CEM EVI – REWRITING TRADITION

Abstract

The way of arranging and using a certain space may say a lot about the group who organized it. It is a common truth, and it is true also in the case of cem evi – the place of religious and social ceremonies of Alevis, who are a heterogenic group whose descendants appeared in Anatolia as part of the wave of Turkic peoples and whose tradition was created in a kind of syncretic system as both a social and a religious field and it consisted of elements of the pre-Islamic Turkish culture, Zoroastrianism, Sunni and Shea Islam (including different Sufi movements), Christianity and even Judaism. The structure and function of cem evi may be considered as a certain semiotic construction like “writing culture”. However, in the case of cem evi it is a very old and at the same time a very new construction. As a place of religious ceremonies cem evi has been known for generations. But it was usually arranged ad hoc, whenever and wherever it was required, every time from the beginning. Permanent cem evi are relatively new, and their arrangements depend on many conditions – the type of space, social situation, programme and ideology of the group leaders. So if cem evi is a text, than every next cem evi will be like writing as well as re-writing the old text with necessary changes and additions. But not everything must be changed and even in the most difficult situation not everything may be changed. The most important elements must remain. Sometimes what is most up to date must be allowed as well. The purpose of this paper is to present how in the contemporary world the text of cem evi may be read, and what kind of unique knowledge of the heritage of the traditional culture may be protected by writing such texts.