Kosovo through the eyes of local romani (gypsy) musicians

“A highly unusual and culturally differentiated view of the region, wonderfully apt for teaching, an exemplary case in applied ethnomusicology.”

(Ursula Hemetek) “Pettan’s Study guide & DVD is a poignant and valuable document-a tribute to the talent and adaptability of pre-war Kosovo Romani musicians who todayISBN live in978-961-237-708-3 the diaspora.”

(Carol Silverman)

9 789612 377083

SVANIBOR PETTAN: KOSOVO THROUGH THE EYES OF LOCAL ROMANI (GYPSY) MUSICIANS STUDY GUIDE & DVD

Kosovo through the Eyes of Local Romani (Gypsy) Musicians provides an alternative view of the Balkan region of Kosovo from the usual media coverage that is typically limited to examinations of the mutually conflicting interests of ethnic Albanians and ethnic Serbs. Romani musicians successfully adapted to the multiethnic, multireligious, and multilingual reality of Kosovo and served various audiences in both rural and urban settings.

The documentary film that this study guide accompanies presents five characteristic types of Romani ensembles in Kosovo, four sources of the musical repertoire of a single semi-nomadic Romani community, creative localization of a selected tune of foreign origin (“Lambada”) by various Kosovo Romani ensembles, and the response of Romani musicians to the challenge of increasing political tensions in Kosovo in the early 1990s. The footage was filmed by Svanibor Pettan, Ph.D. in the course of his fieldwork in the period between 1984 to 1991. Professor and Chair of the ethnomusicology program at the University of Ljubljana, Slovenia, Dr. Pettan is the author of many contributions dedicated to the legacy of Romani musicians in Kosovo, including books, articles, a CD-ROM, and a picture exhibition.

Svanibor Pettan

KOSOVO THROUGH THE EYES OF LOCAL ROMANI (GYPSY) MUSICIANS Study guide & DVD

Svanibor Pettan

KOSOVO THROUGH THE EYES OF LOCAL ROMANI (GYPSY) MUSICIANS Study guide & DVD

Ljubljana, Slovenia and Bloomington, IN, USA, 2015

KOSOVO THROUGH THE EYES OF LOCAL ROMANI (GYPSY) MUSICIANS Study Guide & DVD No. 3 in the Audio-Visual Series of the Society for Ethnomusicology.

Study guide: Author: Svanibor Pettan Reviewers: Ursula Hemetek, Carol Silverman Project Director: D. A. Sonneborn, Smithsonian Institution Editor: Rebecca S. Miller, Hampshire College Managing Editor: Cynthia Schmidt, Independent Scholar Technical editing and layout: Jure Preglau Cover Design: Janez Vehar Index: Lasanthi Manaranjanie Kalinga Dona © for Study Guide: University of Ljubljana, Faculty of Arts and Society for Ethnomusicology, 2015 All rights reserved.

DVD: Film research, camera and narration: Svanibor Pettan (filmed 1984–1991).

Film editors: Gregor Belušič, Tom Gomizelj and Marjan Stanić.

Produced by: The Society of Allies of Soft Landing, Krško, Slovenia, 1999.

Total Running Time: 24 minutes Format: All regions © for DVD video: Svanibor Pettan Published by: Znanstvena založba Filozofske fakultete Univerze v Ljubljani (Ljubljana University Press, Faculty of Arts), for the Publisher: Branka Kalenić Ramšak, the dean of the Faculty of Arts, University of Ljubljana The Society for Ethnomusicology (Bloomington, IN, USA), for the Publisher: Beverley Diamond, president Printed by: Birografika Bori, d. o. o.

Ljubljana and Bloomington, 2015 First Edition Number of copies printed: 200 Price: 15.00 EUR Dedicated to the memory of Alfred (Gei) Geist Zantzinger (1936-2007) whose vision and inspiration were central to bringing this project to fruition.

