ISSN: 1308-6200 | Publisher: Kültür Ajans 

Karadeniz International Scientific Journal

This is an internationally refereed social science journal that is published every three months (quarterly) in electronic-based and print-based since 2009. The journal publishes four issues each year (March, June, September, and December).

The publication language of this journal is Turkish, English, or Russian.

This is an open-access journal. Therefore, all issues and articles published so far can be accessed free of charge from the journal's website.

 

Issue 57
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LOCAL LAMENTS OF BAYAT / AFYONKARAHİSAR

Ümit Ünsal KAYA

Şerife Burcu KAYA

The tradition of singing laments has an important place in the life of Turkish society since time immemorial. This tradition, which is an important part of oral culture, is gradually disappearing due to changes in socio-cultural life. The main purpose of this study is to compile this local tradition, which carries a cultural value, and to ensure that it takes its place in the Turkish cultural heritage. Based on this idea, the laments sung in Afyonkarahisar-Bayat region were compiled. Bayat laments, which have survived for centuries as a cultural heritage in Bayat district of Afyonkarahisar province in Central Western Anatolia, have a unique way of singing and a mythological story. The basis of lament singing is the sadness felt in the face of death, marriage, or separation. In this study, the laments belonging to the Bayat region were collected and transcribed by video and audio recording through face-to-face interviews with 15 informants living in this region. The sample of the study, which was created with the convenience sampling technique, consisted of 21 laments sung by 15 informants who know how to sing laments in this region. 13 of the informants were literate and 2 were illiterate. We observed that the laments identified from the informants were transmitted orally from generation to generation. We determined that the content of the laments was expressed with the aim of expressing the sorrow felt by the singer in cases where he/she lost his loved one and expressing his longing for her daughter who left her mother's house by getting married. At the end of the study, it was revealed that laments are important sources of cultural accumulation and thanks to these laments we can obtain information about the way of life, geography, livelihoods and daily life styles of the region. We have seen that these laments had an important function in handing down the cultural repertoire of the region. We conclude that it is necessary to transfer this function to written sources in order not to let them disappear.

Keywords: Bayat laments, Turkish folk culture, lament singing tradition, oral culture, cultural transmission

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