Music and the Nation in Greek and Turkish Contexts (19th – early 20th c.): A paradigm of cultural transfers

Abstract

Nationalism studies have failed to give enough attention to music, among other domains of cultural significance. This resulted in a lack of research and theorization on the constitution of music as a field of discourse pertaining to the essence, nature, and history of the nation. In Ottoman Balkans in particular – not to mention a broader geography covering Central and Eastern Europe – music has been crucial in processes of national self-discovery and nation-building, and in defining modernity and taking positions in relation to it. While addressing this issue, the paper embarks on the research agenda of “cultural transfers”, and introduces it to the study of the Greek and Turkish ethno-national spaces in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It is an attempt at rethinking the urban, educated population of the Ottoman Empire with multiple cultural origins as “parallel” cultures which interact and shape one another. The paper, furthermore, surveys the travel and transfer of various concepts, tropes, and themes in musical discourse as a trans-European phenomenon.