Transoxania and its Folk Music of Persian-Speaking People
Transoxania, a vat region on the northern side of the Oxus river, from ancient times was regarded as a center of Iranian culture. However, the fate of some Turkish tribes was intermingled with the fate of Transoxania; so that Turanian people, originally of Iranian genealogy, in Khuday-Namak and afterwards in Ferdowsi's Shahnameh were regarded as Turkish. After Samani dynasty all of the ruling governments of the region were of Turkish-Mongolian descendants. But the cultural atmosphere was always in favor of Iran. Presently, the Persian-speaking people, following the nationalistic policies which began during Soviet government, generally reside in Tajikistan and the official language in Uzbekistan is Uzbeki Turkish. But in two main old cities, namely Bukhara and Samarkand, Persian is still spoken.
In the folk music of the Persian-speaking people of Transoxania one can detect two focal points: 1) in the valley of Zarafshan, with Bukhara as capital; 2) southern Tajikistan, especially in Kulab and Pamir regions (Badakhshan). The folk traditions can also be divided into the music of the hafez, performed on different types of plucking instruments (dotar, dombra, setar, robab and tanbur-e Badakhshani), and the music of traditional dayereh-players specialized to perform in wedding festivals known as toy. Dotar is amongst the most important of folk instruments. The techniques of dotar has some perplexities that differentiates it from other dotar techniques belonging to the Great Khorasan. In Bukhara circle the music is divided between men and women. The women also known as Sazanda have proceeded from the jewish minority. Their music have much affinities with the shashmaqam musical system. But the music of male dayereh-players, known as Mavrigi/Marvigi, belong to the Persian musical system. This music comprises long suites, only few of them are still remained. The performers belong to a Shiite minority in Bukhara, knows as the Irani (Iranian).
It worths mentioning that Tajiki and Uzbeki cultures are so intermingled that the discrimination between them is virtually impossible. Having Turkish or Persian languages is not of primary importance in the region. In the present collection, marvigi music with its Iranian root that does not cause any dispute, is played with an ensemble whose members are Uzbeks, and they speak Persian. In addition, between Tajiki musicians one can find uzbeki names. The music of two peoples (except for Badakhshan) has numerous common features and their musical languages do not display prominent differences. So in speaking of Persian-Speaking musicians one cannot neglect Uzbeks, and in Turkish-speaking musician cannot neglect tajiks. Many famous transoxanian performers are of uzbeki descent, and tajiks show more talent in poetry. ...