Panayotis League “Çeçen Kızı:

Tracing a Tune through the

Ottoman Ecumene”
Çeçen Kızı: Tracing a Tune through the Ottoman Ecumene

Panayotis League

Between 1910 and 1914, the great multi-instrumentalist and composer of

Ottoman classical music Tanburi Cemil Bey made 181 wax cylinder
recordings for Julius and Hermann Blumenthalʼs Istanbul-based Orfeon
Records, a subsidiary of Odeon and later of Columbia Records. One of
these recordings was of a moderate tempo dance tune reminiscent of
Anatolian village music, a rarity in Cemil Beyʼs catalogue of predominantly
classical pieces and non-metered taksim or modal improvisations. The
selection was released as a 78 rpm disc stamped with the title Çeçen Kızı
– “Chechen Girl”- and became a success among Turks, Greeks,
Armenians, and other aficionados of Ottoman music within and outside
the waning empire; the virtuosic ease with which Cemil Bey plays the
notoriously difficult kemençe, an upright three-stringed fiddle, has been a
source of wonder and inspiration for generations of students and lovers of
Near-Eastern music.

Indeed, the tune has become an undeniable standard of the Ottoman

classical repertoire in the century since it was recorded by the eccentric
genius. This is perhaps due to kemençe and tanbur virtuoso Ihsan Özgen
(b. 1942), widely considered Cemil Beyʼs successor and a mentor to many
of the current stars of Turkish classical music, who kept Çeçen Kızı as a
standard part of his concert and recording repertoire and taught it to his
students as a hüseyni oyun havası – a dance tune in the makam or mode
hüseyni – whose form makes it ideal for use as a transitional piece in a set
of light classical music.[1] The Turkish classical music community at large
seems to take the melodyʼs authorship by Cemil Bey for granted, and
appears to have done so ever since a transcription of the recording was
first published in 1919 by Istanbul musician Kemal Emin Bara and
Armenian luthier Onnik Zadurian (Example 1).[2] Nearly every extant
edition of Ottoman classical music scores includes it, listed either as
Çeçen Kızı or Hüseyni Oyun Havası (or both), and it is always presented as
a Cemil Bey composition. Every source for Turkish classical music scores
on the Internet similarly attributes the melody to Cemil Bey,[3] and the
essay by Harold G. Hagopian and Ercüment Aksoy in the liner notes to
Cemil Beyʼs re-mastered recordings expressly mentions the piece as one
of his compositions.[4] YouTube returns, at the time of writing, hundreds
of results for the title Çeçen Kızı; nearly half of the videos are
performances of the melody originally recorded by Cemil Bey, with
versions ranging from solo ud recitals to avant-garde Turkish jazz, and
nearly all of them list Cemil Bey as the composer.

Example 1 – “Çeçen Kızı” as recorded by Tanburi Cemil Bey (Bara and

Zadurian, 39).

There are a number of reasons to question whether Cemil Bey actually

composed the melody, which I will examine in the rest of this article, and
they lead us on a fascinating journey through the musical, social, and
political history of modern Greece, Turkey, and the Balkan peninsula. Just
as compelling, though, are the questions raised by the fact that Cemil Bey
is so frequently credited in Turkish music circles as the tuneʼs author.
From one point of view, this attribution is not far-fetched at all; he was a
prolific composer, and many of his other recordings are of his own
classical pieces. However, placed within the context of the rise of the
Kemalist republic and Turkish nationalism that followed the collapse of the
old Ottoman political and social milieu, the appropriation by the state-run
classical music establishment of this extremely popular melody speaks
volumes about musicʼs symbolic import. As we will see, possible sources
for the tune include one of several antagonistic and historically oppressed
non-Turkish ethnic groups with aspirations of independence (Kurds or
Armenians); and another such group, one that succeeded in breaking free
from Turkish occupation (Greeks), explicitly claims the melody as its own.
Discussing musicʼs role in the rise of twentieth-century nationalisms,
ethnomusicologist Philip Bohlman reminds us that “…music does narrate
histories. Music does point the way toward origins and beginnings.”[5]
The sociopolitical origins and beginnings evoked by insistence on Çeçen
Kızı as Cemil Beyʼs composition are firmly rooted in the unified Ottoman
state with “global Istanbul” at its core – a vision that resonates equally
with both the Islamic and secular sides of modern Turkeyʼs ideological
divide,[6] and that makes an investigation into the tuneʼs origins all the
more timely and relevant.

