbul: Kitabevi, 2001), 175.
• 38 For a critical remark on the issue of the Greek-Jewish musical relations and the possible lines of repertoire transmission and interaction, see Behar, Musıkiden Müziğe, 265.
• 39 For the ideological debate on music and its origins in the Greek Orthodox community of Istanbul, see Merih Erol, Greek Orthodox Music in Ottoman Istanbul: Nation and Community in the Era of Reform (Bloomington: Indiana University Press), 2015.
• 40 Alexandros Paspatis, Υπόμνημα περί του Γραικικού Νοσοκομείου των Επτά Πύργων, 276.
• 41 Skarlatos D. Vyzantios, Η Κωνσταντινούπολις. Περιγραφή Τοπογραφική, Αρχαιολογική και Ιστορικ, vol. A´ (Athens, 1862), 278-279. See F. Melike Sümertaş’s review essay in this issue on the 2019 edition of Vyzantios/Byzantios’ book.
• 42 Cem Behar, A Neighborhood in Ottoman Istanbul: Fruit Vendors and Civil Servants in the Kasap İlyas Mahalle (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2003).
• 43 Öner, A Collective Biography, 19, 143.
• 44 Ruhi Kalender, “Yüzyılımızın Başlarında Istanbul’un Musiki Hayatı” AÜIFD 23 (1978): 411-444.
• 45 Ibid., 144.
• 46 Onur Öner’s recently completed doctoral dissertation addresses these kinds of research questions.
• 47 The geographical limits of the Greek community that the registry reflects points presumably to the parish’s 1904 regulation, according to which the limits of the community were extending further north up to Pangaltı and Dolapdere. See Soula Bozi, Ο Ελληνισμός της Κωνσταντινούπολης. Κοινότητα Σταυροδρομίου-Πέραν, 19ος-20ος αιώνας (Athens: Ellinika Grammata, 2002), 78–79. Hence, there are streets appearing as belonging to certain neighbourhoods but are located far out of their standard limits.
• 48 Based on the previous note and on further evidence related to the street layout within the registry, Mumhane Sokak, which in the registry appears to belong to the Hüseyin Ağa neighborhood, is most possibly identified with Mumhane Sokak in Tatavla (nowadays Küçük Mumhane Sokak in Kocatepe/Beyoğlu), Jacques Pervititch Sigorta Haritalarında İstanbul / Istanbul in the Insurance Maps of Jacques Pervititch (Istanbul: Axa Oyak-Tarih Vakfı Yayınları, 2000), 82.
• 49 For a study on the demography of the Hüseyin Ağa neighborhood in Beyoğlu in the late Ottoman period and particularly on the impact of immigration from various places of the Empire and of Greece on the established household patterns of the Greek community, see Meropi Anastassiadou, “Greek-Orthodox Households in Istanbul (19th-20th Centuries): Social and Demographic Trends,” in Economy and Society in Both Shores of the Aegean, ed. Lorans Tanatar Baruh and Vangelis Kechriotis (Athens: Alpha Bank Historical Archives, 2010), 420.
• 50 Dates are presumably noted according to the Rumi calendar.
• 51 In the original, the names of places are written in the following forms: Σηλυβρία, Κωνσταντινούπολη, Τσατάλτζα and Προύσα. For presentation reasons the Turkish names are adopted.
• 52 This example of potentially subsequent generations of professional musicians (father-son) points to the need for a more careful examination of the overall list of the musicians and their fathers (fig. 1) in order to identify cases of known musicians from other sources.