Dengbêj
Dengbêj is a Kurdish music genre and/or a singer of the music genre Dengbêj. Dengbêjs are singing storytellers. They sing about the Kurdish geography,[1] history, recent events, but also lullabies.[2] They sing mostly without instruments accompanying them.[3] Traditionally Dengbêjs need to first learn the Dengbêj songs from the ancestors before performing their own songs.[4] Well known Dengbêjs are Karapetê Xaço, Evdalê Zeynikî and[5] Sakîro.[6] In the 1980s the Dengbêjs were persecuted for singing in Kurdish as it was forbidden in Turkey to sing in Kurdish language.[7] In 1991, Turgut Özal achieved that the use of the Kurdish language became legal except for broadcast, publications, education and in politics.[8] Therefore, the Dengbêjs were again able to perform with more freedom. From 1994 onwards the Dengbêjs were supported by Kurdish politicians to attend festivals and TV shows out of Turkey and from the 2000s also inside Turkey. Therefore, the Dengbêj music became politicized and as a sign of Kurdishness, which confronted the Turkish nationalism.[9] Dengbêjs are viewed as a way to give on the traditions of their Kurdish ancestors it was not possible to publish in Kurdish or about Kurdish history.
References
- ^ Wendelmoet Hamelink, (2016), p. 110-112
- ^ Hamelink, Wendelmoet (2016). The Sung Home. Narrative, Morality, and the Kurdish Nation. Leiden: BRILL. pp. 381–395. ISBN 978-90-04-31482-5.
- ^ Özdemir, Ulas; Hamelink, Wendelmoet; Greve, Martin (2019-02-05). Diversity and Contact among Singer-Poet Traditions in Eastern Anatolia. Ergon Verlag. p. 41. ISBN 978-3-95650-481-5.
- ^ Hamelink, Özdemir, (2019), p. 42
- ^ Wendelmoet Hamelink, (2016), p. 209
- ^ Wendelmoet Hamelink, (2016), p. 210
- ^ Wendelmoet Hamelink, (2016), pp. 211-212
- ^ Romano, David; Romano, Thomas G. Strong Professor of Middle East Politics David (2006). The Kurdish Nationalist Movement: Opportunity, Mobilization and Identity. New York: Cambridge University Press. p. 55. ISBN 9780521850414.
- ^ Wendelmoet Hamelink, (2016), pp. 287-288