The line "Şen olasın Ürgüp, dumanın gitmez" names a town in Cappadocia, yet the "Cemal" entered on the slip with this line was recorded in the village of Zigala in Amasya, on 5 July 1943. The singers were two saz-playing farmers from Girap village in the Ezine district: Davut Aslan and Mehmet İnan. The opening of the piece is the same as that of the lament known today as "Cemalim", said to have been composed for Cemal of Karlık village near Ürgüp, who was murdered. So although the piece was collected in Amasya, whether it belongs to the region is disputed. It has no entry under Amasya in the TRT repertoire, and the notation of the Zigala recording has not been published.

Catalogue Data

  • Repertoire no.: none; it is not registered to Amasya in the TRT repertoire
  • Region: collected in Amasya, Zigala (Aydınca) village; the place named in the words is Ürgüp (Nevşehir); regional attribution disputed
  • Source performers: Davut Aslan (birth year on the slip Rumi 1308, about 1892) and Mehmet İnan (Rumi 1327, about 1911); both farmers from Girap village in the Ezine district of central Amasya, both saz players
  • Collected by: Halil Bedii Yönetken, Muzaffer Sarısözen, Rıza Yetişen (Ankara State Conservatory)
  • Date of collection: 5 July 1943
  • Archive location: former Ankara State Conservatory Folklore Archive (now at the Hacettepe University State Conservatory), record 1109/B-2; no. 3599 in Kaya's catalogue
  • Genre: folk song in the manner of a lament
  • Mode, metre: unknown for the Zigala recording
  • Words and music: anonymous on the slip; the Ürgüp account attributes the words to Şerife, wife of the murdered Cemal
  • Source link: catalogue data in Kaya's catalogue thesis; for the Ürgüp form, Cemalim, Ürgüplü Refik Başaran
  • Overview article: The Melody of the Yeşilırmak

Lyrics

The line carried over from the Zigala slip into the catalogue is this:

Şen olasın Ürgüp dumanın gitmez

The line hails Ürgüp, "may you be joyful". "Dumanın gitmez", "your smoke does not leave", can be read in two ways: the smoke of burning hearths or a mist that never lifts from the town may be meant. The rest of the text sung in Zigala is not on the slip, and no publication gives the words or the notation of this recording. The form sung in Ürgüp by Refik Başaran renders the same line as "dumanın tütmez". Since an account circulating online attributes the words to Şerife, who died in 1993, only the first stanza of that form is quoted here, out of respect for copyright:

Şen olasın Ürgüp dumanın tütmez
Kıratım acemi konağı tutmaz
Oğlum da pek küçük yerimi tutmaz
Cemalim Cemalim algın Cemalim
Al kanlar içinde kaldım Cemalim

The stanza speaks in the voice of the murdered Cemal: his horse is untrained, his son too small to take his place; "algın" means pale, exhausted. Roughly: "My grey horse is green and cannot make the stage, my son is too small to fill my place; Cemal, my pale Cemal, I am left in crimson blood."

Story

The Zigala slip says nothing about the origin of the piece. According to an account that circulates only on the internet and rests on no documentary evidence, Cemal was a young man from one of the notable, well-to-do families of Karlık village, and he was treacherously killed. The lament was composed by his wife Şerife, who had married him at fourteen or fifteen and was left alone with a son a few years later. The orphaned son, Mustafa, died a few years after that, kicked by a horse at harvest time. Şerife later married Cemal's nephew Hayrullah; when Hayrullah reproached Refik Başaran, "You have sung a song for everyone, but not for me", Başaran recorded the lament on disc. The page that published the account bases it on İsmet Aksoy, Şerife's son from her second marriage; it also records that Şerife died on 30 November 1993, past the age of ninety.

If this account is right, the lament had travelled from Ürgüp to a village in Amasya before 1943. From whom the two saz players in Zigala learned it is unknown. The collecting team had also worked in Ürgüp in 1941, yet Kaya's 1937-1952 catalogue holds no other recording under the name "Cemal"; the only known slip for this lament in the conservatory archive was thus filled in in Amasya.

Musical Features

No information on the tune of the Zigala recording has been published. Whether it carries the same melody as the Ürgüp form could only be learned by listening to the record.

Performers and Recordings

Davut Aslan and Mehmet İnan recorded many deyiş and laments that day. Of these, the elegy attributed to Garip entered the TRT repertoire as Kaf u Nun Hitabı İzhar Olmadan, and the lament for Molla Mustafa of Sarcalan village and his son as Değirmen Önünde Bir Böyük Tarla. Gönüller Semahı was sung by Davut Aslan alone; that recording is described on the Yüce Dağ Başında Koyun Güderken page. "Cemal", however, did not pass into the repertoire. The Ürgüp form was put on disc by Refik Başaran.

Bibliography

Academic studies

Other sources

Online sources