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Abstract
The purpose of this essay is to look in depth at a selected part of that corpus produced within the particularly chaotic political context of late medieval Asia Minor (Anatolia), where different languages, scripts, and genres competed with one another. In search of signs of orality and references to oral performances in written texts, the essay will particularly focus on three manuscripts, all reflecting the world of the Turkish-speaking communities of the late medieval Anatolia: the Book of Dede Korkut, the Vilayetname-i Hacı Bektaş-ı Veli, and the Tarih-i Al-i Osman of Aşıkpaşazade. These manuscripts can be situated within the framework of a literary-historical genre as “epic,” “hagiography,” and “chronicle,” respectively. In the late medieval Anatolian context, these three manuscripts shared linguistic, stylistic, and discursive commonalities, while, however, fulfilling different functions for different audiences, an issue that calls attention to the pitfalls of genre analysis in historical context. As examples of the unsettled—or even, at times, chaotic—historical-ethnographic setting of late medieval Anatolia, these three texts stand as “genres-in-progress,” to crystallize only in the late sixteenth century into more structured forms. Put into the same cultural-historical framework, these texts, with their signs of orality, reflect the diverse ways in which three types of communities—tribal, religious, and political—constructed and expressed their past.
Keywords:
Acknowledgements
I would especially like to thank Jane Hathaway, Sophia Menache, Oya Pancaroğlu, and the anonymous reviewers for their comments on the earlier drafts of this essay. I am also indebted to my colleagues at the History Department of Boğaziçi University, Suraiya Faroqhi and Aslı Niyazioğlu, whom I consulted on various questions during the writing process. I am grateful to a series of journées d’étude organized under the HOMO LEGENS Project, where Svetlana Loutchitsky, Sophia Menache, Marie-Christine Varol, and Tivadar Palágyi inspired me in how to frame my research. The Project was conducted under the generous grant of the Programme International d'Etudes Avancées of the Maison des Sciences de l'Homme, during April–June, 2006.
Notes
1. Among the different languages spoken in late medieval Anatolia, one can include Greek, Persian, Turkish, and Arabic; among the scripts, Greek, Armenian, Uygur, and Arabic.
2. For an analysis of the Turkist movement, see Günay Göksu Özdoğan. The Case of Racism-Turanism: Turkism during the Single-Party Period, 1931–1944. PhD dissertation, Boğaziçi University, 1990.
3. The Seljukids were a Turkic Muslim dynasty whose rule stretched from Punjab to Anatolia between the eleventh and fourteenth centuries. Following their journey from Central Asia to Persia, they developed a Turko-Persian tradition, adopting Persian language and culture.
4. For an analysis of early Turkoman settlement in Anatolia, see M. Fuad Köprülü. The Origins of the Ottoman Empire. Ed. Gary Leiser. Albany: SUNY Press, 1992; V.J. Parry, H. Inalcik, A.N. Kurat, and J.S. Bromley, eds. A History of the Ottoman Empire to 1730: Chapters from the Cambridge History of Islam and the New Cambridge Modern History. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge UP, 1976; Rudi Paul Lindner. Nomads and Ottomans in Medieval Anatolia. Bloomington: Research Institute for Inner Asian Studies, 1983; Colin Imber. The Ottoman Empire, 1300–148. Istanbul: Isis Press, 1990; Halil Inalcik. The Ottoman Empire: The Classical Age, 1300–1600. London: Phoenix, 1994; Paul Wittek. The Rise of the Ottoman Empire. London: The Royal Asiatic Society, 1938; Oktay Özel and Mehmet Öz, eds. Söğüt'ten Istanbul'a: OsmanlI Devleti'nin kuruluşu üzerine tartışmalar. Ankara: Imge Kitabevi, 2000.
