Ottoman Pasts, Turkish Futures

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"OttomanPasts, TurkishFutures"

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Abstract

,-'The historical past of the Ottoman Empire continues to

influence the cultural, social, and political attitudes and

aspirations of Turkey. The attempt to reconcile the dynamics of

historical identities with contemporary negotiations of

international order are played out in a variety of arenas, from

politics to the media to popular performance. In tandem with

folk culture more broadly, the folkloric dance, k~1~9-kalkan, a

sword and shield dance representative of Ottoman military

practice, operates as both a cultural icon as well as a contested

mechanism of nation-building. Much of the debate surrounding the

dance stems directly from its ottoman identity, and fear of the

image it projects of contemporary Turks. The performance of

k~1~9-kalkan brings people face-to-face with historical pasts and

associations about which there are ambivalent feelings. The

reconfiguration of notions of historical identity is part of a

indeterminate yet dynamic process, part of the same process

involved in the establishment of future relations. At issue are

questions of how to define integral units of identity, be they

historic, national, ethnic, religious, or linguistic, and how to

manipulate them. In this process of identity formation, and with

it political positioning, the units of reckoning remain volatile.

The Ottoman Empire, together with Kemalism and modernist ideals

of nationalism, will continue to be invoked, illuminated,

reconstructed, and repressed in the efforts to meet new

challenges.



Ottoman Pasts, Turkish Futures and Popular Performance

A cartoon from a Turkish newspaper illustrates two men

poised in a stand-off, one holding an antenna, the other a

satellite dish. The caption reads: "TRT ve Magic Box--Savl:;;l

KJ.zJ.:;;tJ. ... KJ.lJ.<;:-kalkan Oyunu!" or "TRT and Magic Box--the War

Heats Up ... A KJ.lJ.<;:-kalkan Dance! ".' The cartoon refers to a

debate over whether to allow a German private television company,

Magic Box, to begin satellite broadcasts in Turkey thus breaking

the statist monopoly of Turkish Radio and Television.' The issue

intensified discussions on the role of foreign investment in

Turkey, especially in the powerful arena of the media.' My

interest here is in the symbol of contestation humorously evoked

1



and explicitly labeled, the folkloric dance k~l~q-kalkan. How is

it that this dance, an artifact of the ottoman Empire and a

seemingly unsophisticated element of folk culture, can come to

illustrate a very modern and complicated issue? Folk culture in

Turkey operates as both an icon of the spirit of culture as well

as a specific mechanism, though a contested one, for nation

building. The issue at stake in debates that surround the dance

k~l~q-kalkan, as in this discussion on media, concerns the

criteria for defining national and global units of identity.

What units of integrity underlie such different social arenas as

commerce, information systems, culture, and tradition? At "play"

here (the term oyun translates as both "play" and "dance") is the

attempt to reconcile the dynamics of historical identities with

contemporary negotiations of international order.

2



=---.--. --_.The Question of Image

Turkey's relationship to the Ottoman Empire is not just a

matter of history. The memory of the Ottoman Empire and all that

it has, does, and may stand for, remains as a lived experience

for Turks and others who live within the boundaries of the

republic. Not only does formal education include teaching about

ottoman history, but numerous local and national celebrations are

held in honor of important dates in ottoman history. The

relationship is experienced spatially as well. Throughout the

countryside as in any number of Turkish towns and cities,

3



artifa~ts of the Empire--citadel walls, sultan's tombs, strategic

defense towers--impose themselves on the landscape. Many

vulgarized touristic artifacts, from bright satin harem pants to

the stereotypic red felt fez, items Turks understand to be

distinctly ottoman, are sported in shop windows and sold by

street vendors. Yet perhaps more trenchant are the memory

provokers which appear daily in the media, notably within the

framework of international politics. It is here that popular

memory blurs with international politics as Turkey continues to

face political consequences of ottoman pasts.

Two recent international socio-political events, for

example, speak passionately to the ways in which modern Turkey's

place vis-a-vis the Ottoman Empire remains as a pervasive factor

in Turkey's structural and political relations in the world. In

Turkey people frequently responded to Iraq's claim that its

August 1990 invasion of Kuwait was justified because a disputed

portion of the latter country had once belonged to Iraq by

sarcastically joking that both Iraq and Kuwait were once part of

the Ottoman Empire, so maybe Turkey should reclaim them both

since "it was all ours anyway!" On perhaps a more serious note,

the ongoing conflicts between Armenians and Azeris pUlls on Turks

for reasons beyond their ethnic ties to the Turkic Azeris.