Contents AUDIO-VISUAL SERIES OF THE SOCIETY FOR ETHNOMUSICOLOGY: A SHORT INTRODUCTION............................. 5 PREFACE.......................................................................................... 7 INTRODUCTION (00:01–02:30)...................................................... 15 Musical example 1: “Phuro Hamze” (00:00–01:04) ................ 18 THEMATIC CIRCLE 1: MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS AND ENSEMBLES (02:31–09:57)................................................................................ 19 Musical example 2: Music for Pelivani Wrestling (02:30–04:16).......................................................................... 22 Musical example 3: Female Music (04:35–05:44)................... 24 Musical example 4: A Medley (05:45–06:49).......................... 26 Musical example 5: A Medley (06:50–08:34).......................... 29 Musical example 6: “Herdelezi” (08:35–09:57)........................ 31 THEMATIC CIRCLE 2: REPERTOIRE (09:58–12:44).......................... 33 Musical example 7: Romani Song from Serbia (9:58–10:37).................................................................................... 34 Musical example 8: Frame Drum Playing (10:38–11:30)............... 36 Musical example 9: Turkish Popular Song (11:31–12:13).............. 38 Musical example 10: “Papa Don’t Preach” (12:14–12:44) ........... 40 THEMATIC CIRCLE 3: CREATIVE LOCALIZATION OF A TUNE OF FOREIGN ORIGIN (12:45–19:32)................................. 41 Musical example 11: “Lambada” (12:45–16:42)..................... 43 Musical example 12: “Lambada” (16:43–16:56)..................... 45 Musical example 13: “Lambada” (16:57–17:08)..................... 47 Musical example 14: “Lambada” (17:09–17:17)..................... 48 Musical example 15: “Lambada” (17:18–17:34)..................... 49 Musical example 16: “Lambada” (17:35–17:45)..................... 51 Musical example 17: “Lambada” (17:46–18:07)..................... 53 Musical example 18: “Lambada” (18:08–18:21)..................... 54 Musical example 19: “Lambada” (18:22–18:33)..................... 55 Musical example 20: “Lambada” (18:34–18:44)..................... 56 Musical example 21: “Lambada” (18:45–19:32)..................... 57

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THEMATIC CIRCLE 4: MUSIC AND POLITICS (19:33–22:39)........... 58 Musical example 22: “Gajde Čoček” (19:33–20:30)................. 59 Musical example 23: “Kolo Šestica” (20:31–20:59)................. 60 Musical example 24: “Ko to kaže, ko to laže” (21:00–21:21).......................................................................... 62 Musical example 25: “Staro kolo” (21:22–21:39).................... 63 Musical example 26: “Leylim ley“ (“Sine moj”) (21:40–22:35).......................................................................... 64 CONCLUSION (22:40–24:10).......................................................... 65 Musical example 27: Medley of Alaturka Tunes from Šerif Cano’s Repertoire (22:40–24:10)............................. 66 POSTLUDE: THEN AND NOW......................................................... 67 CONCLUDING REMARKS................................................................ 83 CITED AND ADDITIONAL REFERENCES........................................... 86 QUESTIONS FOR FURTHER CONSIDERATION............................... 112

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Audio-Visual Series of the Society for Ethnomusicology: A Short Introduction

The Series was established in the 1970s with the intention to pay respect to the film format, which continues to play an important role in the field of ethnomusicology and to make at least some historically important ethnomusicological films available to ethnomusicologists and to general audiences, which would otherwise not have access to them. The Series so far comprises three items.

1. Zemp, Hugo: ‘Are’are Music and Shaping Bamboo (1979) The films ‘Are’are Music and Shaping Bamboo, by Hugo Zemp, are fascinating portraits of the traditional musical culture of the ‘Are’are people of the Solomon Islands in Oceania. These films detail the performance of traditional and vocal music and the making of musical instruments. French ethnomusicologist and film maker Hugo Zemp spent several years researching and documenting panpipe, slitdrum, and stamping tubes, as well as women’s and men’s singing in solo and ensemble groups, at a time when the traditional forms of expression were being threatened by the importation of alien music. Commentary is in ‘Are’are with English subtitles by Hugo Zemp.

2. Blacking, John: Domba 1956-1958: A Personal Record of Venda Initiation Rites, Songs & Dances (2002) Between 1956 and 1958 John Blacking conducted the fieldwork among the Venda people of the Northern Transvaal,

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South Africa, on which his later international reputation as an ethnomusicologist and social anthropologist was built.

The film Domba is one of the products of that engagement with Venda lives, providing a vivid impression of girls’ initiation rites as practiced in the 1950s that augments and informs Blacking’s other Venda texts. It was filmed and edited by John Blacking, and contains his voice-over commentary. A study guide was prepared by John Bailey and Andrée Grau.

