Âşıklık (Minstrelsy) Tradition

Âşıklık (Minstrelsy) Tradition

Âşıklık (minstrelsy) tradition in Turkey is performed by wandering poet-singers known as âşıks, who wear traditional clothes and play the Turkish saz (long-necked lute). This tradition performed at weddings, cafés and during public festivals of all kinds, where performers play, sing, tell stories and poems, and their improvisations may also include puzzles, folk tales, and verbal duels of wit and creativity with other performers.
Performers travel between communities and help spread cultural values and ideas and foster social dialogue, and they are regarded as instructors and guides whose tradition draws on and enriches Turkish literary culture.
Âşıklık (Minstrelsy) Tradition was inscribed in 2009 on the UNESCO Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in Turkey.
by Sven Teschke, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Âşıklık (Minstrelsy) Tradition

Date of Inscription

2009