Rest In Peace, Great Singer

Just a few days ago, we blogged about Aldyn-ool Sevek, the Tuvan master khoomeizhi ("throat singer"). Today, the New Research of Tuva published sad news: Aldyn-ool Sevek passed away after a long struggle against illness.

He was able to spend his last days in his native home at the Mongun-Taiga, the "sacred wilderness" of Tuvinian nomads.

A dated, but still unique and fascinating documentary about this region was produced in 1989, just at the end of the Soviet era.

The Greatest Khoomeizhi

As regular readers of The New Research of Tuva, we were delighted to discover this article about the master throat singer (khoomeizhi) Aldyn-ool Sevek by Valentina Suzukei, complete with this Chirayliq-friendly quote:

It was not only on a single occasion that women, both in Russia and in countries abroad told me that after listening to Aldyn-ool Sevek's recordings, they fell in love with all Tuvan men, unconditionally and sight unseen, because kargyraa is such a beautiful and vivid expression of male essence, that is very difficult to resist. "No matter how many times I heard this mighty, masculine sound, at the same time full of masculine nobility and dignity, every time it reaches into such depths of my soul, and every time it touches me to tears," - one of my colleagues-anthropologists told me, who dreams of marrying a Tuvan khoomeizhi, regardless of the fact that she is much taller than average, something that she even finds a bit embarrassing.

Kargyraa is a deep, growling double sound created with the vocal as well as the vestibular folds (more details). Here is an example of this technique:

National Day of Mongolia

Today, Mongolia celebrates its 90th national day.

On July 11, 1921, Mongolia was declared independent after the victories of a Mongol revolutionary army led by Damdin Sükhbaatar and supported by the Soviet Red Army. They defeated a White army led by Baron Ungern-Sternberg (with his own motives in conflict with other White Russian leaders - a fantastic story worth it's own post one day!) and the Chinese occupants of Outer Mongolia.

Sükhbaatar and Choibalsan, revolutionary leaders. Sükhbaatar was a popular military leader. He died less than a year after the declaration of independence, an event surrounded by rumours. Choibalsan went on to lead Stalin-style purges, first among the Mongol monarchists and Buddhist leaders, later within the Communist party itself.

But that was not the first or only occasion in the 20th century that Mongolia's independence was declared. In December 29, 1911, the Khalkhas of Outer Mongolia declared their independence from the Qing Dynasty. They installed a lama of a high lineage as the Bögd Khaan, and thus the first independent Mongolian state of the 20th century became a theocracy. This state was later occupied by the newly established Republic of China. The second declaration of independence in 1921 led to the establishment of the Mongolian People's Republic under strong Soviet influence in 1924.

Squeezed in between two great powers, Mongolia has had a difficult task of balancing between outer pressure and inner power struggles. In 1990, a peaceful revolution led by young people and students eventually caused the single-party system to crumble. (Interestingly, even Wikipedia mentions the "thousand-year parliamentary tradition" of Mongolia!)

Protestors in Sükhbaatar square, among them Sanjaasürengiin Zorig, one of the student leaders, who became a notable progressive politician and was mysteriously murdered in 1998.

So much for the strange and violent 20th century! Now let's relax with Börte, a wonderful band that plays traditional instruments and invents new melodies on a grand scale, take us through some ancient elements of Mongolian history in this beautiful composition "Gobi".

Blog Tip!

Moscow Through Brown Eyes is a blog by "Buster", a graduate student and former Moscow resident, who combines experiences as an African-American in Russia with a broad interest in culture, society, literature, history and much more, which naturally results in a Chirayliq-heavy mix (as evident in the collection of attractive faces - Langston Hughes and W. E. B. Du Bois among others* - in the blog's title image).

Like Tinet, Buster has written a lot about migrant workers in Russia and other issues of social concern, but my favourite feature on MTBE is the recurring Russian Rap Friday. The last two videos have been especially sweet:



Rapper Huligan, Russian from Kazakhstan, gets to the roots with «Я провинциален» ("I'm Country").



Rapper-throatsinger Ondar sings for Tuva in Vladivostok, and Buster finds lots of yummy clips of Yul Brynner (Siberian-born Russian-Swiss-Mongolian-Roma, whom we probably should write about more) as side dishes to the main course.

*) Both Hughes and Du Bois, as well as many other African-American intellectuals, visited the USSR in the 1920's and 1930's. Hughes even travelled extensively in Central Asia in 1932, and visited China and Japan. Here's an article about how Langston Hughes' poetry survives in the school curriculum in Turkmenistan. It's also a very interesting re-telling of the chance meeting and ensuing companionship between Hughes and Arthur Koestler in the heart of Central Asia. There's also an incredible twist at the end of the story...

Chirayliq Tag Radio on Last.fm

This is a test version. Still looking for more Central Asian music to add! Anything is welcome, as long as it fits the Chirayliq theme (i.e. cute guys).

Throat-singing

Throat-singing (overtone singing) is practised in many parts of Central Asia, most famously perhaps in Tuva.

Two Tuvan singers, who are not identified by name on YouTube, perform the song Kombu. (This is likely an excerpt from Werner Herzog's documentary film "Glocken aus der Tiefe", about "faith and superstition in Russia".)



Yat-Kha mixes throat-singing with rock. This video, for the song Dyngyldai, was awarded the first prize for "low budget clip" at the MIDEM'97 in Cannes:

Don't miss Yat-Kha's covers of classic rock songs on his album Re-Covers ...

At the bottom of the Wikipedia article, there are several links to tutorials on throat-singing. Here is another one that's kind of cute.

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By the way, these videos on YouTube always seem to provoke ardent discussions about what's "Turkish" and what's "Mongolian". Turkic and Mongolic peoples have been living together and mixing for hundreds of years, but there are apparently people on both sides who don't want to accept this.