The emphasis on Cemil Beyʼs authorship of Çeçen Kızı also points to the
enhanced status of the composer and the written score in twentieth-
century Turkish classical music. A departure from popular Ottoman
practice, where oral tradition played a much more prominent role, this is
only one of many changes brought about by a conscious modeling after
Western art music and conservatory culture. Aside from the actual music
being performed and some of the instruments on stage, the observer of a
typical Turkish classical music recital in Istanbul will find few differences
(if any) in dress, atmosphere, demeanor, or personnel from an analogous
event in London, Paris, Vienna, or Boston. This controlled environment, in
which performances can be meticulously crafted according to a
prescribed ideal, fosters a sense of timelessness and deep, personal
connection with a national or international artistic tradition – as well as,
significantly, with the composer and his presumed intentions. Clearly, the
portrayal of these intentions depends upon the ideological lens through
which they are interpreted; what then if the lens is that of Westernization,
Orientalist fantasy, Turkish nationalism, or “global Istanbul”? When viewed
in this light, the question of Çeçen Kızı becomes more than simply a
matter of historical curiosity.

All of these issues and tensions are eloquently present in a cursory

examination of three of the aforementioned YouTube videos, which
contrast in both their original contexts and their reception by their
respective online audiences. The first is from a performance on March 24,
2006 by Istanbul Technical Universityʼs Turkish Music State Conservatory
Chamber Orchestra (Türk Musikisi Devlet Konservatuarı Oda
Orkestrasıʼnın), where Çeçen Kızı is played by an ud soloist as the rest of
the orchestra looks on.[7] The setting is reminiscent of a classical
Western music recital: the musicians are wearing tuxedoes and evening
gowns, they are seated in a semicircle on the elevated stage of ITUʼs
modern concert hall, and with the exception of the ud all the instruments
would be at home in a Western orchestra. The information provided by the
videoʼs uploader credits Cemil Bey as the composer, and the comments in
Turkish, English, and French by other users are generally confined to
praising the virtuosity of the soloist and the beauty of the music,
referencing Sufism and the Ottoman past.[8]

Another video, uploaded by YouTube user muzbey on May 6, 2008,

features an audio recording of a modern Turkish chamber orchestra
performing an intricately arranged and highly virtuosic rendition of the
piece.[9] The videoʼs description consists of two sentences, “Traditional
Ottoman Turkish Music from early 20th century,” and “Composer: Tanburi
Cemil Bey (1873-1916),” and the music is set against a backdrop of three
successive images: an Ottoman miniature painting depicting an orchestra
of turbaned ney (end-blown flute), tanbur (long-necked lute, for many the
Ottoman classical instrument par excellence), bendir (frame drum), and
miskal (panpipe) players, a painting of the Bosphorus with Sultan Ahmet
mosque in the background, and a drawing of the same scene from a
different perspective. Many of the comments, too, reference the shared
Ottoman and Muslim heritage celebrated by these images: in addition to
numerous religious sentiments in Turkish and Arabic, these statements of
Islamic solidarity are typical:

this is a very beautiful clip, thank you for placing it as it brings back the
memories from the ottoman glorious days, who did so much for us in
hejaz and elsewhere in the muslim world, may Allah because of them
bless the turks for generations to come, we are proud of our turkish
brothers and sisters. (by user aazarinni)

The Ottoman Turkish music is one of the most beautiful and the richest
 in kinds, it needs very accute ears and high musical culture, may GOD
bless the souls of all those excellent, long live Turkish Music musicians.
(by user clickright)

we should be very proud of our turk brothers and sisters, indeed. I

wish those glorious days come back again. When i listen to such
magnificent music, i wish that i lived in that era. (by user malazzeh)

Though some dissenting views are represented in the comments, the

dominant tone is one of Islamist nostalgia for the glory days of Ottoman
rule, when cosmopolitan Istanbul was the center of the Muslim world, and
the recording of Çeçen Kızı – here a composition of Cemil Bey – signifies
that longed-for time, evoking images of Mevlevi dervishes and the
Sultanʼs court.

