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GERGELY AGÓCS: The Danube and the Amu Darya Speak in the Same Voice
Music folklore research among Kipchak Turkic peoples
During seven collecting expeditions conducted between 2000 and 2019 in the villages of Karachays, Balkars, Nogays and Kumyks living in the valleys of the northern slopes of the Caucasus and in the steppe foothills of the mountain range, we successfully uncovered numerous obvious parallels that could be classified among the melody types of Hungarian folk music. In the course of fieldwork, other folklore data and ancillary information also came to light, whose significance warranted continuing the exploratory and analytical work begun. From summer 2021 to November 2024, together with Dávid Somfai Kara, we organized sixteen further collecting expeditions, each lasting nine to ten days, to this region and to certain Central Asian areas. The Turkic peoples living here speak dialects of the Kipchak branch of the language family that are so close to one another that they understand each other relatively easily. Despite differences in geographical and historical background, their cultures nonetheless display characteristic variations. In contrast to the Nogays' former vast steppe nomadic lifestyle spanning enormous territories, the Kumyks, Karachays and Balkars have engaged in highland settled farming as far back as discernible written sources go. The ancestors of the Karakalpaks living in the western part of Uzbekistan practiced floodplain nomadic pastoralism and fishing in the Amu Darya delta region, while the kongrat-Uzbeks living in the southeastern region of the country bordering Afghanistan and Tajikistan, in Surkhandarya Province, still followed a highland nomadic pastoral lifestyle in felt houses in the recent past. We ourselves were surprised to find that we were able to document abundantly in these distant areas, lying some 4,000–5,000 kilometers from the periphery of the Hungarian language territory, melodies that bear the unmistakable morphological features of Hungarian folk music.
The event will be held with in-person attendance, but the Institute of Musicology will also broadcast the lecture live on the internet via Zoom application and will subsequently make it available on the Institute's website. To join the real-time broadcast, click on the link a few minutes before the event begins: (Meeting ID: 769 044 1289. Passcode: ELTEBTK. These are not needed if you join by clicking on the link
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