Historic conflicts with Armenians continue to challenge Turkey,

especially in the form of the Armenian Resolution regUlarly put

before the American Congress. While the resolution calls simply

for a day of recognition of what is asserted to have been an

4



organized genocide perpetrated by the Ottoman regime against

Armenians in 1915, Turks fear that not only will it invite

increased anti-Turkish sentiment, and thus the potential for a

rise in anti-Turkish vandalism and terrorist acts, but also that

it will pave the way to Armenian attempts to regain land in

eastern Turkey. Turks claim that many Turks were also killed in

these events and that these deaths all occurred in the context of

a civil war rather than a genocide. In a further attempt to ward

off such threats, Turks also actively work to assert a

distinction between the ottoman Empire and the Republic of

Turkey. They argue that whatever the truth of the matter, the

events occurred under an entirely different political structure

and regime. On other occasions, however, Turkey itself fosters a

melding of identities between the former Empire and the modern

Republic. 1992, for example, marked the 500th anniversary of the

expulsion of Jews from Spain. Turkey commemorated the event with

special conferences, programs, and exhibits, celebrating the

Ottomans' acceptance of many Jews into their land.

How Turkey continues to negotiate its relationship to the

Ottoman Empire is evermore important in the current context of

global restructuring and shifting power relations. The changing

role of Turkey in the EC, NATO, and the Islamic Conference, the

recent death of President Turgut ozal and the election of a woman

as Prime Minister, increasing popular recognition of the Kurds as

a separate ethnicity together with the continuing oppositional

actions of Kurdish activists, and the restructuring of the media,

5



both with the opening of private radio and television within the

country and attempted exportation of Turkish media to Central

Asia, are merely suggestive of the dramatic shifts occurring.

The categorical positions and identities that have sustained

understandings of Turkey's modern history--East-West,

traditional-modern, first world-third world, socialist

capitalist--are being challenged, challenging in turn Turkish

sensibilities and identities.

An overt manifestation of this challenge, and the question

of how to think about and understand the relationship between

contemporary Turkey and the historical ottoman Empire, is the

concern for image. since its inception Turkey has demonstrated

particular concern for the views of the United states and Europe

insofar as they are significant in securing international aid and

political recognition. currently the desire to project an image

of Turkey favorable to the promotion of tourism and to reduce the

scorn and harassment of Turks abroad is as much a concern as the

continued efforts to gain full membership in the EC and to win

international political regard. It is on this point of image

that the existence and performance of the sword and shield dance

k~l~q-kalkan at festivals and weddings, on television, in

official state ceremonies, and on tour abroad, acts so

powerfully. In fact, it sparks a field of debate and conflict as

animated, if less pUblicized, as the one over media. At issue is

the question of what image of contemporary Turks is fostered by

their continued representation through the performance of this

6



dance.

K1119-Kalkan, The Dance

It is hard to say what strikes one most when first seeing

k~l~q-kalkan. The dancers literally burst onto the stage running

single file. Very quickly after entering the stage the patterned

movement of the dance begins to articulate as the men circle

counter-clockwise. The simple gait of the run becomes a figure

in four measures. Skipping with a left-hop, right-hop, the

dancers raise their opposite knees perpendicular with their

bodies. Each hop lifts the dancer high into the air. Though

expansive and extended, the movement is somewhat slow and

deliberate. The dancers swing their arms from side to side as

they hit the sword against the shield.

The sudden entrance of the dancers onto the stage is all the

more startling in that no music precedes them and none joins them

as they begin the dance. Nonetheless a rhythm emerges from the

striking of the swords against the shields, varying slightly from

figure to figure and punctuated occasionally by the calls of the

leader and sudden vocal outbursts of the dancers. These

vocalizations are themselves provocative--strange and guttural.

The men are dressed in short shorts, striped shirts, and

blue jackets with the seam of the sleeves open from wrist to

armpit. A wide carpet sash is belted around the waist. They

wear leather shoes and white wool pointed caps. And each man

7



carries, of course, a sword and a shield. The sword, perhaps two

and a half feet in length, curves slightly back as it nears the

tip. It is like the pala swords of normal Ottoman soldiers, not

the yatagan of the Janissaries. The sword is held in the right

hand while the shield, heavy and round (perhaps 20 inches in

diameter), is held in the left.