In stark contrast to these presentations and receptions of the piece is a

performance of Çeçen Kızı (entitled “Cicen Kizi” in the video) by the
Greek group Thria on the program “Stin Ygeia Mas”, broadcast in 2008 on
ERT (Elliniki Radiofonia Tileorasi, Greek Radio and Television).[10] The
majority of Thriaʼs members belong to the generation of urban Greek
musicians who came of age in the 1990s and early 2000s amid a heady
mix of regional Greek and Turkish folk music, Ottoman classical music,
and Byzantine ecclesiastical music, and many of them, including the
principal arranger, have spent large amounts of time studying Turkish
music in Istanbul with its most prominent exponents. The ensemble is a
mix of Greek folk instruments such as the laouto (steel string lute) and
santouri (hammer dulcimer), instruments associated with Turkish or Asia
Minor traditions (ud and the long-necked lute known as saz, here referred
to by the Greek term tambouras), instruments common to both traditions
(clarinet, violin, the goblet-shaped dumbek drum), and the pan-Balkan
kaval or end-blown flute. Indeed, the arrangement of Çeçen Kızı
performed by Thria in the video clip, as well as the general playing style, is
firmly rooted in the contemporary Greek paradosiaká genre, which
strongly references modern Turkish performance practice and aesthetics;
and the version performed by the ensemble is clearly modeled after
Tanburi Cemil Beyʼs recording.[11] While the videoʼs description makes no
mention of Cemil Bey, the uploader decided to use a version of the tuneʼs
Turkish title, presumably referencing the musiciansʼ announcement of the
selection. The scene is fairly typical of Greek entertainment variety shows,
with the musicians smartly but casually dressed, on a lighted stage with
microphones, monitors, and music stands, performing to a seated
audience of the hosts, guests, and various personalities; it is more
reminiscent of a nightclub performance than a concert hall, sufi lodge, or
imperial palace.

While the context of Thriaʼs performance differs from the previous two
examples, the reaction to the video in the comments section is even more
telling of the emotions roused by musicʼs narration of history. The
question of the tuneʼs authorship comes up immediately, in one of the first
comments: “you should have mentioned the composer… Tanburi Cemil
Bey…” (posted by user aram34), and the discussion goes back and forth
for some time, developing into an argument heated enough that extremely
offensive racial slurs are exchanged, several abusive comments are
removed for receiving too many negative votes, and many users go out of
their way to compensate by emphasizing the shared aspects of Greek,
Turkish, and Mediterranean culture. The comment by Alexis022 is typical
of these:

Could we Stop to fight like stupids childs?! What happened, just itʼs
past. Come on, all together, with Respect to each other. Armenians
Turkish Greeks Persians Arabs Kurdish, all of we, The Greatest
Musicians, artist, poets in the world! Cʼmon, enjoy the music, without
insults! And try with all your inner forces to understand each other.[12]

Despite the prevalence of such cooler heads, the argument in the

comment section of this video continues for over two years, with
participants debating not only the origins of the piece in question, but of
other songs and musical instruments common to both Greek and Turkish
culture. In this case, the history narrated by the sight and sound of Greeks
performing Çeçen Kızı proved unsettling enough to some viewers and
listeners to spark a violent debate, inflaming passions still seething after
nearly a century since the end of official hostilities between Greece and
Turkey.

****

Bearing these various issues in mind, there are several compelling

reasons to question whether Cemil Bey actually composed the melody of
Çeçen Kızı. First, in the context of the corpus of his work – 181 recordings
made between 1910 and 1914 – the piece sticks out, along with at least
two others, as a “folk” tune, with an entirely different melodic and
aesthetic character than his compositions in pesrev (prelude) or saz
semaisi (instrumental theme and variation) form. While the melodic
contours of the tune conform to classic hüseyni seyir or melodic
progression (with a brief modulation to karcigar makam), the rhythmically
insistent phrasing and intervallic jumps are reminiscent of Anatolian folk
music, and the ABCD form is typical of such dance tunes. The ud
accompanying Cemilʼs kemençe, played by Kadi Fuad Efendi, holds a
continuous ostinato throughout the performance in the dance-oriented
düyek usul pattern rather than playing in unison with the kemençe, as it
would in the classical style.