3. Pettan, Svanibor: Kosovo through the Eyes of Local Romani (Gypsy) Musicians (2015) This film offers a view of a part of Southeastern Europe in which Romani musicians successfully adapted to multiethnic, multireligious, and multilingual reality and served various audiences in both rural and urban settings. It presents characteristic types of Kosovo Romani ensembles, sources of the musical repertoire of a single semi-nomadic Romani community, creative localization of a selected tune of foreign origin (“Lambada”) by various Kosovo Romani ensembles, and the response of Romani musicians to the challenge of increasing political tensions in Kosovo in the early 1990s.

Ethnomusicologist Svanibor Pettan, a prolific researcher on the subject, provides further contextualization of the film matter in the study guide, in which he follows Romani musicianship in Kosovo in the course of three decades.

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Preface

At the time of my intensive fieldwork in Kosovo (in intervals between 1984 and 1991), I never thought of making a film out of collected audio-visual materials. The footage I shot was meant to assist in the writing of my doctoral dissertation and to provide the archives of the Institute of Ethnology and Folklore Research in Zagreb, Croatia (where I was regularly employed as researcher) and the University of Maryland in Baltimore, USA (where I studied) with documentation of my project.

The idea to create a film out of the collected footage came from Italian ethnomusicologist Paolo Scarnecchia, who knew about my work and wanted to present it at a 1999 festival of anthropological film in San Benedetto del Tronto, Italy, for which he served as co-organizer. I explained to him that what I had was raw, unedited material, which could be used to document my spoken word, but he insisted on an edited product. So, I approached my friend and colleague filmmaker/musician/activist Gregor Belušič in Slovenia, and together with Marjan Stanić, a SloveneMacedonian percussionist, we drove from Ljubljana to the small town of Krško, where we enjoyed the hospitality, professional skills and editing facilities provided by another passionate documentary filmmaker Tom Gomizelj.

I selected video footage and wrote the script; Gregor and Tom did the film editing work; and Marjan gave several good

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suggestions. There was no budget for this project and none of us ever mentioned any money. The final product came out of pure enthusiasm and our shared conviction that it has potential to make public the story of Kosovo Roms and consequently change their life circumstances for the better.

Soon after its premiere in San Benedetto del Tronto, Kosovo through the Eyes of Local Romani (Gypsy) Musicians was broadcast (with subtitles) on Slovene national television in spite of its semi-professional video format, which is generally considered insufficient for television’s professional standards. Since 1999, the film has been screened in a variety of contexts worldwide, including scholarly conferences, classroom sessions, film festivals, and youth club events. The following list offers some presentation contexts: 1. 6a rassegna del documentario Italiano premio Libero Bizzarri. San Benedetto del Tronto, Italy, 1999.

2. 1st symposium of International Council for Traditional Music study group Music and Minorities. Ljubljana, Slovenia, 2000.

3. International conference Popular Music and National Culture, Ljubljana, Slovenia, 2000.

4. Public presentation at Kulturno-informativni centar.

Zagreb, Croatia, 2000.

5. 36th world conference of International Council for Traditional Music. Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 2001.

6. Gypsy Lore Society Annual Meeting and Conference on Gypsy Studies. Budapest, Hungary, 2002.

7. 47th annual meeting of Society for Ethnomusicology.

Estes Park, Colorado, USA, 2002.

8. International Romani festival and symposium Khamoro. Prague, Czech Republic, 2003.

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9. Northwest Folklife Film Festival. Seattle, USA, 2004.

10. International conference Towards a New Balkan Cultural Studies. Istanbul, Turkey, 2005.

11. London International Gypsy Film Festival: Finding Romanistan. London, UK, 2006.

12. International conference Urban Music in the Balkans, Durres, Albania, 2006.

13. Muziekinstrumentenmuseum Film Festival, Brussels, Belgium, 2007.

14. Symposium on Romani/Gypsy Music, Pittsburgh, USA, 2011.

15. Screenings in youth clubs throughout the territories of former Yugoslavia (1999 to the present).

16. Screenings at universities: Brown (Providence, USA), Chulalongkorn (Bangkok, Thailand), Colombo (Colombo, Sri Lanka), Illinois (Urbana-Champaign, USA), Istanbul Bilgi Üniversitesi (Istanbul, Turkey), İstanbul Teknik Üniversitesi (Istanbul, Turkey), Kazakh National University of Arts (Astana, Kazakhstan), Ljubljana (Ljubljana, Slovenia), Maribor (Maribor, Slovenia), Memphis (Memphis, USA), Ondokuz Mayıs (Samsun, Turkey), Oregon (Eugene, USA), Osaka (Osaka, Japan), Oslo (Oslo, Norway), Pittsburgh (Pittsburgh, USA), Sarajevo (Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina), Shanghai Conservatory of Music (Shanghai, China), Tainan National University of the Arts (Tainan, Taiwan), Universität für Musik und darstellende Kunst (Vienna, Austria) Washington (Seattle, USA), Wesleyan (Middletown, USA), Zagreb (Zagreb, Croatia).

