Relationship of History and Music: Traces of Historical Events in Kurdish Music and Evdalê Zeynikê

Abstract

History comes across as a product of the effort to create social memory, written or verbal. It is based on information and documents and avoids emotional biases. Music, on the other hand, is a multifaceted phenomenon and its aim to entertain shapes it. On one hand, it interprets emotions, and on the other hand it bears the social, cultural and historical codes of the society to which it belongs. For this reason, it is possible to discover specific details of historical events in the kilams/songs of dengbêjs, important exponents of the Kurdish music of orality. This study focuses on unveiling traces of historical events in the songs of the dengbêjs, in context of the relationship between history and music. Information and documents dealing with the Kozanoğlu events in kilam/songs are compared. A good example of the importance of the dengbêjs in Kurdish history is taken from when in the 19th century, the Ottoman state established a military unit called Fırka-i Islahiye as a part of its policy of asserting its full dominance in rural areas, and also to carry out compulsory resettlement policies. In order to support the operation, the Kurdish chief Sürmeli Memed Pasha set out, taking with him under his auspices Evdale Zeynikê, a dengbej singer. However, the Kurdish troops reaching Kozan were defeated due to the climatic conditions and the cholera epidemic. Witnessing all the events, Evdale Zeynikê sang kilam/songs for every stop on the route and on the death of the Pasha. Throughout this account, which is based in Kurdish culture and immured with a strong dengbêj tradition, it is possible to find details of Kurdish history in the kilams/songs of the dengbêjs.