THE ARMENIAN COMMUNITY OF CONSTANTINOPLE AND ITS CONTEMPORARY ORAL TRADITION (According to the ethnographic observations in 1996 and 1997)
The oral tradition of the Armenians of Istanbul, which is a constituent part of the oral culture of the Armenian people, has developed during centuries with the general principles of the folklore of the Armenian people; however, along with the generalities and the similarities, it has embraced very peculiar and original properties due to the historical-public life of the past and of the present they have lived.
From the representatives of the Armenian community in Istanbul (during my sojourn in Turkey), as well as from former natives of Istanbul living now in Armenia, belonging to the various sex and age groups, I have written down about 1.570 units of large and small materials of oral tradition.
Under the conditions of the present cultural disintegration of the Armenians in the Diaspora, these ethnographic fragments I have written down on my own initiative and saved them from a total loss become, owing to their historical-cognitive value, the material evidences of the traditionalistic level of the contemporary Armenians of Istanbul.
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