Port-Arthur

Song Stories · Legends of Crimean Tatar Folk Songs · Research by Arsen Bekirov

What is this song

Title	Port-Arthur Türküsü («Порт-Артур»)
Genre	Crimean Tatar historical türkü (kiska-küy)
Subject	Russo-Japanese War 1904–1905, mobilization of Crimean Tatars
Variants	Crimean Tatar, Bashkir, Tatar
Status	Folk heritage

Historical context

The Russo-Japanese War of 1904–1905 — one of the bloodiest conflicts of the early twentieth century — affected the Crimean Tatars directly. In late autumn of 1904, 900 Crimean Tatar reservists were urgently mobilized (according to historian V. E. Vozgrin). Thousands of people from distant Crimean villages were drawn into a war they knew nothing about — thousands of versts from the front line.

The Russo-Japanese War ended in a heavy defeat for Russia. Losses amounted to approximately 50,000 killed (and with wounded and sick, Russia's total losses approached 400,000). These figures are not just statistics: behind each one stood a family, a parting, grief, waiting.

The text of the song

Crimean Tatar variant (from the leylaemir.org portal):

Translation

Analysis

Kuropatkin. In the Bashkir variant of the türkü, General Kuropatkin, commander-in-chief of the Russian army in the Far East, is called "dark-faced," and it is sung: "Kuropatkin betrayed us." These lines are not from the Crimean Tatar text but from the Bashkir-Tatar variant, yet they have become an inseparable part of the song's overall image.

Return. The line "Порт-Артурдан къайткъан сонъра, олур bizim тоюмыз" — "returning from Port-Arthur, we will hold our feast" — is a multilayered metaphor. Literally it promises joy after return, but in the context of the people's historical memory it sounds different: as a hope of returning to where they were exiled from — to Crimea. This interpretation gained particular weight after the deportation of 1944.

After 1944. After the deportation of 1944, the türkü was sung everywhere Crimean Tatars lived. The Kaitarma ensemble, revived in 1957 in Tashkent, included it in its repertoire. During the Soviet era, public performance was restricted, but at home, within the family, mothers sang it to their children — instead of a lullaby, instead of comfort, instead of a story that could not be told openly.

Musical features. In the Bashkir-Tatar variants, the modal foundation is variable pentatonics. The refrain "Ай-ли, Порт-Артур, Була торғайның матур" (Oh you, Port-Arthur, you too were once beautiful) is from the Bashkir-Tatar variant, not the Crimean Tatar original.

Listen: different voices of one song

Compare the historical and modern performances:

Why it matters

Port-Arthur is a song that traveled an extraordinary path: from the grief of mobilization at the beginning of the twentieth century — through enforced silence during the Soviet era — to becoming a symbol of folk memory and return. It was born as the voice of those sent to someone else's war, and became the voice of those expelled from their native land. Each generation invested its own meaning in the song — and each time, the song answered.