Symbiogenesis and representation: A history of Greco-Turkish song translation 1908 – 2012

Abstract

The present study problematizes the alleged originality of songs that exist both in Greek and Turkish from the perspective of translation studies. Reviewing recent works on song translation, it points to a need for a historical method that integrates music and translation. Fusing Michel Foucault’s notion of “descent” with the notion of “interculture”, the study provides an understanding of the late Ottoman music scene, where musicians from different millets in the Ottoman Empire engaged in translatorial performance activities highly dependent upon notions of “mobility”, “orality” and “porosity”. Underscoring the historical impossibility of defining any song dating back to the late Ottoman context as a “Greek” or “Turkish” original, the study proposes the term “symbiogenesis”: the songs created by “anonymous contributors” not from nation-states, but from different millets in the Ottoman context. Applying Michel Foucault’s concepts of “emergence” and “masking” to the representations of the songs after the population exchange, the study demonstrates how “rewriting” practices at different levels can conceal the symbiogenetic nature of the songs at moments of political hostility or reveal the Greco-Turkish song symbiogenesis at moments of political rapprochement. With three case studies devoted to comparative analyses of song recordings from 1908 to 2012, the present study casts light on how a “genealogical” approach to interlingual and intralingual song translation can contribute to an “effective” understanding of ties between history and representation of songs at climactic moments.