Music of Kists: Chechens of Georgia

Pankisi Ensemble is a female ensemble, which includes its founder Bela Mutoshvili, Lana Gunashashvili, Linda Gunashashvili, and Mariam Bagakashvili. The name of the ensemble comes from the Pankisi Gorge, located in the Kakheti region in the eastern part of Georgia, and the Kists - an exonym that Georgians used to call Chechens in the past. Despite the fact that Bela herself is a Tush, married to a Chechen, she is the only specialist in the musical folklore of the Kists.

Debut album of the ensemble on the label Ored Recordings - a brief introduction to the character and repertoire of the ensemble. Here you can find religious hymns nazmy, Kist epic tales illi, and lyrical folklore. The Chechen violin parts were performed by Timur Kodzokov, co-founder of Ored Recordings and Jrpjej.

For all the members of Pankisi Ensemble, music is a struggle to preserve and develop their culture and the right to do what they love. Of course, in Georgia, and specifically in Pankisi, playing music is not prohibited. But it turns out that people engage in their native music despite the circumstances. Chechens in Pankisi practice Sunni Islam. Some of them perform religious music during dhikr and do not perceive spiritual hymns as music in a secular sense. There are also Muslims who consider music an undesirable activity. On the other hand, the state in Georgia mainly supports Georgian polyphony, while the music of other peoples of the country remains unrepresented.

According to Ored Recordings, this album is an important musical and cultural statement for them. They recorded it during an expedition to the Pankisi Gorge with the assistance of Ben Wheeler, an ethnographer and co-founder of the label Mountain of Tongues, and his project Sounds of the Valley.Translation powered by chatGPT