Second, the name Çeçen Kızı is puzzling. While his two other recordings
of obviously non-classical melodies have names that give them away as
either folk pieces or self-consciously folk-inspired arrangements – such as
Çoban taksim (“Shepherd taksim”) and Gaida havası (“Bagpipe tune”) –
this tune is simply recorded under a title, as if of a song, the only one of
his instrumental recordings not to be classified by makam (or in the case
of the two aforementioned “folk” pieces, other clear genre marker) and
compositional form. If Cemil Bey did compose these other two pieces,
inspired by regional folk music, it makes sense that he gave them generic
names acknowledging the inspiration, much like Mozartʼs Rondo Alla
Turca or, more to the point, Bartokʼs Romanian Folk Dances. But if Çeçen
Kızı was indeed his composition, it seems unlikely, judging by his
otherwise strict adherence to naming pieces by makam and form, that he
would invent for it a fanciful title invoking a distant province of the
Ottoman Empire. He would probably have simply called it Hüseyni Oyun
Havası, as it was eventually classified in later music editions by his
successors. But he didnʼt.

Third, unlike many Istanbul gentlemen of his time and station, Cemil Bey,
who spent much of his life in and around the Sultanʼs palace as a
bureaucrat and court musician, had a deep appreciation for the regional
folk music of Turkey and the Balkans. At the turn of the twentieth century,
Istanbul – whose population had grown to roughly one million – was a
“heaven of folk music”, according to Cemilʼs son Mesut, himself a revered
tanbur virtuoso; the city was full of migrant musicians from other regions
of the Empire, living in sufi lodges and inns in its burgeoning slums.[13]
Cemil frequently visited with many of these itinerant musicians, playing
saz (an Anatolian lute) with wandering troubadours[14] and deserting his
post at the foreign ministry to listen to the palace cooks and gardeners
play and sing.[15] Mesut Cemil recalls his father being so taken with the
singing of a blind beggar that he left the house and followed him down the
street, writing down the melody in Hamparsum notation (a shorthand
developed in the 18th century to transcribe, among other things, Ottoman
classical music) on the back of a pack of cigarettes.[16] Mesut, who
accompanied his father, describes the tune as a “semi-mystical folk
song”, and thinks that it must have been from Harput, Diyarbakır, or Elazıg,
areas in Southeastern Anatolia traditionally populated by Armenians and
Kurds.[17]

Mesut has quite a lot to say about this song in particular, and the influence
of folk music on Cemil in general. The experience of hearing the blind
manʼs “semi-mystical” melody seems to have been profound for both
father and son, and Mesut is “sure that (his) father incorporated this tune
into the music he recorded”.[18] Certainly, Cemil was taken enough by the
melody to transcribe it, presumably for future use. Discussing the impact
of regional Turkish music on his fatherʼs recordings, Mesut writes:

The pure folkloric style in the Kürdi and Gülizar taksims with
 tanbur, Hüseyni taksim with yaylı tanbur, Çeçen Kızı and Çoban taksim
with kemençe, and others… seeped into Cemilʼs creative and receptive
soul from these kinds of sources, and they took shape there (italics
mine).[19]

This statement, when taken in the context of Mesutʼs numerous

anecdotes, causes one to wonder: could the blind beggarʼs “semi-
mystical folk song” in fact be Çeçen Kızı, or something like it? We may
never know. For all of Mesutʼs waxing rhapsodic about the impression the
tune made on his father (and presumably himself), he doesnʼt notate it for
us, or tell us exactly what Cemil did with that pack of cigarettes; and the
melody is absent from Cemilʼs published personal notes.

***

But the story doesnʼt end in the pages of Mesut Cemilʼs homage to his
brilliant father, or with Cemil Beyʼs wax cylinder recording on the eve of
the First World War. Variants of the melody are common in at least two
other areas of the former Ottoman Empire, though, as far as I have been
able to ascertain, not in Southeastern Anatolia (as one might suspect
based on Cemil Beyʼs title for it and Mesutʼs aforementioned
assumptions). In fact, both of these versions are found to the west, in
Greece: one on the eastern Aegean island of Mytilene or Lesvos, just a
few kilometers from the Asia Minor coast, and the other, interestingly,
around the port city of Preveza in Epirus, the westernmost province of the
Greek mainland and the opposite coast of the former Ottoman dominion.
These two variations display the central melodic and rhythmic features of
Cemil Beyʼs version while deviating from it in ways that suggest, musically,
that all three are related descendents of a common ancestor; and the
various names associated with these two tunes, as well as the folklore
surrounding them, suggest a myriad of other possibilities for their
common origin.