The amount of dexterity and precision required of the

dancers becomes notable as the dance continues and as the play of

the swords against the shields become increasingly complex. At

various times the dancers strike the swords to the shields over

their shoulders in the back. At other times they exchange the

swords by tossing them through the air. And, as one might wish

given the representational nature of the dance itself, the

dancers engage in sword fights. Each of these moves, whether

facing the aUdience, circling, or facing each other in rows, is

forceful and precise. Each movement, though extended wide into

space, is very controlled. The dancers' faces are sober and

intense. The noise can be deafening in a small room and is at

minimum impressive in any surrounding. In contrast to the

tremendous noise and the concentrated aggressiveness of the

dance, it ends gently and joyously with the men hugging in pairs.

The dance is performed by but a handful, perhaps ten to

twelve, of the over 400 amateur associations in Turkey dedicated

to folklore and the performance of folk dance. These groups are

comprised primarily of youth between the ages of 15 and 24 and

are directed by a cadre of teachers and directors, overwhelmingly

8



male, many in their middle age, and most white collar workers or

professionals. The dance is performed primarily by groups in

Bursa owing to the dances' historical associations with this city

as the original capital of the ottoman Empire and the original

training ground of its soldiers, as well as by a few groups in

Istanbul and in towns in between. Two associations in Bursa are

dedicated solely to the performance of k~l~q-kalkan, and others

consider it their premier performance piece.

9



People generally understand the practice to have emerged in

the very earliest years of ottoman Empire,' during the rise to

power of Osman (r. 1281-1324), the first sultan of the Ottoman

Empire and its namesake. The most common explanation of its

origins is that what is now identified as a dance developed out

of the patterning of movements involved in training Ottoman

soldiers. A slightly different version of the origins claims

that the soldiers themselves developed their movements into

patterned sequences as a way to alleviate boredom. A further

explanation suggests that the practice was aimed at intimidating

the Byzantines while they had them surrounded in Bursa (between

the years 1299 and 1326 when it was finally conquered). K~l~q

kalkan's emergence out of a practice of soldiers' training is

used to explain why no music accompanies the dance. As one

instructor put it "war and music are two separate things."

It is argued, however, that k~l~q-kalkan ceased to be

directly associated with military procedures. One explanation

for the continued practice of the dance outside of military

activities was that it was taken up as a "sport" by students in

the religious schools (medresses). Dance and music in the

medresses was prohibited. 5 However, by doing k~l~q-kalkan the

students were able to skirt around this rUle. 6 It also

flourished as a form of entertainment at celebrations for

marriages and after successful battles. Indeed, aficionados

regularly insist that k~l~q-kalkan therefore should not be

thought of as a military dance, given that it has for some time

10



been done purely for the sake of enjoyment.

While authorities on the dance do not see it as a mimicry of

war itself, the patterns are organized to tell a story about the

activities of soldiers. Unlike folk dance suites, or series of

distinct dances from the same region that are arranged in

succession for the sake of performance, k~l~q-kalkan is not made

up of distinct dances but rather of a series of patterned

movements that together make up a single dance. These movements

represent the recruitment of soldiers, their bows to those who

have come to see them off, the taking of an oath, sharpening of

the swords, practice clashes with one another, periods of peace,

testing of the swords and of the soldier's wrist action, and a

final display of peace and friendship.'

11



Ambivalent Responses

The performance of k~l~q-kalkan brings people face-to-face

with historical pasts and associations about which there are

ambivalent feelings. In this way, history acts as a source of

cultural confrontation, creating a kind of cultural hybridity

similar to that rendered through colonialism, imperialism, exile,

diaspora, and racism. That is, history, especially through

popular and official memories, adds to the sense of displacement

felt by people confronted simultaneously by cultural mixings

identified through space, through migration, tourism, and so on.

In early years of the republic the prevailing attitude was to

minimize and overcome the historical legacy of the Empire, an

attitude which was fostered by and manifested in Atatlirk's

reforms. Under Atatlirk's leadership, cultural domains of society

such as language, traditions, fashion, and religious practice

were "cleansed" of the "impure" (i.e., mixed) elements of Ottoman

society.

