During the late Ottoman period (1856-1922), a time of contestation about imperial policy toward minority groups, music helped the Ottoman Greeks in Istanbul define themselves as a distinct cultural group. A part of the largest non-Muslim minority within a multi-ethnic and multi-religious empire, the Greek Orthodox educated elite engaged in heated discussions about their cultural identity, Byzantine heritage, and prospects for the future, at the heart of which were debates about the place of traditional liturgical music in a community that was confronting modernity and westernization. Merih Erol draws on archival evidence from ecclesiastical and lay sources dealing with understandings of Byzantine music and history, forms of religious chanting, the life stories of individual cantors, and other popular and scholarly sources of the period. Audio examples keyed to the text are available online.

About the Author

Merih Erol is senior fellow at Koc University's Research Center for Anatolian Civilizations in Istanbul. In 2014, she was Onassis Foundation Visiting Faculty in the Department of History at Bogazici University, Istanbul. Previously, she was a visiting scholar at Harvard and Princeton Universities, the Max Planck Institute for Human Development, and the Center for Advanced Study, Sofia.

Reviews

This book . . . is a welcome addition to the field of Greek-Ottoman studies in the nineteenth century because it offers a sustained analysis of the much neglected theme of 'Greek-Orthodox' music in the troubled and complicated late Ottoman period.

* Historein *

Merih Erol's investigation of Greek Orthodox constructions of identity in the final decades of the Ottoman Empire does not only open up a new venue for the debates on the modern Ottoman social history but also offers ethnomusicological perspectives for various fields of social research in other geographical areas.

Greek Orthodox Music in Ottoman Istanbul broadens and renews the research field of late Ottoman and Modern Greek musical and cultural history.

* Middle Eastern Studies *

This is a thoroughly researched, erudite, and original examination in Ottoman-Greek studies/history, which is also relevant to broader scholarship through the connections it builds with the history of European, Byzantine, and ancient music, ethnomusicology, and cultural studies.

* American Historical Review *

This book is a great contribution to the fields of historical ethnomusicology, religious studies, ethnic studies, and Ottoman and Greek studies. It offers timely research during a critical period for ethnic minorities in the Middle East in general and Christians in particular as they undergo persecution and forced migration.

* Journal of the American Academy of Religion *

Overall, the book impresses me as a sophisticated work that avoids the standard nationalist views on the history of the Ottoman Greeks.

-- Risto Pekka Pennanen * University of Tampere, Finland *

Highly recommended for academic libraries.

* Music Reference Services Quarterly *



Book Information
ISBN 9780253018335
Author Merih Erol
Format Hardback
Page Count 278
Imprint Indiana University Press
Publisher Indiana University Press
Weight(grams) 540g