Tags
Arif Sağ, gurbet, koşma, mahlas, Muhabbet, Muhlis Akarsu, Musa Eroğlu, semai
Galata Bridge, Istanbul, 1999
When Arif Sağ re-emerged as a recording artist in the early 1980s having given away his arabesk career in the mid-1970s and worked as a teacher at the İstanbul Devlet Türk Müziği Konservatuarı, he released a cassette album called Gurbeti ben mi yarattım. The title song was from the Kangal aşık Muhlis Akarsu. Sağ’s recording is intimate and almost reticent – very striking in a restrained way. Oddly the cover of the cassette that I obtained in Urfa in 1987 (which I believe is the original 1981 release) has a photograph of Sağ (see photo below) that harks back to his arabesk days, dressed in yellow zip up blazer, slicked down hair and pencil moustache – totally belying the intimate sound of voice and bağlama on the recording. This would be the recording that began Sağ’s stylistic hegemony over the performance of Alevi music in the 1980s and 1990s. The iconography was yet to catch up.
Sağ recorded the deyiş again for the second of the Muhabbet series of recordings two or three years later. Muhabbet 2 is arguably the finest of the series in terms of its thematic strength which centres around the concept of gurbet – absence from one’s native place or home. Gurbeti ben mi yarattım is the final song on that recording although only three of the four verses are sung (the second is ommited) with Sağ, Musa Eroğlu and Muhlis Akarsu taking turns on the verses – a quite unusual approach for the Muhabbet series. Akarsu of course recorded the song but sadly, although a number of his recordings have been issued on CD, that one has not. However a recording of Akarsu performing it live is available on YouTube.
Gurbet is obviously the theme of the deyiş and this is deepened to almost ‘starkly bleak’ – thanks Tom Rapp! – realms with the addition of the theme of yokluk – which refers to absence, even to the degree of non-existance (it also has a meaning of poverty). I don’t think I’ve captured the full sense of yokluk so that will require working on. Another word to mention is sıla in the mahlas line which I have rendered as ‘returning’ but it really means return to family, friends and one’s native place – the opposite really of gurbet. A good translation here for imkân also rather eludes me. Having tried ‘possibilities’ it sounded too lumpen and ‘practicalities’ would be even worse. For the moment ‘chances’ it is. The deyiş is in the short koşma form (semai) with only 8 syllables per line which gives it a simple directness; but it is constructed with typical economy and finesse.
Muhlis Akarsu: Gurbeti ben mi yarattım
Translation: Paul Koerbin
Destitution has compelled me
Was it I who created the exile?
It came and took my youth
Was it I who created the exile?
I received neither letter nor news
Parted from my country and home
I felt the loss of all that was mine
Was it I who created the exile?
Evening comes and the shadow settles
Winds blow against my hope
Absence constrains my chances
Was it I who created the exile?
Akarsu, don’t think about returning
Don’t believe this isolation has passed
How I fell upon helplessness
Was it I who created the exile?
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Turkish text from Muhlis Akarsu: yaşamı, sanatı, şiirleri ve dünya görüşü by Süleyman Zaman, 2006.
Yokluk beni mecbur etti
Gurbeti ben mi yarattım
Gençliğimi aldı gitti
Gurbeti ben mi yarattım
Ne mektup ne haber aldım
Yurdumdan yuvamdan oldum
Her şeyime hasret kaldım
Gurbeti ben mi yarattım
Akşam olur gölge basar
Umuduma yeller eser
Yokluk imkânımı keser
Gurbeti ben mi yarattım
Akarsu sılayı anma
Bu ayrılık geçti sanma
Çaresizdim geldim amma
Gurbeti ben mi yarattım
Aşık İbreti is someone I would like to have met. His no nonsense plain speaking is so engaging – and, one thinks, quite courageous. His language is simple and his is message clear. İbreti’s real name was Hıdır Gürel and he was born in 1920 in the Sarız region of Kayseri. In 1967 we was caught up in attacks against Alevis in Elbistan. A working man, maker and seller of musical instruments and miner, he died in 1976. Musa Eroğlu, the great singer and bağlama player from Mut – often called the modern Karacaoğlan – is something of a champion of İbreti’s lyrics. He recorded the genuinely magnificent İlme değer verdim (Gördümde geldim) on his recording Yolver Dağlar and recently contributed İbreti’s Aşkın kabesi (İnsanlığa hizmet ibadetimdir) to the remarkable recording initiative by Kalan Music called Kızılbaş. Dertli Divani has also recorded the work of İbreti including Hakikat denildi erkânımıza on his 2000 masterwork Serçeşme. İbreti’s poems were published in 1996 in the book titled İlmer Değer Verdim by Adil Ali Atalay (Vaktidolu) whose publishing house, Can Yayınları, has contributed so much to the dissemination of Alevi culture.