In Mytilene, the melody is generally associated with the village of Agiasos,

where it is most commonly known today as Ta Xyla (“The [pieces of]
wood” – Example 2). Oral tradition links the tune to the construction of the
villageʼs first steam-powered olive press in 1878, during Ottoman rule.
Trees for the buildingʼs roof were felled in the nearby forest and carried to
the site on the shoulders of local men; to encourage them and coordinate
their steps, the villageʼs Turkish mayor ordered a military band to play his
favorite march, and the tune caught on, becoming part of the local
repertoire.[20] The melody is also known in Agiasos as Ta Tabania (from
Turkish taban, “board”) and Ta Tsamia (from the Turkish çam, “pine tree”).
[21] The military band connection makes sense on Mytilene, whose
population has been historically receptive to this musical aesthetic; until
very recently, brass bands were extremely popular all over the island, and
still survive in a mixed form known as fisera (“group of wind instruments”),
with violin, accordion, and guitar playing alongside trumpet, clarinet, and
trombone.

Example 2 – “Ta Xyla” as recorded in 1994 by Harilaos Rodinos (violin),

Kostas Zafeiriou (santouri), and Stavros Rodinos (guitar), Agiasos,
Mytilene.

Older Agiasos musicians also identify the tune as an old Ottoman march.
Several elderly musicians interviewed by ethnomusicologist Nikos
Dionysopoulos in the 1970s reported that before the Second World War it
was usually played as a processional “with a heroic and stately air”,
slightly slower than a march, and that before Mytilene was incorporated
into the Greek state (1912) it was performed only once a year, at the
annual celebrations of the local Turkish police force.[22] In the village of
Plomari, it was used only as a processional,[23] and singer Solonas
Lekkas claims that it was played in eastern Lesvos as a processional
before horse races in honor of St. Haralambos.[24] [25] In light of these
associations with outdoor marching and Ottoman military bands, it is
interesting to note that Cemil Bey spent much time with the musicians of
the Muzika-i Hümayun, the Sultanʼs Westernized brass and wind band –
the very ensemble that replaced the mehter or Ottoman Janissary bands
of the nineteenth century.[26] This suggests another possible source
from which Cemil might have learned the tune; and if the anecdote
connecting the melody to the pre-1912 years is accurate, it is virtually
impossible that he composed it and it then spread to Mytilene, since his
first records were made in 1910.

Although the tune is popularly known as Ta Xyla today, it had other names
in the past – names which suggest alternative origins and associations.
Musicians from Agiasos,[27] Plomari,[28] and Kapi[29] report that it was
known before the Second World War as Kiourtiko – “Kurdish tune” – and in
Plomari it was also called Kiourtiko Alem Havasi,[30] a hybrid Greek-
Turkish title meaning roughly “Kurdish party tune”. Interestingly, violinist
Manolis Pantelelis of Plomari claims that an old clarinetist invented the
name Ta Xyla or Ta Xylarelia in order to create confusion among rival
musicians who knew it as Kiourtiko;[31] if true, this would of course raise
questions about the olive press story. Kurdish origins would certainly
make sense based on the melodyʼs character[32], and it is tempting to
summon the specter of Cemil Beyʼs blind beggar and his “semi-mystical
folk song,” who Mesut Cemil speculated was from a Kurdish or Armenian
region of Anatolia.

Another name associated with the melody in prewar Mytilene, though less
frequently, was Skopos tou Osman-Pasa (“Osman Pashaʼs tune”).[33]
Osman Nuri Pasha was an Ottoman general and the hero of the siege of
Plevna in Bulgaria, fought in 1877 during the Russo-Turkish War, for which
he received the title Gazi or victorious hero. Advisor to Sultan Abdulhamid,
the staunchly anti-European Osman was wildly popular among the Muslim
masses of the Empire, and various military marches were composed in his
honor. One of these, variously known as Osman Pasha Marsı or Plevne
Marsı, is still among the most performed military marches in
contemporary Turkey.[34] Two marches dedicated to Osman appear on
Kalan Recordsʼ 2000 re-issue of Ottoman military marches recorded in
the early 20th century, though neither of them corresponds to the melody
played in Mytilene. It is entirely plausible that a hero of Osmanʼs stature
would inspire a number of popular songs in a variety of styles, and
perhaps it is not a coincidence that the siege of Plevna was fought in
1877, a year (or two, depending on the source) before the event in Agiasos
that oral tradition connects with the popularization of “Osman Pashaʼs
Tune.” A year or two is plenty of time for the melody to have worked its
way to Mytilene from wherever in the Empire it was composed, especially
if the agent of its movement was an Ottoman government official, perhaps
newly stationed in Lesvos and full of patriotic fervor. With a little
imagination, one can picture him whistling the tune as he drinks his coffee
and stamps his approval on the plans for the villageʼs new olive press.[35]

