At the beginning of the 20th century, Europe is living in peace and prosperity. The “Belle Époque” is an outgrowth of previous important historical events and developments. The networks that are created and which evolve funnel both people and their products, tangible and intangible. It is within this multi-layered world that sound recording and sound reproduction is invented. Early record labels send mobile crews literally all over the world to record local musicians. The range of the repertoire is endless. Cosmopolitanism in large urban centers favors polystylisms and polymorphisms. Colonialism, revolutions, conflicts, refugee flows; the theater, cinema, radio, photography, orchestras’ tours, but also circulations in all kinds of commercial channels in a world that evolves dynamically and anisotropically, form a complex network of “centers” and “peripheries” in alternating roles setting musical idioms in motion, both literally and figuratively. The networks in which the Greek-speaking musics participate, constantly conversing with their co-tenants, are magnificent. Discography has already provided important tools in understanding the relationships that developed between “national” repertoires. The result of this ongoing research is “Cosmopolitanism in Greek Historical Discography”.

Naturally, in the large urban centers of the Ottoman Empire around the Mediterranean Sea, the “conversations” of the Greek-speakers with their Turkish-speaking Muslim “co-tenants”, the Catholic Greek-speakers, the Armenians, the Sepharadi and Ashkenazi Jews, the Levantine Protestants, and the Europeans and the Americans, were more than intense. Very often, the scope of this network extends to the Balkans, to Eastern and even to a part of Central Europe. Especially regarding relations between Orthodox and Muslims, the relevant evidence demonstrates the musical exchanges between them and elucidate an ecumene where everyone contributed to the great musical “melting-pot”, and where everyone may draw from it, as well as redeposit it, in a new form, with a reformulated text and its meaning, with sometimes clear and sometimes blurred references to its pre-text, until someone else pulls it out again, through the “melting-pot”, so that it becomes clear that there is no end in this recreational and dynamic process where fluidity prevails. A case that comes from such repertoires is the song "To salvari tou Kioroglou".

Starting from the Turkish-speaking repertoire, it is noteworthy that one of the earliest recordings of the song was made by Estudiantina Smyrniote in Constantinople (Istanbul), in June 1908, under the title "Kioroglhou" (Odeon CX-1882 - 58589). The song was also recorded later several times in Turkish discography (for example):

– "Köroğlu", Aşık Veysel - Ibrahim, Istanbul, 1937 (Columbia 17370)
– "Köroğlu", Gazianiepli Hasan Hüssein, Istanbul, 1940 (Odeon 270352)
– "Benden Selam Olsun Bolu Beyine", Müzeyyen Senar, Istanbul, 1960 (Odeon CO 4675 – LA 298b)

Other Turkish recordings have been found in the record catalogs which are probably related to the song in question. However, no audio material of them has so far been found. For example:

– "Eskey Kior Oglou", Ovan(n)es Efendi, Smyrna (Izmir), March 1909 (Gramophone 12817b – 6-12854)
– "Aydin Köroğlu", Ovan(n)es Efendi, Constantinople, circa 1911 (Orfeon 11045)

We should also note the recording "Kioroglou Turkiousou" performed in Turkish by Achilleas Poulos (New York, October 12, 1927, Victor BVE-40298 - 80261-A).

In Greek-speaking historical discography, in addition to the present recording, the tune was released in four other covers. According to the labels on the records, in the first two of the following covers, as in the present one, Stavros Pantelidis is mentioned as the composer, while in the last one, "Choros Kioroglou", Agapios Tomboulis is mentioned as the composer:

– "To salvari tou Kioroglou", Rosa Eskenazy, Athens, 1933 (Odeon Go 1866 – GA 1653/A 190468 b and re-issue Columbia USA 131138 - G-7074-F)
– "To salvari tou Kioroglou, V. Mavrikos, Athens, 1933 (Columbia W.G. 576 – D.G. 332)
– "Ta koritsia to sarvali", Amalia Matsa (Amalia Vaka), USA 1951 (Metropolitan 186-B)
– "Choros Kioroglou", Rosa Eskenazy – G. Tampakis – Agapios Tompoulis, Athens, 1951 (Odeon Go 4687 – GA 7757 and re-issue Decca Go 4687 – 31257 B)

The tune was also transferred to the island of Lesbos. In 1994, Nikos Dionysopoulos recorded Persa Pasiniou in the village of Plagia, near Plomari, in the song "To salvari tou Kioroglou", which is included in the publication "Lesvos Aiolis - Tragoudia kai Choroi tis Lesvou" (Lesvos Aeolis - Songs and Dances of Lesvos, Crete University Press, 9-10, 1997). The booklet of the publication reads the following:

“Dance tune in a quintuple meter (2+3) known to the rural populations of Asia Minor and especially of the Aydın region. "Koroğlu" in Turkish means "the son of the blind man" and refers to a wandering rhapsode whose fame has reached from Asia Minor to the Caucasus, Kurdistan, Persia and Central Asia.
Koroğlu, according to popular tradition and the well-known epic narrative song of the same name (probably from the 16th century), was a good-hearted "social bandit" who opposed the rich and power while helping the poor. Thus he took on heroic dimensions in the popular psyche, but could not be associated with any historical figure. This mythical person is somehow embodied in our century in the person of the zeybek Çakırcalı Mehmet Efe (1872-1912), the well-known Tsakitzi. Figures similar to Kioroglu are often found in the myths of many peoples.
Koroğlu's melodic and lengthy narrative is associated with the wandering rhapsodes of Asia Minor, the Asikides. For more on Kioroglu, see here.

Koroğlu's story and exploits have formed the basis for four Turkish films (see here), two operas, one Azeri and one Turkish, and a ballet, all entitled "Koroğlu". The five-act opera, with music by Uzeyir Hajibeyov, libretto in Azeri by Mammad Said Ordubadi, premiered at the Azerbaijan State Academic Opera and Ballet Theatre in Baku on April 30, 1937 (for more on the opera and its plot see here and here). Excerpts from the opera as well as other songs for Koroğlu were recorded on Azerbaijan's 78 rpm discography (see for example here, here and here). The Turkish opera, set to music by Ahmed Adnan Saygun and libretto by Selahadddin Batu, premiered on June 23, 1973 at the Cemil Topuzlu open-air theatre (Cemil Topuzlu Açıkhava Tiyatrosu) in Istanbul, by the Istanbul State Opera and Ballet (for more see here). Finally, the ballet "Koroğlu", set to music by Ceren Türkmenoğlu and choreography by Erhan Güzel and Gökçe Sönmüş, premiered at the Cemal Reşit Rey Concert Hall in Istanbul on February 11, 2024.

Research and text by: Leonardos Kounadis and Nikos Ordoulidis