Ashugs

An Ashik (Azerbaijani: , Turkish: , Armenian: ) is a singer who accompanied his song— be it a dastan also known as hikaye (traditional epic stories) a shorter original composition—with a long necked lute (bağlama) in Azerbaijani culture and related Turkic cultures. The modern Azerbaijani ashik is a professional musician who usually serves an apprenticeship, masters playing bağlama, and builds up a varied but individual repertoire of Turkic folk songs. The word ashiq عاشق ("in love, lovelorn") is subjective forms derives from ishq عشق (love), related to Avestan iš- "to wish, desire, search". The Turkish term that ashik superseded was . In the early armies of the Turks, as far back as that of Attila, the ruler was invariably accompanied by an . The heroic poems, which they recited to the accompaniment of the kopuz, flattered the sensibilities of an entire people.

The ashik tradition in Turkic cultures of Anatolia, Azerbaijan and Iran has its origin in the Shamanistic beliefs of ancient Turkic peoples. The ancient ashiks were called by various names such as bakshy/bakhshi/Baxşı, dede (dədə), and uzan or ozan. Among their various roles, they played a major part in perpetuation of oral tradition, promotion of communal value system and traditional culture of their people. These wandering bards or troubadours are part of current rural and folk culture of Azerbaijan, and Iranian Azerbaijan, Turkey, the Turkmen Sahra (Iran) and Turkmenistan, where they are called bakshy. Thus, ashik, in traditional sense, may be defined as travelling bards who sang and played saz, an eight or ten string plucking instrument in the form of a long necked lute.

...
Wikipedia