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Articles

Vol. 13 No. 1 (2024): Resounding 1923: Musical Modernities from the Ottoman Empire to the Turkish Republic

“Foreigners in their Homeland”: Song Writing, Musical Estrangement, and Subjecthood Formation in Late Ottoman Istanbul

  • Panagiotis C. Poulos
DOI
https://doi.org/10.59998/2024-13-1-1866
Published
2024-12-09

Abstract

The voices of multiple agents involved in the process of Ottoman urban popular music making have been largely omitted, if not restricted by traditional music historiography of the Ottoman long nineteenth century, thus downplaying the local dynamics of this very transitional era. Drawing on Ottoman Turkish, Greek, and Greco-Turkish sources, this article analyzes samples of nineteenth-century songs in the popular şarkı form as “sonic assemblages” that are formed by complementary and antagonistic social relations that developed both on the intercommunal level and internally within the various communities. In this analysis the notions of “musical exile” and “musical estrangement” are used to explore the multiplicity and multiaccentuality of the spatialities of the song-writing process and their consequent implications and impact on subjecthood formation.