The İstanbul Armenians and their musical practices

In Istanbul, different Armenian ethnicities live together in the same community. This study aims to define Armenians who lives in Istanbul and it analyzes Armenian ethnicity via their musical practices. Similarities and differences between musical identities of different Armenian ethnicities are going to be built in the context of their relations with each other.Definitions of Armenian music in literature will be compared to the results of field investigations to emphasize the differences between the therotical and practical. It is determined that Armenian musical practises and life practices show parallelism with variations in history.Field investigations have been completed on focused communities of Istanbul Armenians. A therotical frame was built on analysing the results of participatory observations and interviews by using the theories about ethnic groups and ethnicity in ethnomusicology discipline.This study contains three sections. In the first section, Armenian and being Armenian was focused conceptually, and different Armenian definitions were handled in different contexts. Armenian history was examined from religious point of view. Historical information about Armenians in Turkey was given and a profile of Istanbul Armenians community, of which this study has focused on, was established.In the second section, Armenians were taken in hand as an ethnic group. The concepts of ethnic group, ethnicity, identity, collective identity, ethnic identity and cultural identity were described in therotical dimensions. Identity and kinds of identities were emphasized on conceptualized Armenian identity.In the third section, definitions of Armenian music were examined. Musical practices of the observed community were categorized as religious and secular, in order to see where music is in their life practices. With this classification, roles of musical factors and musical identities, which came into prominence in the practices of the Armenian community have been defined.