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Technical information Footage for the film originates from my doctoral fieldwork in Kosovo. I collected audio-visual materials in a variety of formats, including audio cassettes, VHS tapes, and slides and photographs. I used a cassette recorder to gather interviews and a still camera to document all sorts of situations. To record musical events, I used a Panasonic video camera borrowed from the University of Maryland Baltimore County’s Program in Ethnomusicology. I shot the footage in VHS format but edited it in Europe, which required that it be transferred from NTSC to PAL format, thus somewhat lowering the quality of both picture and sound.

Notes on terminology Following the suggestions made by comparative linguist Prof. Victor Friedman (University of Chicago), this booklet relies on the following terminology: 1. “Rom” is used as a singular noun.

2. “Roms” (rather than “Roma” or “Romanies”) is used as a plural noun.

3. “Romani” is used both as an adjective and as the name for language (rather than “Romanes”).

Please note that in the film, the word “Rom” -- rather than “Romani,” as it should be -- is consistently used as an adjective.

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Notes on writing and pronunciation The manner in which one writes names of places and persons continues to have political connotations in Kosovo.

The very name of this territory is disputed: the Albanians and Turks use the form Kosova, the Serbs use the form Kosovo i Metohija or shorter Kosmet, while most of the others, including the international peace keeping forces and me, use the form Kosovo. The form Kosovo was official in Yugoslavia 1974-1989, and it is the name under which the republic is internationally recognized. In most cases, there were no specific names for places used by all Roms in Kosovo – they used Albanian and Serbian names interchangeably. I was able to see several official documents in which the names of the Romani individuals were adjusted to Albanian, Serbian, or Turkish alphabets.1 The Romani alphabet used herein is the one commonly used in the Balkans.2 The following table provides the alphabets of the Kosovo’s principal languages at the time period featured in this project and key to pronunciation:3

1 2 3

For instance, the first name of my principal host was written in Albanian as Sherif, in Serbian as Šerif, and in Turkish as Şerif.

Some Romani intellectuals from Kosovo introduced different alphabets, with 28 characters (Elshani 1972), 25 (Elshani 2008), and 24 (Kruezi 200?).

Serbian and Croatian are currently recognized as separate national languages.

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ALBANIAN SERBOCROATIAN

TURKISH

ROMANI

ENGLISH APPROXIMATION

a

a

a

a

as a in “father”

b

b

b

b

as b in “boy”

c

c

-

c

as tz in “Metz”

-

-

c

-

as j in “joy”

ç

č

ç

č

as ch in “champion”

-

-

-

čh

as ch + h (catch+hit)

-

ć

-

-

as ty in “hit you”

d

d

d

d

as d in “dog”

dh

-

-

-

as th in “this”

-

đ

-

-

as dy in “bid you”

-

dž

-

dž

as j in “joy”

e

e

e

e

as e in “red”

ë

-

-

-

as u in “but”

f

f

f

f

as f in “far”

g

g

g

g

as g in “gal”

-

-

ğ

-

not pronounced or as g in “gal”

gj

-

-

h

h

h

h

as gy in “pig you” as h in “hot”

-

-

ı

-

as u in “turn”

i

i

i

i

as i in “machine”

j

j

-

j

as y in “yes”

-

-

j

-

as s in “measure”

k

k

k

k

as k in “skull”

-

-

-

kh

as k in “kin”

l

-

-

-

as l in Fr. “le” (clear)

ll

l

l

l

as l in “will”

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ALBANIAN SERBOCROATIAN

TURKISH

ROMANI

ENGLISH APPROXIMATION

-

lj

-

lj

as ly in “will you”

m

m

m

m

as m in “maverick”

n

n

n

n

as n in “nice”

nj

nj

-

-

as ni in “onion”

o

o

o

o

as o in “more”

-

-

ö

-

as ö in “Göttingen”

p

p

p

p

as p in “spin”

