(headline image: Ali Dogan Gönültas performing live at Polirítmia, 2023 – Photo by María Carbonell)
In May 2022, the first album of Ali Doğan Gönültaş was released. Ali is an artist born in Kiğı, Bingol province, in eastern Anatolia, within a Kurdish Alevi family. In his own words, “in Alevism, knowledge was conveyed through folk songs sung by Dede, Zakir, and Ashik. Hundreds of years old folk songs have come to this day thanks to them. Alevis call tembur the stringed Qur’an. They say that you can understand the meaning of the 4 holy books with tembur.” The album was named Kiğı and reflects 10 years of research and artistic reflection by Ali on his homeland, whose current cultural and ethnic composition is far from what it was about 150 years ago when the main language was Armenian. The album includes pieces in Turkish, Armenian and several Kurdish languages, like Kurmaji or Ali’s mother tongue: Zazakî.
In June 2023, the album was released in physical format, with the addition of a more extensive online downloadable booklet, exclusive to CD owners.
However, Ali had a previous trajectory with the group Ze Tîje, which produced two exceptional albums, although it did not manage to transcend the borders of Turkey. Also, Ali has worked in film composition, as a television presenter with a musical theme, and as an archaeologist.
In this interview, we share some reflections with Ali about his work, the situation of the minority cultures and his short-term plans.
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Araceli Tzigane: The album is the result of 10 years of work of conversations with elders, research on archives and your artistic work of arrangements. I imagine you found dozens of interesting pieces. How did you select the 10 that are included in Kiğı? Why those specific ones?
Ali Doğan Gönültaş: Yes indeed, I listened to dozens of interesting songs, and maybe I could have made 5-6 more Kiğı albums with these songs. Kiğı is a little known place that reflects the geography of Anatolia and Mesopotamia. But it is like a summary of this vast and rich geography. I thought about how I could bring this richness to life in people’s minds. And I tried to choose songs that would reflect the musical culture of the different societies that lived in Kiğı. I wanted to describe the socio-cultural texture of that region in the content of the songs. Dance songs, wedding songs, work songs, migration songs, lamentations, and songs of faith were therefore included in this album in different languages. Although it is not easy to describe the music of a geography where different themes, languages and sensibilities have existed for many years, it was worth a try.
This album, from the very beginning to the very end, contains many different purposes. In the crudest form, remembering, reminding was one of my main goals.
Araceli Tzigane: When I learned about the lyrics of your songs, I found some common topics with the songs from the traditional music in Spain or other countries, like the ones about seduction or about social unfairness. But I see you also have lyrics that are kind of mystic, like Yandı Yürek, that seems less popular and more symbolic or poetic. Which is the background of this one?
ADG: Yandı Yürek is one of the two Turkish songs on this album. It is one of the examples of songs with sacred content sung by the Alevi, Kızılbaş people living in the region. The lyrics belong to Kul Nesimi, one of the 7 great Alevi poets. He was a great poet who lived in the 17th century. In Alevism, it is a song about the joy of suffering for God, truth and eternity. To prefer one pain to a thousand remedies! This pain is the pain of truth. And often it cannot be expressed in plain language. The heart rather than the mind is needed to understand it. The music is anonymous. This album would be far from its true meaning if I had not included a study about the Alevis, who make up a large part of Kiğı’s population.
Araceli Tzigane: You sing in several languages. Your mother language is Zazakî and you have grown up with Turkish as the daily tongue. What about the other languages? Which is their role in your life? Which is the current situation of all those minority languages?
ADG: I can say that I am in a multilingual universe of thought and feeling. My mother tongue is Zazakî but I dream in Turkish. In Kiğı, where I was born, 3 different languages are spoken. Armenian, Kurdish, and Turkish. Zazakî, Kurmanji and Kirdaski, different dialects of Kurdish, are also spoken. There is a deep debate about Zazakî being a different language. I think it would be better for philologists to discuss this. Armenian (Western Armenian) is a language that is almost never spoken in Kiğı and Anatolia today. Considering that Kiğı was originally an Armenian settlement, it is not difficult to understand the tragic background of this situation. Even though I understand Kurmanji and Kirdaski, I cannot claim to speak them.
Turkish is the language I know best. When I was a child, Zazakî was spoken at home, but when my mother would ask me a question in Zazakî, I would answer in Turkish. Perhaps this was a form of self-censorship. In short, I can say assimilation. As a personal response to this, I learned my mother tongue academically in my early 20s. I later learned that this was not just a personal situation, that many Kurds and Zazas were in a similar situation. In 2023-24, nearly 20 music, theater and stand-up shows produced in the Kurdish language were canceled in Turkey. We can see that there is still a systemic pressure on Kurdish, Alevi and other identities. We need to do something other than feeling sorry for this situation. To do the truth as it is!
English, Turkish or Zazakî… I feel that the dynamics of languages and the universe of expression develop me even more. I try to understand this life. I wish we could understand each other without the need for language 🙂
Araceli Tzigane: During the last times, you have played abroad in many countries, some of them where there is a huge community of Kurdish and Turkish citizens, but others, like Spain or Portugal, where there are almost none. How do you feel they react to your music?
ADG: Giving concerts in countries with deep-rooted musical cultures such as Spain and Portugal left an unforgettable impression on me. It’s a bit cliché, but I love the effect of music crossing borders, it’s transcendental. We have played in Spain 4–5 times so far, and each time we left with high emotions. It’s a bit hard to describe it. The audience in Spain and Catalonia had a very attentive and participatory feeling. In Lisbon, we played a dream concert. We met with 1200 people in a tremendous atmosphere. I’m still getting feedback after the concert. I hope we will visit Portugal again soon.
Araceli Tzigane: Which are your plans for the near future?
ADG: I have a new album ahead of me. This album, which I plan to release this spring, will be recorded simultaneously in video and audio. Again, I am aiming for an album with songs about my inner journey. Let’s see what will happen. Also in 2024 we are playing a lot of concerts in Europe and Turkey. See you somewhere. See you soon.
Author: Araceli Tzigane
