Bridal Laments in the Turkic World: A Casualty of Modernity?

Abstract

The repertoire of symbolic practices for familial discord and death—as opposed to spontaneous outbursts of emotion in these contexts— have become ever more limited. The suppression of ritual lamenting can be viewed as a casualty of the reflexivity of the modernity of nation-states. This reappropriation of oral art forms is part of a larger trend of growing reflexivity towards cultural heritage, which is appropriated for ethnonationalist, nation-state, and other ideologies. The article examines Turkic bridal laments