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The Azerbaijani ˓Āshiq and His Performance of a Dāstān

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Charlotte F. Albright
Charlotte F. Albright*
Affiliation:
University of Washington
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Extract

In cities, towns, and villages throughout Iranian Azerbaijan ˓āshiqs (professional poet-musicians) entertain audiences in coffee houses and at weddings. ˓Āshiqs compose and perform songs in a variety of poetic forms. The longest of these forms is the oral narrative poem called the dāstān in the Azeri dialect of Turkish. In his presentation of these tales, the ˓āshiq observes a standard protocol, yet within this established format, he has room to improvise, to stretch some segments of his entertainment or to cut other parts short. It is this flexibility within the framework of an established presentation format that keeps these oral narrative poems from growing stale in the mind of the performer and in the perception of the audience.

This paper will briefly describe the ˓āshiq, his training and performance. Then, one segment of a dāstān will be analyzed to show what its components are, and how they can be manipulated by the performer.

Type
Articles
Information
Iranian Studies , Volume 9 , Issue 4 , Autumn 1976 , pp. 220 - 247
Copyright
Copyright © Association For Iranian Studies, Inc 1976

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References

Notes

1. Pronounced āshɨg in Azerbaijan. In Turkey, the same word with Turkish orthography, aṣɨk, is used.

2. This paper is based in part on my dissertation, “The Music of Professional Musicians of Northwest Iran (Azerbaijan),” University of Washington, 1976. The information obtained is the result of work done with ˓Āshiq Dihqān in Rezaiyeh and ˓Āshiq Rasūl in Tabriz.

3. Today, Azeri-speaking people live in the Soviet Socialist Republic of Azerbaijan, portions of eastern Turkey adjacent to Iran, and the provinces of East and West Azerbaijan in Iran. Although much of what I say here is applicable to Soviet Azerbaijan as well as to Iranian Azerbaijan, it should be understood that I have first-hand knowledge of the latter area only.

4. The Azerbaijani sāz is a long-necked, fretted, plucked lute of approximately 106 cm. length, having nine stell strings divided into three courses. Tunings vary, but the most common tuning is one in which the two lower courses are tuned one whole tone lower than the high course, for instance, f, f, g. ˓Āshiq Dihqān, a well-known performer in Rezaiyeh, removes the two strings from his sāz's middle course which are closest to the high-pitched course. This, in effect, gives him two courses: one 4-stringed low course tuned to f, and one 3-stringed high course, tuned to g. This is the tuning used in the musical example “Dubayt” (Ex. 1), and one can see that the f course is played as an open string drone, while the g course is the melody course.

5. Slobin, Mark “Instrumental Music in Northern Afghanistan” (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Michigan, UM 7014644, 1969), p. 199.Google Scholar

6. Blum, Stephen “The Concept of the ˓Āsheq in Northern Khorasan,” Asian Music, Vol. V, No. 1 (1972), pp. 27-33.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

7. See San˓an M. Sadik, “Azerbaycan Saz Şairleri,” Azerbaycan Yurt Bilgisi, Vol. I, No. 2, pp. 55-9.Google Scholar

8. Boratav, Pertev Naili “L'Epopee et la ‘Hikaye,’” in Philologiae Turcicae Fundamenta (Franz Steiner Verlag, 1965), p. 34.Google Scholar

9. Basgoz, İlhan “Turkish Folk Stories about the Lives of Minstrels,” Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 65 (1965), p. 332.Google Scholar

10. ˓Āshiq Josef makes a point of being called “Josef” instead of “Yūsuf” because he is Assyrian.

11. Basgoz, İlhan “Turkish Hikaye-Telling Tradition in Azerbaijan, Iran,” Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 83, No. 330 (October-December 1970), p. 394.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

12. Caferoglu, Ahmet “Die Aserbaidschanische Literatur,” in Philologiae Turcicae Fundamenta (Franz Steiner Verlag, 1965), p. 645.Google Scholar

13. Boratav, “L'Epopee et al ‘Hikaye,’” p. 30.

14. Lewis, Geoffrey The Book of Dede Korkut (Harmondsworth, England: Penguin, 1974), p. 18.Google Scholar

15. Boratav, “L'Epopee et al ‘Hikaye,’” p. 24.

16. In Azerbaycan Khalg Dastanlarɨ (Compiled and edited by Tehmasib, M. H. and Araslɨ, H. Baku, Elm Publishing House, 1972)Google Scholar over one-hundred dāstāns are summarized.