5. For a review of the Ottoman historical genres from the sixteenth century onwards, see Suraiya Faroqhi. Approaching Ottoman History: An Introduction to the Sources. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge UP, 1999; Sayyed Hussein Nasr. “Oral Transmission and the Book in Islamic Education: The Spoken and the Written Word” Journal of Islamic Studies 3 (1992): 1–14; Jane Hathaway. A Tale of Two Factions: Myth, Memory, and Identity in Ottoman Egypt and Yemen. Albany: State University of New York, 2003; Gabriel Piterberg. An Ottoman Tragedy: History and Historiography at Play. Berkeley: U of California P, 2003; Douglas A. Howard. “Genre and Myth in the Ottoman Advice for Kings Literature” The Early Modern Ottomans: Remapping the Empire. Eds. Virginia H. Aksan and Daniel Goffman. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge UP, 2007; Baki Tezcan. “The Politics of Early Modern Ottoman Historiography” The Early Modern Ottomans: Remapping the Empire. Eds. Virginia H. Aksan and Daniel Goffman. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge UP, 2007.
6. See Richard Bauman. “Genre” Folklore, Cultural Performances and Popular Entertainments. Ed. R. Bauman. New York and Oxford: Oxford UP, 1992. 57.
7. See Halil Inalcık. “The Rise of Ottoman Historiography” Historians of the Middle East. Eds. B. Lewis and P.M. Holt. London: Oxford UP, 1962. 152–67.
8. See Colin Imber. “The Ottoman Dynastic Myth” Turcica 29 (1987): 15.
9. One should also remember that the statement that “friends ask to tell a story” is a trope found in numerous other chronicles as well. Asıkpaşazade's text may very well be an oral address, as various copies of the manuscript reveal.
10. For the critical analyses of post-sixteenth-century Ottoman historical writing, see Suraiya Faroqhi (1999), Nasr (1992), Hathaway (2003), Yıldız (1998), Piterberg (2003), Howard (2007), and Tezcan (2007).
11. See Sara Nur Yıldız. “Historiography: The Ottoman Empire” The Encyclopaedia Iranica. Ed. E. Yarshatar. New York: Columbia University Center for Iranian Studies, 2004, vol. 12, fasc. 4, p. 403.
12. See Mecdut Mansuroğlu. “The Rise and Development of Written Turkish in Anatolia” Oriens 7 (1954): 250–64. For quotation, see p. 252.
13. The Oghuz (or Oğuz) refers to nomadic Turkic peoples who moved from the Aral steppes towards the West beginning in the ninth century. For a particular historical-ethnographic pursuit of a Turkic verb used in Dede Korkut, see Ali Akar. “Dede Korkut KitabI'nda tur- Fiili” Journal of Turkish Studies 3 (2008): 2–5.
14. See Nasr Sayyed Hussein. “Oral Transmission and the Book in Islamic Education: The Spoken and the Written Word” The Book in the Islamic World: The Written Word and Communication in the Middle East. Albany: State U of New York P, 1995. 57–70. For quotation, see pp. 65–66.
15. Nelly Hanna. “Culture in Ottoman Egypt” The Cambridge history of Egypt. Ed. M. W. Daly. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge UP, 1998. 87–112. For quotation, see p. 100. On the similarity of cultural forms shared across class, one should also remember Mensuroğlu's statement that “The existence of specimens of folk literature and simple religious-mystical works side by side with historical works and books written to appeal to the upper classes demonstrate that the aesthetic needs of every class of the community were satisfied by literary works in both verse and prose” (1954, 261).
16. See Suraiya Faroqhi (1999), p. 147.
17. See V.L. Ménage. “On the Recensions of Uruj's History of the Ottomans” Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 30 (1967): 314–22. For quotation, see p. 314.
18. See, for instance, the comparison he makes between Seyyid Lokman's Quintessence of Histories and Mustafa Ali's Künhü'l-ahbar. See Baki Tezcan (2007), pp. 175–76.
19. The development of the historical genres from sixteenth century onwards presents rich data to work on, which this essay will leave aside. For an analysis on the emerging genres, see Douglas A. Howard (2007).
20. See The Book of Dede Korkut. Ed. Geoffrey Lewis. London: Penguin Classics, 1974. 19–20.
21. See Manakıb-ı Hacı Bektâş-ı Velî, Vilâyetnâme. Ed. Abdülbaki Gölpınarlı. Istanbul: InkIıap Kitabevi, c. 1995. This essay will leave aside the Battalname and Danişmendname genres, but for a detailed analysis of these texts one can refer to Battalname. Ed. Yorgos Dedes, Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1996; and La geste de Melik Danişmend: étude critique du Danişmendname. Ed. Irène Mélikoff. Paris: Adrien Maisonneuve, 1960.
