The Soundtrack of Migration: Tahsin Incirci and the Türkischer Arbeiterchor West Berlin1

Year 2010, Volume: 2 Issue: 24, 117 - 130, 06.12.2011

Ela Gezen

Abstract

The Soundtrack of Migration: Tahsin Incirci and the Türkischer Arbeiterchor West Berlin1

Abstract

Berlin has always had a strong working class tradition and a history of political
activism that was echoed in its music, literature, and film. This paper asks how
immigrant workers and working-class sympathizers have interacted with Berlins’
indigenous proletarian tradition. Considering representations of international
worker’s solidarity during the 1970s, this paper examines the degree to which
Turkish-German labor migrants can be regarded as contiguous with Berlin’s
earlier traditions of organization and protest. Central to the analysis are songs
from the album İşci şarkıları ve marşları (1974) by Tahsin Incirci and the
Türkischer Arbeiterchor West Berlin. Even during the early stages of immigration
during the late 1960s and early 1970s, this paper reveals, the choir incorporated
the guestworkers’ perspective into the tradition of German labor and protest
movements. My analysis will show how Incirci and his choir emphasized the
mutual influence and constant interaction of Turkish and German cultural
traditions – in particular, workers’ songs and politically engaged literature – and,
in so doing, created something new: a synthetic, genuinely proletarian, Berlinrooted musical tradition.

Keywords

Soundtrack, Migration, Tahsin

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