17. Caferoglu, “Die Aserbaidschanische Literatur,” p. 646.

18. Lord, Alfred B. The Singer of Tales (New York: Atheneum, 1970), p. 13.Google Scholar

19. Other accounts give the following information about ˓Abbās:

One morning ˓Abbās swooned and yellow bubbles started foaming out of his mouth. The people of the village did not know what to think until an old lady recognized this affliction as a sign of hak vergisi (the true gift). She added that he could only be cured if a small sāz were put into ˓Abbās's hands. Her son fetched such an instrument and no sooner was it placed in ˓Abbās's hands, than he awoke and began to play. Later, ˓Abbās became enamored of Peri, a beautiful Tabrizi girl. He had to endure many hardships to win her hand.

(This passage was translated and paraphrased from Caferoglu, Ahmet “XVI-ɨncɨ asɨr Azeri Sazşairlerinden Tufarganlɨ Abbas,” Azerbaycan Yurt Bilgisi, Vol. I, No. 10 (1932), pp. 98-101.Google Scholar) Another variant of the story was related by aṣɨk Dursun Cevlani in 1960 in Turkey and was given to me by Professor Başgöz:

˓Abbās was the son of a wealthy merchant in Tufargān in Azerbaijan. He lost his father at seven years of age. At fourteen he was offered a love potion in a dream and, as a result, fell in love with Peri Khānum, the daughter of Bahman Shāh. ˓Abbās left his family to find her. Meanwhile, Peri was also given a love potion in a dream, and she fell in love with ˓Abbās. She waited for ˓Abbās to come for her. After a long journey, ˓Abbās arrived at the palace in which Peri lived and revealed himself to her in a song. ˓Abbās stayed on in Bahman Shah's palace as a mînstrel.

Shah Abbas, the Shah of Iran, was told of the beauty of Peri and had her brought to his court in Isfahan so that he could marry her. ˓Abbās Tufargānli followed. In the presence of Shah Abbas he solved a number of difficult riddles, answered questions, and proved that he had the supernatural quality of a God-inspired ˓āshiq. Moreover, he proved that he and Peri were destined to marry one another because of their holy dreams; they were hak aṣɨkɨ (supernaturally ordained ˓āshiqs). Shah Abbas finally consented to their marriage, and they live happily ever after.

20. “Mi˓rāj” originally meant “ladder,” i.e., the ladder to which the eyes of dead men turned and by which their souls ascended to heaven (Gibb, H. A. R. Shorter Encyclopedia of Islam [Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 1953], p. 382.)Google Scholar

21. Mr. Ismā˓īl ˓Alī Faqīh of Tabriz gave me a great deal of assistance in translating my tapes of this dāstān.

22. Başgöz, İlhan “The Tale Singer and his Audience,” Folklore Communication and Performance (Mouton, 1975), pp. 143-203.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

23. Pitches underlined are in the octave below Middle C. Pitches with an apostrophe are in the octave above and including Middle C.

24. Azerbaijani Turkish is primarily a spoken language in Iran. When written, its script is Arabic. Azerbaijani is written in Cyrillic in the Soviet Union. Thus, I have devised my own transliteration for the “Mi˓rājnāmah.” Generally, I have transliterated the poem as if it had been originally written in Arabic script. I have then added umlauts and the ɨ sound wherever necessary. In cases where the spoken language differs from the standard Turkish written form (Ex. arannar in Line 1 instead of erenler), I have used the former.

25. This translation would have been impossible without the patient assistance of ˓Āshiq Dihqān, Ismā˓īl ˓Alī Faqīh, and Hasan Zarīfī, all Iranian Azeri-Turkish speakers, and Dr. Walter Andrews, of the University of Washington, Seattle.

26. The unintelligible portions occur here because ˓Āshiq Dihqān periodically sang facing away from the microphone at the far end of the coffee house.

27. See examples of various poem forms in Āshɨg Elesker, compiled by Eleskerov, 2 vols. (Baku: Elm Publishers, 1972).Google Scholar

28. The number of syllables in lines 1 to 42 of the poem is fairly uniform. Except for lines 13, 14, 21, 22, 23, 27, 28, and 42, all the full lines contain sixteen syllables and the half lines eight syllables. The last half of the poem, however, is quite irregular.

29. Beliaev, Viktor M. Central Asian Music, Translated by Greta, and Slobin, Mark (Middletown, Conn.: Wesleyan University Press, 1975), pp. 19, 78.Google Scholar

30. Gibb, H. A. R. and Kramers, J. H. Shorter Encyclopedia of Islam (Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 1953), pp. 381-2.Google Scholar

31. Ibid., p. 382.

32. Grube, Ernst J. The World of Islam (London: Hamlin, 1967), pp. 94-5.Google Scholar

33. Pavet de Courteille, translator, Miradj-Nameh, after a Uighur manuscript in the Bibliotheque Nationale, Libraire de la Societe Asiatique (Paris, 1882), pp. 2-3.Google Scholar

34. See picture in Rogers, Michael The Spread of Islam (Oxford: Elsevier-Phaidon, 1976), p. 33.Google Scholar

35. Gibb, 1953, p. 383.

36. Pavet de Courteille, p. 15.