-

-

-

ph

as in “pin”

q

-

-

q

as ty in “hit you”

r

r

r

r

as r in “rat”

rr

-

-

-

rr (trilled)

s

s

s

s

as s in “song”

sh

š

ş

š

as sh in “show”

t

t

t

t

as t in “stop”

th

-

-

-

as th in “think”

-

-

-

th

as in “tin”

u

u

u

u

as oo in “tool”

-

-

ü

-

as ü in “Düsseldorf”

v

v

v

v

as v in “vivacious”

x

-

-

-

as dz (merged in one)

xh

-

-

y

-

-

as j in “joy” -

as ü in “Düsseldorf”

-

-

y

z

z

z

z

as y in “yes” as z in “zigzag”

zh

ž

-

-

as s in “measure”

TABLE 1: Alphabets and key to pronunciation

The musical life as presented in this film was strongly affected by the war-related events in the 1990s that changed the lives

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of Roms and other people in Kosovo to a considerable extent.

While this lends a sense of historical importance to the film as a document, at the same time, it strongly limits the film’s representational validity to the time frame 1984-1991.

The film is organized into the following six chapters: • Introduction • Thematic circle 1: Musical instruments and ensembles • Thematic circle 2: Repertoire • Thematic circle 3: Creative localization of a tune of foreign origin • Thematic circle 4: Music and politics • Conclusion.

A transcript is provided for the sake of general convenience and clarity given the loss of audio quality during the transfer process from NTSC to PAL and in consideration of the narrator’s accent, which may cause possible comprehension difficulties to some film viewers. The transcript imposes two major changes from the original narration: the aforementioned choice of vocabulary -- Rom, Roms, Romani -- and the reliance on the past tense rather than the present.

Information for each musical example is provided in a standardized order: what (the title or description of the selection); who (the musicians’ names and their place of origin); how (the performance medium); where (the site of recording and actual location); when (the year in which the recording was made); and why (the context of the performance and its purpose).

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INTRODUCTION (00:01–02:30)

INTRODUCTORY DATA ABOUT THE FILM WITH A PICTURE OF THE CITY OF PRIZREN IN THE BACKGROUND. On the top left is the fortress Kalaja/Kaljaja from Byzantine times (building started in 11th century); in the center back is the medieval Serbian church of the Holy Savior (14th century); in the front right is the Sinan Pasha mosque (17th century), dating from Ottoman times; and in the middle is the colorful residential district (19th century).

Kosovo is a Balkan region, which from 1945 to 1989 had the status of an autonomous province within Serbia and Yugoslavia. In 1989 it became an integral part of Serbia against the will of the majority of its population dominated by ethnic Albanians.

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“A highly unusual and culturally differentiated view of the region, wonderfully apt for teaching, an exemplary case in applied ethnomusicology.”

(Ursula Hemetek) “Pettan’s Study guide & DVD is a poignant and valuable document-a tribute to the talent and adaptability of pre-war Kosovo Romani musicians who todayISBN live in978-961-237-708-3 the diaspora.”

(Carol Silverman)

9 789612 377083

SVANIBOR PETTAN: KOSOVO THROUGH THE EYES OF LOCAL ROMANI (GYPSY) MUSICIANS STUDY GUIDE & DVD

Kosovo through the Eyes of Local Romani (Gypsy) Musicians provides an alternative view of the Balkan region of Kosovo from the usual media coverage that is typically limited to examinations of the mutually conflicting interests of ethnic Albanians and ethnic Serbs. Romani musicians successfully adapted to the multiethnic, multireligious, and multilingual reality of Kosovo and served various audiences in both rural and urban settings.

The documentary film that this study guide accompanies presents five characteristic types of Romani ensembles in Kosovo, four sources of the musical repertoire of a single semi-nomadic Romani community, creative localization of a selected tune of foreign origin (“Lambada”) by various Kosovo Romani ensembles, and the response of Romani musicians to the challenge of increasing political tensions in Kosovo in the early 1990s. The footage was filmed by Svanibor Pettan, Ph.D. in the course of his fieldwork in the period between 1984 to 1991. Professor and Chair of the ethnomusicology program at the University of Ljubljana, Slovenia, Dr. Pettan is the author of many contributions dedicated to the legacy of Romani musicians in Kosovo, including books, articles, a CD-ROM, and a picture exhibition.

Svanibor Pettan

KOSOVO THROUGH THE EYES OF LOCAL ROMANI (GYPSY) MUSICIANS Study guide & DVD