22. In his study of oral narratives and performances, Richard Bauman underlines the different layers in oral storytelling, distinguishing between “narrated events” (the events recounted in the narratives) versus “narrative events” (the situations in which the narratives are told). See Richard Bauman. Story, Performance, and Event: Contextual Studies of Oral Narrative. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1986.
23. For a critique of the Ottoman Divan tradition, see Victoria Rowe Holbrook. The Unreadable Shores of Love: Turkish Modernity and Mystic Love. Austin: U of Texas P, 1994.
24. Geoffrey Lewis (1974), pp. 19–20.
25. See Dede Korkut hikâyeleri. Ed. Orhan şaik Gökyay. Istanbul: Dergâh Yayınları, 1976. 14.
26. “Böyle deyince Hanım, o namertlerin yirmisi daha çıka geldi.” See Gökyay (1976), p. 35.
27. “Bunun ardInca hanIm, görelim kimler yetişti?” See Gökyay (1976), pp. 52–53.
28. “Bamsı Beyrek birinin ardından kovarak gitti. Kovarken bir yere geldi. Ne gördü? Gördi ki Sultanım, gök çayırın üzerine bir kırmızı otak dikilmiş.” See Gökyay (1976), p. 58.
29. “Sizi Hakka ısmarladım.” See Gökyay (1976), p. 61.
30. “Bre Kafir aman, Tanrının birliğine yoktur güman.” See Gökyay (1976), p. 50.
31. “Kavatoğlu kavat.” See Gökyay (1976), p. 51.
32. “Yerli karadağlarIn yıkılmasın! Gölgelice kaba ağacın kesilmesin! Aksakallı baban yeri uçmak olsun! Akpürçekli anan yeri Cennet olsun! Oğul ile kardaştan ayırmasın! Amin deyenler, Tanrının yüzünü görsün! Derlesin toplasın, günahlarınızı adı- görklü Muhammet Mustafa yüzü suyuna bağışlasın!” See Gökyay (1976), p. 81.
33. See Gökyay (1976), pp. 42–43.
34. See Gökyay (1976), pp. 55–81. One should also mention that in the Republican literary approach, the Book of Dede Korkut has also been presented as a document that bears signs of Central Asian Turkic culture merging with the newly adopted Islamic belief. The relatively more visible and powerful place of women among the newly settled Turkic Oguz tribes has been praised in the Republican approach toward the Book of Dede Korkut.
35. See Mehmet Fuat Köprülü. Anadoluda Türk dil ve edebiyatının tekâmülüne bir bakış Istanbul: Akşam Matbaası, 1930.
36. Ahmed Yesevi was the influential Sufi leader in the twelfth century, whose teaching was composed in Turkish in poetry form and was put into writing in the fifteenth century as Divan-ı Hikmet. Yesevi's usage of Turkish language was very influential in spreading his teaching throughout Turkish-speaking communities.
37. For an analysis of Yunus Emre's mysticism, see Talât S. Halman, ed. Yunus Emre and his Mystical Poetry. Bloomington: Indiana University, 1981.
38. See Cemal Kafadar. Between Two Worlds. Berkeley: U of California P, 1995.
39. See Ahmet Yaşar Ocak. Kültür tarihi kaynağI olarak menâkIbnâmeler:metodolojik bir yaklaşIm. Ankara: Türk Tarih Kurumu BasImevi, 1992.
40. For Battalname, see Dedes (1996). For Danişmendname, see Mélikoff (1960).
41. For an analysis of Hacım Sultan, see Mustafa Erbay, ed. Derviş Burhan, Velayetname-i Kolu Açık Hacım Sultan. Ankara: Ayyıldız Yayınları, 1993; for Abdal Musa, see Abdurrahman Güzel, ed. Abdal Musa velayetnamesi. Ankara: Türk Tarih Kurumu, 1999.