Around 1935, Mytilenean musicians began playing the melody differently,

changing the march rhythm so that it could be danced as a syrtos, one of
the most popular dance forms on the island.[36] Since then, it has
become one of the islandʼs most beloved melodies, mandatory at every
celebration, and for many people has come to define the traditional music
of Mytilene. Violinist Manolis Pantelelis claims that “no matter where you
go today, even to Australia, people ask for it and you have to play it”, and
says that “it has become like a national anthem” (italics mine).[37] This
very phrase is used by many Mytilenean musicians to describe the tune,
[38] a curious label indeed for a melody previously associated on their
very island with Kurds, an Ottoman general, and the military band of a
hated occupying power.[39]

***

The associations with Osman Pasha and the siege of Plevna lead us to the
third version of the tune considered here, recorded under the name
“Plevna” by Greek clarinetist Nikos Tzaras in 1933 for Columbia.[40]
Tzaras was born a few miles from the Albanian border near Ioannina in
Epirus, the north-westernmost province of Greece, and at the age of
fifteen left home, eventually settling in the port city of Preveza on the
western coast. Though he began his working life as a coachman, his
extraordinary talents on the clarinet — and the sudden obsolescence of
his profession after the introduction of the automobile — led to his
transition to a professional musician by 1911.[41] Aside from his mastery
of the local Greek repertoire,[42] he was famed for his proficiency in and
special affection for ala Tourka, a pan-Ottoman genre of makam-based
music common to most urban centers of the Empire. Like Mytilene,
Preveza remained under Ottoman control until 1912, and being a
significant port city had a sizable Turkish population before liberation;
even in the decades after union with Greece, the musical culture of the
city reflected its Ottoman past, as Turkish ensembles continued to be
contracted to play for extended periods at the cafés in the Saitan
Pazar[43] district, and Tzaras and other local Greek musicians frequently
played in mixed orchestras with their Turkish colleagues.[44]

In 1928 Tzaras spent several months in Istanbul, where he performed with

renowned classical tanbur player, composer, and singer Münir Nurettin
Selçuk, and befriended local musicians whom he later brought back to
Preveza for musical engagements.[45] Selçuk was a key figure in the
modern Turkish republicʼs classical music establishment and certainly
would have been familiar with Tanburi Cemil Beyʼs “Çeçen Kızı”; but it
seems unlikely that Tzaras would have learned the tune from Selçuk, since
the version he recorded in 1933 varies even more from Cemil Beyʼs
rendition than does the version popular in Mytilene (Example 3).

Example 3 – “Plevna” as recorded by Nikos Tzaras in 1933.

There is also, of course, the matter of the name “Plevna”, which, invoking
the site of the aforementioned battle, clearly implies a connection to the
Mytilenean “Osman Pasha” and the eponymous Ottoman general. Though
I am not aware of a brass band tradition in Preveza, it stands to reason
that a sizable Ottoman town with vested commercial interests would have
had a garrison large enough to boast competent musicians, and it seems
plausible that the tune could have entered the local repertoire that way, if
indeed its origins lie in the Ottoman military band tradition. Clarinetist
Makis Vasiliadis and laouto player Christos Zotos, both natives of the
region, claim that the tune was brought to Preveza by refugees from Asia
Minor, who settled there after the catastrophe of 1922 that ended the
Greco-Turkish War.[46] Either way, “Plevna” appears to have been
unknown outside the immediate vicinity of Preveza, and seems to have
disappeared from the local repertoire of Preveza itself in the years since
Tzarasʼ death in 1942.[47] Incidentally, Tzarasʼ version was recorded in
the 1970s by clarinetist Vasilis Soukas from Komboti in the neighboring
district of Arta with the title “Plevra” – presumably a Hellenized corruption
of the foreign-sounding Slavic name of the original.[48] This suggests to
me that Soukas, or whomever he learned the tune from (or, for that
matter, the record companyʼs graphic designer), was unaware of the
melodyʼs associations with Ottoman military history. Considering the
strength of oral tradition in this region of Greece, and Soukasʼ notoriously
encyclopedic knowledge of the areaʼs music, this would suggest that such
associations never became part of the musical folklore of Preveza —
perhaps because Tzaras himself wasnʼt aware of them in the first place.

