Musicologist Prof. Dr. Gesa zur Nieden from Greifswald University, believes it is very important to start writing the musical history of this pluralistic society that we live in.
Cover photo: Gesa zur Nieden © Wally Pruß
Translated to Turkish by Sedef İlgiç
We are living in a post-migrant society where second- or third-generation Germans make up a big part of society. Following this, your background or the path you had in life is not what matters, but rather your current situation. It is a change in the characters of our societies that should also be reflected in our local, national and international historiographies. Therefore, it is very important to start writing the musical history of this pluralistic society.
Think about the young people who were familiarized with the Turkish pop music their parents or grandparents listened to in the 1950s and 1960s. In Germany, not many people are familiar with that music or those musicians, not even the songs in German that were made with saz in Turkish styles. And I think this is a very interesting phenomenon because it’s very revealing of the lacunae of a shared history to be established via music and its reception in Germany. It is important to create a dialogue on changing views and the perspective on national history that also covers all its multidirectional aspects. This is the new tendency; it is based on the experience of migration but on a changed experience of migration.