42. Sulucakarahöyük is currently located in the city of Nevşehir in Turkey.
43. See Gölpınarlı 1958: pp. 48, 49, 79.
44. “Biz gene sözümüze gelelim” Gölpınarlı (1958), pp. 46, 84; “Biz gelelim bu yana” Gölpınarlı (1958) p. 68; or “Anlatmaya vakit kalmaz” Gölpınarlı (1958), p. 50.
45. See Gölpınarlı (1958), p. 5.
46. See Gölpınarlı (1958), p. 3.
47. See Gölpınarlı (1958), pp. 60–62.
48. Molla Sadeddin, also known as Said Emre, was a follower of Hacı Bektaş-ı Veli who lived at the turn of the thirteenth century. For the story, see Gölpınarlı (1958), p. 63.
49. A follower of the Yesevi tradition, Ahi Evren was a Sufi artisan who lived at the turn of the twelfth century. For a more detailed analysis of Ahi Evren, see Mikâil Bayram. Ahi Evren ve Ahi teşkilâtı'nın kuruluşu. Konya: Konya Damla Matbaacılık ve Ticaret, 1991.
50. See Gölpınarlı (1958) pp. 51 and 48, respectively.
51. See Gölpınarlı (1958), p. 38.
52. “Padişah, o dedi, bunca kitap okumuş, bunca bilgili bir er, erenlerden biri gelmiş, onu derviş yapmış, o da dervişlere katılmış, şimdi ben gel, dön, onlara katılma diyemem, bu doğru bir şey değil ben diyemem.” See Gölpınarlı (1958), p. 50
53. See Gölpınarlı (1958), p. 48.
54. See Gölpınarlı (1958), p. 48.
55. “Seni 70 kere rahmet suyuyla yudum, dişinin kovuğundan mürekkep karasını çıkaramadım” See Gölpınarlı (1958), p. 60. Following this confrontation, the narrative continues with Sadeddin turning back to the service of Hacı Bektaş and later translating his work Makalat into Turkish.
56. “Hünkar, biz dedi bunca zamandIr teftiş edelim dedik, bu düşünceyi güttük, fakat sonucunda şaşırdık kaldık, künhüne eremedik gitti” See Gölpınarlı (1958), p. 52.
57. Artsın eksilmesin. See Gölpınarlı (1958), pp. 23, 27, 35.
58. Idris'in Saru adlI bir kardeşi varı. Hacı Bektaş’ın Idris'in evinde karar kıldığInı köylülere kötü sözlerle anlattı. Köylü de derviş Kadıncık’ı seviyor da onun için evinde oturuyor diye dedi-koduya başladı. See Gölpınarlı (1958), p. 28.
59. Hünkar, Saru dedi koltuğundan kabarcık çıksın, gövden şişip sarı sular aksın! See Gölpınarlı (1958), p. 32
60. See Gölpınarlı (1958), pp. 66–67.
61. The genre of Tarih-i Ali Osman is in fact a widely reproduced text in a cumulative form and appears in different versions, usually referred to as anonymous chronicles. Aşıkpaşazade's Tarih-i Ali Osman is one signed by its author.
62. See Lindner (1993).
63. See Faroqhi (1999).
64. V.L. Ménage (1962), p. 174.
65. Colin Imber (1990, 1994).
66. V.L. Ménage (1962), p. 174.
67. The genre of menakIpname is different from what one may call a historical chronicle. It is more like a legendary and historical prose, telling the heroic deeds of religious figures.
68. Although he himself uses Atsız's edition of Aşıkpaşazade's Tarih-i Ali Osman, Halil Inalcık admits that a new critical edition is necessary. Like in the two former editions in old script (by Ali and by F. Giese), Atsız's edition too has misreadings and skipped phrases. See Inalcık (1994), p. 139. For a new edition of Aşıkpaşazade's work, see also Osmanoğulları'nın tarihi. Eds. Kemal Yavuz and M.A. Yekta Saraç. Istanbul: K Kitaplığı, (2003). Because this last edition is written in simplified Turkish, the essay will follow Atsız's edition for quotations. See Nihal Atsız. Osmanlı tarihleri. Istanbul: Türkiye Yayınevi, 1949.
69. In the Upsala copy, for instance, the fact that there is a reference to Prince Korkut, the son of Beyazıt II who never reigned, led Atsız to think that this copy may have been particularly written for Korkut.