***

So where does all this leave the question of authorship? For better or for
worse, nowhere definitive. While several intriguing possibilities present
themselves – the most likely of which seems to be some connection with
Osman Pasha and Ottoman military music – the only conclusions we can
make are cautiously apophatic ones. In the face of all the evidence
presented here, it seems probable that Cemil Bey did not compose
“Çeçen Kızı”, and it is just as unlikely that the tune originated in the
Caucasus, despite the name under which it was first recorded. Without a
detailed survey of Kurdish, Armenian, and Bulgarian music – a formidable
project in itself – it is difficult to speculate on possible origins stemming
from those regions. In the end, perhaps what we are left with is simply a
deeper sense of the richness and complexity of musicʼs multiple roles,
and the fluidity with which it insists on crossing – and re-crossing, and
crossing again – so many of the boundaries that we contrive.

Notes

[1] Robert Labaree, personal communication; March 1, 2011.

[2] Kemal Emin Bara and Onnik Zadurian, Tanburi Cemil Bey (Istanbul:
1919), 39.
[3] Two versions of the piece, listed as “Oyun Havası (Çeçen kızı)”, are
available at www.neyzen.com/huseyni.htm — the most popular site for
Turkish classical music scores, with nearly two million hits since its
inception in 2002 — in the section of classical pieces in hüseyni makam.

[4] Harold G. Hagopian and Ercüment Aksoy, Tanburi Cemil Bey Volumes II
& III (New York: Traditional Crossroads, 1995), 12.

[5] Philip Bohlman, Music, Myth, and History in the Mediterranean:

Diaspora and the Return to Modernity. Ethnomusicology Online 3.
http://www.umbc.edu/eol/3/bohlman/index.html.

[6] Martin Stokes eloquently summarizes Istanbulʼs theoretical status as a

global city as follows: “For Turkish Islamists ‘global Istanbulʼ endorses a
nostalgic vision of an Islamic social order supervised by Turks, free from
petty ethnic squabbles and the ravages of modern capitalism. For
secularists it resurrects Istanbul as the cosmopolitan and polyglot
intellectual center it was before secular modernists relocated the capital
to Ankara.” Martin Stokes, The Republic of Love: Cultural Intimacy in
Turkish Popular Music (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2010), 11.

[7] “CECEN KIZI,” uploaded by hokelen July 6, 2007 on YouTube,

accessed January 14, 2012, http://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=xBgeZp9rmlY.

[8] A promising link in the comment section to the “Original of this song
on chechen language” (sic), posted by user Shadowlessss, unfortunately
leads to an apparently unrelated tune.

[9] “Çeçen Kızı,” uploaded by muzbey May 6, 2008 on YouTube, accessed

January 14, 2012, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SMfQgjdoj6Y.

[10] “Thria ‘Cicen kiziʼ,” uploaded by mpoulgari on YouTube April 30, 2008,
accessed January 14, 2012, http://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=hrFr8ZADRyI.

[11] For a nuanced discussion of the genre of paradosiaká, in which Greek,

Turkish, and other related elements mix freely, see Eleni Kallimopoulou,
Paradosiaká: Music, Meaning, and Identity in Modern Greece (Burlington:
Ashgate, 2009).

[12] Incidentally, the comment with the most positive votes – 46 in all –
reads “All racist Greeks and Turks should drown in baklavaʼs syrup!!”
(posted by user kostaras2).

[13] Mesut Cemil, Tanburi Cemil Hayatı (Ankara: Sakarya Basımevî, 1947),
71.

[15] Hagopian and Aksoy, 4.

[20] This story is repeated – always as a report of oral tradition – in many

sources, including S. Kolaxizelis, Thrylos kai Istoria tis Agiasou tis nisou
Lesvou, vol. 4. (Mytilene, 1950), 320-321; S. Anastasellis, “Kai diegontas
ta,” in Agiasos, 5 (Athens, 1981), 2-4; and G. Hatzivasileiou, “Ena politirio
tou 1879,” in Agiasos, 30 (Athens 1985), 9. The year of the olive pressʼ
construction is variously given as 1878 and 1879.

[21] Dionysopoulos, Nikos, Lesvos Aiolis: Tragoudia kai Horoi tis Lesvou
(Irakleio: University of Crete Press, 1997), 94.

