July 21, 2013, Sunday/ 11:00:00/ TUĞBA KAPLAN
Hor Kewser was formed in the shadows of the Bosnian war by several women in Zenica in 1994.
The original goal was to see women and girls educated according to Islam with a focus on religious and moral values. The city of Zenica was chosen because it was less affected by the war than other cities. The group would later move to Sarajevo to try and help heal the wounds caused by the war there.
The group went on to form its own radio station, television channel, monthly magazine and then a hymn group. The hymnal group consists of 30 young women — university and high school students. Of course, the members of this group do not only travel from country to country singing hymns and appealing to people’s hearts; they are also students who are set one day to become doctors, teachers, journalists and so on. As it stands now, the group is a very happy one, able not only to enter people’s hearts and minds with their beautiful hymns, but also traveling the world, seeing many different lands and cultures in the process.
I appear on stage only in Turkey, out of my respect for Turkish people
The group’s soloist and its art director is Amila Cengic, who was here in İstanbul last week for a concert with the group. We had a chance to speak to Cengic, who is a famous singer in her own right and even represented Bosnia and Herzegovina as such in the 1996 Eurovision song contest.
After this period in her life, Cengic decided to live more religiously, embracing her Muslim faith and no longer appearing on stage for performances. Later still, she joined the Hor Kewser hymn group, contributing as a vocal trainer and art director. Cengic also works as a music academy professor, in addition to voice training for vocalists in the hymn group. Cengic notes that while her own Muslim sensibilities prevent her from appearing on stage anymore, her respect for the Turkish people pushes her to sing pieces about Alija Izetbegovic at the end of the group’s concert. In fact, Cengic says she sees Turkey as a second home for her and that she is very happy to be spending part of the sacred month of Ramadan here.
The day Hor Kewser arrived in İstanbul was actually the anniversary of the massacre that took place in Srebrenica. We asked whether there was any marking of this sad anniversary in the group’s concerts. Cengic returns to those years for a moment with her response: “Those were both the most painful and the most happy days of my life. In 1993, just as my country was having its most difficult times, I had a baby. Throughout the entire time of the war, I was in Bosnia. I experienced so much loss, both physically and spiritually. But at the same time, in those days, humanity returned to its essence. We were able to be happy at the smallest of things and to support and value one another. We tried so hard to help one another. As the people of Bosnia, we clung to one another, and the world around us wasn’t important. I think that is all gone now and that is what I miss the most.”
Cengic notes that the group performs pieces describing the massacres, noting that, in fact, as a group, they do not sing songs. She says that the pieces about the massacre are not viewed as songs and that the concerts have two pieces that reflect national-ethnic feelings and the emotions relating to all the pain and fatefulness.
Cengic notes that after embracing a more religious way of life for herself, she returned to a place that really reflected her more. “When I was just a singer, it was a world to which I did not belong. I never really felt happy there, doing that. I hated everything about the stage, from the outfits, the makeup, the hair and all that went with it. The only thing that was ever important to me was picking up the microphone and singing my songs.”
‘Our goal is to make sure people don’t forget unity during Bosnian war’
Maide Icanovic, a pedagogue, engineer, psychologist, journalist and theologian, is one of the founders of Hor Kewser. She notes that the group is active not only in Turkey but also in Croatia, Iran and Australia. The group can sing hymns in a number of languages, from Turkish to English to Arabic. She says: “The group performs the most loved or the most popular hymns in the places we go. For example, when we come to Turkey, we never leave without singing the hymns ‘Demedim mi,’ ‘Sordum Sarı Çiçeğe’ and ‘Gel Gör Beni’.”
Icanovic also wants to talk about the yearly “Fatima Ez-Zehra” event done by the group; it takes place in Bosnia every May, and thousands of people attend from all over the world. “Our only real goal is to, as a women’s group, commemorate the wonderful example put forward by Hazreti Fatima Ez-Zehra.” Icanovic also says that another goal of the group is to keep alive the sense of unity and support that emerged during the time of the Bosnian war and to help make sure people don’t forget those powerful relationships from that difficult time.