70. See Inalcık (1962).
71. See Yavuz and Saraç (2003), p. 24.
72. See Yavuz and Saraç (2003), p. 36.
73. Çelebi Mehmet (1389–1421), the son of Bayezid I, is known to bring back order to a chaotic period of early Ottoman history in the aftermath of Bayezid I's defeat in 1402 to Tamerlane.
74. See Ménage (1962) and Kafadar (1995).
75. See Inalcık (1994), p. 144.
76. See Kafadar (1995), p. 103.
77. Yahşi Fakih is known to be the son of Orhan Sultan's imam. Although his manuscript did not survive, it is believed that it could be the earliest written form of the Tarih-i Ali Osman.
78. See Ménage (1962), p. 174.
79. Boza-houses were public places to drink boza, the zythum, malted millet.
80. See Inalcık (1994), p. 143.
81. See Inalcık (1962), pp. 162–63. Different from straight chronicles, the gazavatname genre consisted of campaign narratives written in prose or poetry, focussing on heroes of war, conquest, and victory.
82. Quoted in English in Inalcık (1994), p. 143. In Turkish: “Hey Gaziler, bu menakıbı kim yazdum, vallahi cemi'ine ilmüm yetişüp yazdum, sanmanuz kim yabandan yazdum.” Quoted in Inalcık. “Aşıkpaşazade Tarihi Nasıl Okunmalı?” Söğütten Istanbul'a. Eds. Oktay Özel and Mehmet Öz. Ankara: Imge Kitabevi, 2000. 126.
83. “Bilüp işitdüğümden, bazı hallerinden ve makallerinden.” Quoted in Inalcık (2000), p. 127.
84. Quoted in Inalcık (1994), p. 143. In Turkish: “Insanlar, Osmanlı sultanlarının kahramanlıklarını okudukları veya dinledikleri zaman, onların ruhlarına dua etsinler.” Quoted in Inalcık (2000), p. 126.
85. See Atsız (1949), p. 92.
86. See, for instance, Atsız (1949), p. 139.
87. See Atsız (1949), pp. 158, 238, 246, 254.
88. See Atsız (1949), p. 95.
89. See Atsız (1949), p. 138.
90. For a detailed analysis of the European approach to archeological studies in Anatolia, see Aslı Özyar. “Anatolian Civilizations? European Perceptions on Ancient Cultures in Turkey.” Placing Turkey on the Map of Europe. Ed. Hakan Yılmaz. Istanbul: Boğaziçi UP, 2005.
91. See, respectively, Catia Galatariotou. The Making of a Saint: The Life, Times and Sanctification of Neophytos the Recluse. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge UP, 1991; Zhenya Khachatryan. “Vardan Mamikonyan Performance.” Selected Papers on Armenian and Turkish Culture. Istanbul: Boğaziçi Universitesi Matbaası, forthcoming; Susan Slyomovics. The Merchant of Art: An Egyptian Hilali Oral Epic Poet in Performance. U of California Publications in Modern Philology, 1987.
92. See, for exemple, Evelyn Birge Vitz. Orality and Performance in Early French Romance. Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 1999; Evelyn Birge Vitz. Performing Medieval Narrative. Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 2005; Sophia Menache. The Vox Dei: Communications in the Middle Ages. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1990; Svetlana Loutchitsky and Marie-Christine Varol, eds. HOMO LEGENS: Styles and Practices of Reading. Tournhout and New York: Brepols Publishers, forthcoming.
93. For an analysis of the period, see Arzu Öztürkmen. “Folklore on Trial: Pertev Naili Boratav and the Denationalization of Turkish Folklore.” Journal of Folklore Research 42 (2005): 185–216.
94. Through the process, once the main “grand-narrative” of Turkish national history was formed and genres of Turkish literature were consolidated, these late medieval texts made their way into textbooks of national education.
95. See Paul Zumthor (1994) “Poésie et vocalité au moyen âge” Cahiers de littérature rale, 36, pp. 23–34.
96. See Paul Zumthor. Essai de poétique médiévale. Paris: Éditions du Seuil, 1972.