Broad opinions on the Ottoman Empire among Turks today

themselves range from disapproval to dismissal to pride. In

brief, negative evaluations of the ottoman Empire continue to

emphasize a variety of features interpreted as abhorrent and

still dangerous: its essentially militaristic basis; its

governance by a single hereditary ruler; the mind-set thus

demanded of subjects for complete sUbmission to the rule

(referred to as "pad~!?a kafas~", which some argue continues today

12



in regards to the state and its bureaucracy); the imperialistic

aims of the empire; and, in the end, its inefficiency and

corruptness. Lingering pride in the Ottomans, on the other hand,

is based on the many charitable and 'civilizing' practices it

encouraged (for example, social welfare, cleanliness, and pUblic

works), the fact of its many years of heterogeneity and generous

rule of minorities (at least prior to the tensions of the 19th

century), and its impressive display of control and power.

The implications of these evaluations for the debate over

k~1~9-kalkan are clear. As it gets articulated, the debate

revolves around the pivot point of the notion of barbarism. Put

simply, some fervently feel that the dance dangerously and

erroneously fulfills the orientalist stereoptype of the "barbaric

Turk." Others claim it does not. Still others feel that the

Ottoman Empire was indeed barbaric and therefore want no further

association with it. And yet others claim that it stands for the

strength and bravery of a people who stood strong,S but in the

end were devoted to peace, pointing out that the dance ends with

an embrace (referred to interchangeably as the "selam" or

"bari§", both references to "peace.")

Though articulated through the pivot-point of barbarism, the

debates surrounding this artifact of ottoman pasts revolve around

a number of axes, including its role as a folk practice, its

representation of conflict, its, to many, quaint or comic

appearance, together with its evocation of a sensitive history.

For example, many people consider k~1~9-kalkan to be excessively

13



showy and dramatic. The image that seems to be feared here is

that of an underdeveloped and/or superficial depth of cultural

and artistic appreciation by Turks. Indeed my attention was

frequently directed away from k~l~q-kalkan to the more subtle

riches of other folk dance styles. At another level, the charge

of its seeming lack of cultural and/or psychological resonance

was attributed not only to the fact that music and women were

both absent from the dance, but that (not unrelatedly) it was

"not living." Folklore, and hence folk dance, some argued,

emerges out of lived experiences. And yet there is no longer

living experience--neither an Empire to defend nor soldiers

trained to fight with swords and shields--by which to continue to

give rise to k~l~q-kalkan. The military or war-like nature of

the dance provoked concern, as many people claimed that they feel

ill-at-ease because of its association to war. And yet many

other region's folk dances, indeed most, portray instances of

going to war (eg. Artvin and the zeybek) or of war itself (eg.

Uskup and Diyarbaklr). Again, I argue that the reason k~llq

kalkan is objected to when others are not is its association to

the Ottoman Empire.

A dominant axis of debate surrounds the question of

authenticity. Debates over authenticity frequently revolve

simultaneously though often unconsciously around a double axis of

meanings: the authentic as original, as derivative of actual

historic pasts and realities, and the authentic as genuine or

true in essence regardless of its role as an artifact of history.

J.4



This double axis is clearly apparent in the controversy over

k~1~9-kalkan.

Perhaps the greatest divergence of opinion regarding the

authenticity of k~1~9-kalkan is not that pertaining to its

representation of truth in the sense of a genuine Turkish

identity (though I would argue that that is the most trenchant of

debates), nor whether it is "true to" earlier forms of the

practice, but rather whether the practice is 'really real' at

all, whether there really was an earlier practice of k~1~9

kalkan. In point of fact, k~1~9-kalkan is widely accepted as

being 'original', i.e., as being a practice emergent out of

actual historical practices (whether considered "folk" or a

"dance" or not). However I did meet with occasional assertions

that k~1~9-kalkan is not "real" at all. One version of this

claim may derive out of Kemalist ideology which holds that many

things Ottoman were not authentically Turkish, the view that lead

Atatlirk to instigate extensive language reforms designed not only

to switch from the Arabic to a Latinized script but also to rid

the language of Arabic and Persian influences.

The most direct and serious charge of k21~9-kalkan's

inauthenticity, however, came from a highly noted scholar of

Turkish folk and performing arts. There was no mistaking the

meaning of his assertion, he truly meant that the dance did not

emerge out of Ottoman military practices, that it had not existed

at all, but that it was "made up by a crazy man in the 1930's!,,9

Though this claim has not, to my knowledge, been forwarded in

15



writing, many authorities on the dance were evidently familiar

with the charge.

