Crossroads of History and Musical Tradition: Historical Songs in Turkish and European Culture an International Symposium

Call for Papers

March 13-14, 2024

“Crossroads of History and Musical Tradition: Historical Songs in Turkish and European Culture an International Symposium”is organized within the scope of the project titled "Text-Event-Space Analysis of Historical Folk Songs of Anatolian and Balkan Geography" numbered 121K281, which is carried out with the support of Hacettepe University and TÜBİTAK. We thank TÜBİTAK for their support.

Historical folk songs, which are the main subject of the symposium, are folk products sung in Anatolia and Europe. Events that deeply impact regional and national history have become ingrained in the collective memory of the people, evolving over time into laments and folk songs that continue to be passed down from generation to generation. Migrations in Anatolia and the Balkans, wars, conquests, territorial losses, developments related to state administration, deaths of rulers and statesmen, rebellions, events experienced by regional and national heroes constitute the main themes of historical folk songs. In some historical folk songs, individual events are narrated, and regional or national problems are touched upon. Historical folk songs are products of oral cultural heritage that contain information about the life of the people in historical and psycho-social terms.

The main aim of the symposium is to evaluate important historical events in Turkish history, with the help of folk songs and laments. Thus, the aim is to reflect the perspective of the people on historical events. Through the symposium, the aim is to enrich the literature by adding new studies to the limited number of existing works on historical folk songs. The abstracts of the papers presented at the symposium will be published in printed and electronic form, and the full texts will be published as an electronic book.

The sessions scheduled for Wednesday, March 13th will take place at Hacettepe University Beytepe Campus, while the sessions scheduled for Thursday, March 14th, 2024, will be conducted online via the Zoom program.

Symposium Language: Turkish, English.

Subject Titles:

The subject of the symposium is constituted by folk songs and laments related to:

Conquests

Territory Losses

Migrations

Wars

Regional Resistances

Rebellions

Incidents related to Bandits and Banditry

Deaths of Sultans, Princes, or State Leaders

Achievements or Deaths of Folk Heroes

that have occurred in Anatolia and Europe.