The Fifth International Symposium on Traditional Polyphony ...

ON THE STUDY OF THE TRADITIONAL MUSIC OF THE
KISTS (CHECHENS AND INGUSHES) FROM THE
PANKISI GORGE OF GEORGIA
159
MAIA GELASHVILI (GEORGIA)
Kists is the Georgian traditional name of the Vainakh people (Chechen and Ingush people) living in
Georgia and in neighbouring Northern Caucasus. Vainakhs are an ancient people of the Caucasus. In old
Georgian sources they are mentioned as Chachans/Chechens (Chechens refer to themselves as Nokhchi),
Durdzuks or Dzurdsuks, and Ingushetians (they refer to themselves as Ghalgha,), who were known in Georgia
as Ghlighvs Georgian highlanders are called both Chechens and Ingushetians Kists (Mroveli, 1955: 12).
<strong>The</strong> resettlement of Kists in the territory of Georgia, in the Pankisi Gorge (today’s Akhmeta district)
began in the seventeenth century and continued until the 1860s. <strong>The</strong> Vainakhs’ migration to Georgia has a
longer history however. <strong>The</strong> first King of Georgia Parnavaz (3 rd century BC) married a Dzurdzuk woman,
his son Saurmag defeated the rebellious Eristavis (Dukes) with the help of the united army of Dzurdzuks and
Ossetians; subsequently he brought his relatives on his mother’s side to Georgia from Dzurdzuketi and settled
them there… “Saurmag took them away from the Caucasus and brought and settled them in Didoeti and
Svaneti, as far as Egrisi” (Mroveli, 1955: 9).
<strong>The</strong> compact settlement of the Kists in the Pankisi Gorge began in the latter half of the eighteenth century.
<strong>The</strong> resettled Kists managed to retain their native language and traditions. At the same time they got acquainted
with Georgian culture and learned the Georgian language as well. <strong>The</strong>y speak the jargon stemming from the
fusion of the Kistian dialect and the Georgian language (Margoshvili, 1985: 29). On the basis of the synthesis
of these two cultures a bilingual ethnic entity of Kists came into being in the Pankisi Gorge.
Many interesting ethnic works have been published about the culture and everyday life of Kists by M.
Margoshvili, M. Albutashvili, Kh. Khangoshvili, Kh. Mamisimedashvili and others (to list all of them would
take too much space). Many specimens of oral folklore material have also been collected.
As to the Kistian musical folklore, it has not yet been studied on a serious basis.
<strong>The</strong> Chechen-Ingush folk music both genetically and by its historical-cultural relations has been linked
with Georgian folk music since prehistoric times.
Chechen-Ingush folk music has been studied by N. Rechmensky. In his work the author’s attention is
focused on the characteristic features of Chechen-Ingush songs (scales, chords)… <strong>The</strong> question of kinship
between the Chechen and Georgian songs was dealt with by Georgian scholar Shalva Aslanishvili. He
proposed a similarity between Geogian and Chechen-Ingush melodies, movements of the bass part, chords and
specific cadences (e.g., the fourth cadence, Georgian [Aeolian] cadence). He also defined the similar nature
and conditions of the origin of the non-third chord (fourth-fifth-chord), as well as the sequential motion in the
homophonic songs of the North Caucasian people and in Georgian-Tushetian songs. Aslanishvili explained
these similarities by the ancient kinship between the Georgian and Chechen music.
<strong>The</strong> relationship between Georgian and North Caucasian musical languages (including Chechen-Ingush),
in relation to the issues of the ethnic history and ethnogenesis were studied by Nino Maisuradze. On the basis
of the comparative analysis of the Georgian, Abkhazian, Adyghe, Ossetian, Chechen-Ingush and par-tially of
the Daghestanian musical languages, she determined both the genetic and historical-cultural links between
them; she presented Georgian and North Caucasian musical traditions as a family of the Iberian-Caucasian
musical languages, thus confirming the existence of a former common Caucasian musical culture.
Understandably, after the settling of Kists in Georgia, their acceptance of Ge-orgian culture and fusion
with it, Kistian music came closer to the music of both highland and lowland Georgian in its melodies, chordal
and harmonic structure.
In the ninth-tenth centuries, mostly through the influence of Georgians, Chris-tianity spread among
the Vainakhs; it is testified to by the presence of Christian churches in the territory of Chechen-Ingushetia.