Asen Balikci interviewed by Mark Turin in Gangtok, Sikkim, India, 11^th January 2003 – Part 1

0:00:05 Introduction; born in Istanbul, Turkey, 1929, parents were Bulgarian; father was a fish merchant; maternal grandfather had fishing rights in large lake north of Istanbul and father inherited fish business through marriage; surname means “fisherman” and father and he changed surname after Second World War to avoid persecution as Slavs

0:05:16 Spoke Bulgarian at home and Turkish in the street; at school (Lazarist Fathers) spoke French; both parents literate in Greek as both went to Greek schools, father also spoke French; at school most boys were Greek, Jewish, Armenian and a few Turks and Levantines; we were afraid of the Turks as much older than us as they stayed in school until mid-twenties to avoid going into the army; grew up surrounded by fear; no Turks visited our house although other nationalities did; all mixed in the Bazaar; we feared pogroms and massacres from the dominant group; this fear caused family to move to Bulgaria in 1939 and returned back three days before the arrival of the Red Army in Bulgaria

0:09:54 Cultural differences between rest and the Turks covered etiquette, language, ethics and world view; Muslims cannot change their religions although Bulgarian-Muslim Gipsies are today changing to American evangelical churches for the benefits offered them; stayed in Turkey until 1946 and then sent to Switzerland to study at school and university in Geneva

0:12:30 Wartime in Bulgaria brought bombardment of Sophia by the Americans in 1943 and apartment hit; ran away to a small town but troubled by partisan attacks; witnessed dead bodies of partisans in front of church in 1944; constant fear of bombardment; Bulgaria did not take an active part in war but did declare war against America in 1942 to show tacit support for Germany

0:15:58 Returned to Turkey 1944 to find it unaffected by war; at that time Istanbul had about 750,000 inhabitants and very traditional; as Christians, not allowed to travel in Anatolia but had to stay in Istanbul so knew very little about Turkey; first encounter with modernity was in Bulgaria in 1940 when taken to see the German army entering Sophia; second encounter in 1945 when saw American soldiers in Istanbul

0:21:57 At sixteen sent with sister to Geneva to become cultured; Geneva the traditional place to study for Eastern Europeans; sent to a private international school and felt that real culture was there and those from the Balkans and the East were not; possible to learn but only able to live at the margins of it; in North America never had the feeling that it was impossible to influence the culture as in Western Europe; most classmates felt at home in Geneva as they mainly came from Western Europe

0:28:25 Culture clash; always an outsider except for the brief time in Sophia; studied economics and sociology at university; then studied with Piaget but found him too dominating; family expected him to return and run the fish business in Istanbul; had a vague interest in ethnography and went with a friend to the Middle Atlas in Morocco and after looking round a Berber village decided to study traditional societies; sensed that this was real culture where everything produced by village; felt a similar sensation as when walking in Bulgarian villages as a child

0:36:56 Ethnography not anthropology as the latter was physical anthropology in Europe at the time; became an unpaid assistant at the museum in Geneva and given job of classifying African objects using Mauss’s manual of ethnography; most of the objects were weapons; no possibility of taking any classes in ethnography at university in Geneva; finished degree so went to Neuchatel and spent a year doing ethnography but without much possibility of a future career; went to Ottawa to study library science to become a librarian; went to Toronto after completing course in less than a year and lodged with a Bulgarian family and found a job in a meat packing factory; this possibly the most creative time in life; parents reconciled but expected self-sufficiency at the age of twenty-two; worked during the day but at night took notes on the Bulgarian-Macedonian community in Toronto; method was instinctive; got a job at National Museum of Canada to catalogue the French-Canadian collection; bought Ruth Benedict’s ‘Patterns of Culture’ and went to Ottawa

0:45:33 Time in meat packing factory creative as understood for the first time what it  meant to make a living; arrived in Ottawa with Toronto field notes; during day catalogued French collection and during evening worked on the field notes which became first monograph; this gave some credence with director; although not trained in folklore was interested in folk texts; shared a room with Marius Barbeau who had retired but had been a very prolific writer; Diamond Jenness was still there and had written the classical ethnography of the Central Eskimos but not easy to communicate with; did not have a mentor

0:55:56 Went to study for a PhD; had married and had a child and needed higher degree to improve salary; initially thought of going back to Neuchatel but a student came from Columbia University to study copper used in West Coast and encouraged him to apply there; wrote application in French to Conrad Arensberg and was accepted