Petercsák Tivadar - Berecz Mátyás (szerk.): Tudomány és hagyományőrzés - Studia Agriensia 26. (Eger, 2008)
VÉGVÁR ÉS KULTÚRA A 16. SZÁZADBAN - G. ETÉNYI NÓRA: A „türkenlied” reneszánszai - A magyar vonatkozású német népénekek típusai és életszerűsége
Nóra G. Etényi THE RENAISSANCES OF THE “TÜRKENLIED” Typology and verisimilitude in German folk songs on Hungarian themes The Türkenlied was for three hundred years a musicial genre with a popular appeal. These German folk songs recorded the news and events relating to the Turks in verse and in an easily understandable way that lent itself to being sung in public. The Turkish question was one of the greatest challenges facing early modem Europe, and one that proved a defining experience not only to the political, economic, military and cultural elite, but to the ordinary working man or woman, for whom it formed part of their eveiyday experience. The alarming growth of the Ottoman Empire had a particularly strong military-political and cultural-religious effect on the Holy Roman Empire. The Holy Roman Empire, which was otherwise tom with internal conflict, found in the Turks a common enemy which strengthened any feeling of solidarity, which imperial and papal propaganda then went about exploiting in the fight against Protestantism and their feudal enemies. The presence of the Turks played a defining role in the sudden increase in the availability of information. The great social interest, the wish to satisfy the desire for information, created new technical openings: the printing of small, cheap, easy to distribute publications proved a much more effective format than its predecessors. For the political, economic and cultural elite this offered a new possibility for the creation and transmission of a unified system of norms. At the same time the lay and religious powers had to provide all walks of society with answers. The Türkenlieder partly transmitted information about the Turks, partly helping to explain, come to terms with, the effect that the Turks’ presence was having on Christian society. These Türkenlieder formed part of a communal experience, not just because they were songs that had their origins in folk songs or popular hymns, but because their primary raison d’çtre lay in their being sung together in a manner similar to folk songs, children’s songs, military songs and hymns. The flourishing of the genre also shows how important it was in disseminating information about the arch-enemy, the Turks, to the greatest number of people. 91