[24] Solonas Lekkas, interview in “Ekteni viografika simeiomata mousikon

tis Lesvou,” Kivotos tou Aiagiou (Lesvos: University of the Aegean, 1997),
accessible at http://www3.aegean.gr/culturelab/Biografika/Lekkas.htm

[25] Events of this kind, with horse races and wrestling accompanied by
live music – particularly the zurna (a double-reed shawm) and daouli (a
two-headed bass drum) – are common throughout the Balkans and
Anatolia. Mesut Cemil (1947: 115) mentions that Cemil Bey attended a
wrestling event in the early 1900s near Istanbul, and was so impressed by
the zurna players that he bought a zurna and taught himself to play.

[27] Dionysopoulos, 94.

[28] Georgios Nikolakakis, “Prosopografies ‘Laikonʼ Mousikon,” in Mousika

Stavrodromia sto Aigaio: Lesvos (19-20 aionas), ed. Sotiris Htouris
(Athens: Exantas, 2000), 251.

[29] Dionysopoulos, 94.

[32] The makam (mode), usul (rhythmic cycle), melodic range and various
motives are fairly typical of music from Eastern Turkey, including areas
with large Kurdish populations.

[33] Dionysopoulos, 94.

[34] Kemal H. Karpat, The Politicization of Islam: Reconstructing Identity,

State, Faith, and Community in the Late Ottoman State (New York: Oxford
University Press, 2001), 191.

[35] It may seem odd that Greeks would take such a liking to a piece of
music ostensibly celebrating the exploits of a Muslim Turkish general
against their fellow Orthodox Christians. Although there was certainly
tension and resentment between the two communities, and the
nineteenth century saw various revolts on Mytilene put down by the
Ottoman forces in bloody fashion, the Greek inhabitants of the island were
Ottoman citizens, and the politics of the situation were extremely
complex. Further, many Turkish songs are an integral part of the musical
tradition of Mytilene as well as virtually everywhere else in areas of
Greece once controlled by the Ottomans; Mytileneʼs proximity to the coast
of Asia Minor – at points close enough to swim across – ensured a
centuries-long cultural, economic, and political connection to the
mainland that only began to be severed in the early twentieth century.

[36] Dionysopoulos, 94.

[38] Ibid, 270; Konstantinos Lampros, personal communication, April 5,

2011.

[39] Perhaps the military band connection somehow subconsciously

suggests the anthemic quality of the melody. On the other hand, there is
at least one version of the tuneʼs history that explicitly engages in Greek
nationalist rhetoric: Solonas Lekkas claims that it was played by the
defenders of Constantinople during the fateful Ottoman siege of 1453,
and is called “Ta Xyla” because at the time of their escape they had only
wood to use as weapons (Dimitris Papageorgiou, “Oi mousikes praktikes,”
in Mousika Stavrodromia sto Aigaio: Lesvos (19-20 aionas), ed. Sotiris
Htouris (Athens: Exantas, 2000), 152).

[40] Panagiotis Kounadis, Eis anamnisin stigmwn elkystikon, keimena giro

apo to rempetiko (Athens: Katarti, 2003), 358.

[41] Markos Dragoumis and Gregores Benekis, Gianniotika tou 1930 me

tin kompania tou Nikou Tzara / istorikoi diskoi ton 78 strofon apo ti sullogi
tou Mousikou Laografikou Arheiou tis Melpos Merlie (Athens: Center for
Asia Minor Studies / Syllogos Palion Giannioton, 1996), 5-6.

[42] Much of the folk music of the Preveza region consists of adaptations
of Arvanitika – the music of Greeks of Albanian origin who settled in
southern and central Greece between the thirteenth and sixteenth
centuries.

[43] “Devilʼs Market” in Turkish.

[44] Vasileios Triantis, “Oi Laikoi Praktikoi Organopaiktes,” in I Dimotiki

Mousiki stin Preveza ta teleutaia 30 chronia tis akmis tou limaniou (1930-
1960) (Masters thesis, TEI Artas, 2008), 3.

[46]Vasileios Triantes, “Ta Organika Kommatia” in I Dimotiki Mousiki stin

Preveza ta teleutaia 30 chronia tis akmis tou limaniou (1930-1960)
(Masters thesis, TEI Artas, 2008), 11.

[48] Soukasʼ version is entitled “Plévra,” with the accent on the first
syllable, mirroring the pronunciation of “Plévna.” Though the word is
meaningless in Greek, it is reminiscent of the word “plevrá,” accented on
the second syllable, which can variously be translated as “side,” “surface,”
“aspect,” “direction,” and many other related terms.