The point is not to belabor the truth about k~l~q-kalkan's

origins, but rather to consider what motivates the argument. I

do not believe that it is motivated simply by concern for

accuracy in the historical record or by intellectual

proprietorship, but rather because it is seen to forward a view

regarding the character of Turks. It is seen as a comment on who

Turks are. It is thus that one of the axes through which the

debate over k~l~q-kalkan ensues is an explicitly political one.

The charge that k~l~q-kalkan is not original is often understood

to be a political charge forwarded by leftists. In brief, the

Turkish political right often accuse leftists of giving up and

denying too many essential aspects of Turkish history, culture,

and identity in their zeal to embrace the perceived (Western)

standards of a modern nation-state. Implicit in this charge is

the accusation that the political action and ideologies of

leftists and secular, modernist Kemalists (generally academics

and journalists) more broadly, inauthenticates their essential

Turkishness. In an (unsolicited) response to the attempt to deny

the historical veracity of the dance, one individual suggested

that many "hocalar" (teachers) have "stayed in the West and

Europe so long" that they have adopted this opinion of the

"barbaric Turk."

The concern over image and the stereotype of barbarism plays

out in an even finer form in a more nuanced debate over the

J.6



authenticity of k212q-kalkan, drawing this time on the notion of

the authentic as genuine. The concern here is not with whether

the dance is based on some kind of real past but with what is the

"true" way of performing the dance, the way that gives an

authentic representation of the Turk. Specific executions of the

dance were often spoken of in terms of being correct (dogru) or

mistaken (yaln2§). In terms of representational features, these

evaluations are based on if the dance includes, for instance,

tossing around a fake carcass or if the hug is executed.

Judgments based on more abstract evaluations consider such things

as the attitude projected by the dancers while performing and the

forcefulness of their movement. In short, these differences are

often described as a contrast between "barbaric" and "softer"

performances.

One interesting register of this debate is its regional

dimension. Many of the accusations of "barbaric" performances of

k212q-kalkan are levied by Bursaites against the way it is

commonly done in Istanbul. Intersected with this is a critique

of pedagogy. The Istanbul group's barbaric performances, though

sometimes attributed to a misunderstanding of the dances'

intents, is more often blamed on faUlty learning processes, for

example that they learned it through watching videotapes or that

their teacher was not from Bursa, thus coming full-circle back to

essentialist regional biases. The claims to cultural authority

that Bursaites enjoy in regards to k212q-kalkan are further

embellished by the cultural capital gained from the rarity value

17



of the dance--that it is done without music, and more-or-Iess

only in Bursa, the original capital of the ottoman Empire. On

the other hand, according to the same logic of authenticity and

rarity value, k~1~9-kalkan also put Bursa in the limelight of all

that is considered reactionary, backwards, and provincial.

In k~1~9-kalkan, as in all dance, the body is the essential

object of display, for it is only through it that movement

emerges. The body, therefore, becomes the actual site for the

tensions between interpretation and display as the standard

bearer of the dance's and dancers' identities. On the one hand,

the bodies represent the specific history of the now past Ottoman

Empire, on the other they are the bodies of contemporary men who

willingly enter this arena of display. They cannot, therefore,

be fUlly denied or forgotten despite the will of observers. In

fact, these bodies demand to be acknowledged. They are large,

male bodies made even larger through the unmistakenly powerful

props they carry. Further, the dance must be seen--there is no

music upon which the viewer can focus instead. Indeed, what

noise there is, is produced and hence controlled by the bodies.

The large, extensive movements themselves occupy space in a way

that demands acknowledgement. And finally, the attention that

k~1~9-kalkan demands by its presence is even more charged by an

element of danger. Swords can and do get thrown out of dancer's

hands, potentially hitting viewers. And the swords can and do

cut. I saw several dancers receive sizable and apparently

painful gashes on their legs, arms, and faces, and yet others

18



showed me scars of earlier wounds.

Turkish Futures

K~l~q-kalkan engages a play with history. As in arenas of

global affairs, from politics to media, it acts as a way of

rendering awareness, often where it is not desired, of a

relationship with the past. It does not, however, simply

negotiate a relationship to the past, but is as well a means of

positioning for future relations. The reconfiguration of notions

of historical identity is part of a indeterminate yet dynamic

process, part of the same process involved in the establishment

of future relations. At issue are questions of how to define

integral units of identity, be they historic, national, ethnic,

religious, or linguistic, and how to manipulate them.

