FROM TRADITIONAL FESTIVALS TO PUBLIC PERFORMANCES: THE CASE OF AFRICAN OTTOMANS/TURKS’ ANNUAL FESTIVALS AND MUSIC PERFORMANCES IN ISTANBUL

Since the 16th century, many people were brought from Africa to the Ottoman Empire within the framework of slavery. The African Ottomans had both indoor rituals and annual festivals. Despite their long history, the available texts are rare and include the ceremonies conducted after the accelerated emancipation process. The aim of this study is to examine the annual festivals of the African Ottomans/Turks in Istanbul on the basis of the available sources, and to locate their transformation in their historical contexts. The lack of research on the lives of the African Ottomans/Turks after being manumitted is a challenge for contextualization. However, the data obtained on the transformation process of the festivals and various performances that stemmed from them are closely related to two historical developments. First, during the accelerated manumission process many people faced the problem of earning a livelihood. Second, a law in 1925 banned religious orders and their public visibility. I argue that in the context of these developments, the Kabakçı Araplar in the last years of the Ottoman Empire, a newspaper advertisement concerning a concert in 1927 and the annual festivals of the late 1930s emerged as public performances. Moreover, although they appear to be performances, all of these activities were based on the traditions of the African Ottomans.