Performance of the dance k~l~q-kalkan is part of the same

cultural processes that include international political

negotiations, provoking the need to establish answers to the

above question. Thus it is a very apt representation for the

debates over the future of Turkish media and the media in Turkey.

At stake at one level of this media issue is the Kemalist

principle of statism, and with it, the potential of a lessening

of cultural national sovereignty. And yet the desire to extend

Turkish economic, political, and cultural influence beyond the

bounds of the republic were precisely the sensibilities

underlying support of the exportation of Turkish media to Europe

19



and Central Asia.

The Ottoman Empire is examined here less with an eye towards

history than with a regard for the present and the future. In

this process of identity formation, and with it political

positioning, the units of reckoning remain volatile. The Ottoman

Empire, together with Kemalism and modernist ideals of

nationalism, will continue to be invoked, illuminated,

reconstructed, and repressed in the efforts to meet new

challenges.

20



Endnotes

1. Htirriyet Newspaper, July 21, 1990. This paper is based on

research conducted from 1989 to 1990 and sponsored by a grant

from FUlbright.

2. As of 1993 there are a handful of private television stations

now operating in Turkey.

3. On the other hand, Turkey itself has extended satellite

transmission of Turkish television (Channel Five) both to Germany

and to the Turkic republics of the former soviet union

4. In fact, the origins of the dance are nowhere documented and

are somewhat disputed, with at least one noted scholar doubting

altogether the authenticity of the dance. Whether or not the

dance is a reconstructed or genuine artifact of the Ottoman

Empire, however, is immaterial to this argument as my

investigation focuses on people's response to it as a reminder of

the Empire.

5. The question of the permissibility of music in Islam has been

covered rather extensively in the literature, though there has

been little attention to the question of dance. Among the

reasons for prohibitions against music and dance at various

junctures in Islamic history are their possible ties to pre

Islamic practices, their potential to incite passions, and their

limited mention in the Koran (the flute and drum are referred to

but neither other instruments nor dance are mentioned). For more

on these issues see Lois Isben al-Faruqi "Dances of the Muslim

21



Peoples," Dance Scope 11(1):43-51, 1976-77 and "Music, Musicians

and Muslim Law," Asian Music 17(1):3-36, 1985; J. During

"Revelation and Spiritual Audition in Islam," The World of Music

24(3):68-82, 1982; Sirajul Hag "Sama ' and Rags of the Darwishes,"

Islamic Culture 18:11-129, 1944; S. Hussaini "Audition of Music

(Sama ' )," Sayyid Muhammad al-Husayni-i Gisudizaz (721/1321

825/1422) on Sufism, pp. 110-171, Delhi: Idarah-i Adabiyat-i

Delhi, 1983; Bruce Lawrence "The Early Christi Approach to

Sama ' ," Islamic Society & Culture: Essays in Honour of Professor

Azis Ahmad, M. Israel and N. Wagle, eds. pp. 69-93, New Delhi:

Manohar, 1983; Marijan Mole "La Danse Extatigue en Islam," Les

Danses Sacrees, Sources Orientales VI, pp. 147-280, Paris:

Editions du Seuil, 1963; and G. Rouget Music and Trance: A Theory

of the Relations between Music and Possession, Chicago:

University of chicago Press, 1985.

6. Interview. Esat Uluumay. Aug. 15, 1990

7. Metin And, 1976, A Pictorial History of Turkish Dancing.

Ankara: Dost Yaylnlarl; Mehmet ~even, Interview, March 15, 1990.

8. Parallels between the k~1~9-kalkan dancers and the Iranian

character of the pahlavans, the athletic heros trained in the

zurkhanehs (traditional gymnasium) who stood for heroic strength

and morality (Michael Fischer, "Towards a Third World Poetics:

Seeing Through Short Stories and Films in the Iranian Culture

Area," Knowledge and Society: Studies in the Sociology of

Culture Past and Present 5:171-241, 1984) are especially evident

here where their persona are understood in metonymic relation to

22



the whole culture.

9. Interview. Metin And. 1989

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The tomb of Sultan Orhan (r. 1324-1362), the secondSultan of the Ottoman Empire. Bursa, Turkey. Photocredit:

A rehearsal of ~l~q-kalkan.

Folklore Association. 1990.credit:

Bursa Sword and ShieldBursa, Turkey. Photo

A performance of k~l~q-kalkan in downtown Bursa. BursaSword and Shield Folklore Association. 1990. Photocredit:



Ottoman Pasts, Turkish Futures

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