 | This is an archive of past discussions about Turkey. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
| Archive 5 | ← | Archive 7 | Archive 8 | Archive 9 | Archive 10 | Archive 11 | → | Archive 15 |
Bibliography
(I) General Historical Works: The monumental Geschichte des Osmanischen Reiches, by J. von Hammer Purgstall (1st ed., 10 vols., Vienna, 1827-1835; 2nd ed., 4 vols., Pest, 1840; French trans., by J. J. Hellert, 18 vols., Paris, 1835-1843), is still the standard work until the conclusion of the treaty of Kuchuk Kai'narji (1744), at which date it stops. Founded upon it are Sir E. S. Creasy's History of the Ottoman Turks (London, 1878) and S. Lane-Poole's Turkey in the " Story of the Nations Series " (London, 1888); Sutherland Menzies's Turkey, Old and New (2 vols., 1880) is derived chiefly from French sources and is less accurate and unbiased. An excellent and impartial history in Turkish is the Tarikh-i-devlet-i-osmanie, by Abdurrahman Sheref (Constantinople, A.H.1315-1318=A.D. 1897-1900). The Balkans, by W. Miller (London, 1899), in the " Story of the Nations Series," deals with Turkey's relations with the Balkan states. Halil Ganem's Les Sultans ottomans (2 vols., Paris, 1902) contains much that is interesting, if not always entirely trustworthy.
2. Monographs: Much information on modern Turkish history and politics will be found in the works dealing primarily with topography, finance, law and defence, which have been cited above. See also S. Lane-Poole, Life of Lord Stratford de Redcliffe (2 vols., London, 1888); A. Vandal, Memoiires du marquis de Nointel (French ambassador at Constantinople from 1670 to 1678); E. Engelhardt, La Turquie et le Tanzimat (Paris, 1882); E. Driault, La Question d'orient depuis ses origines jusqu'a nos jours (Paris, 1898); V. Berard, La Turquie et l'Hellenisme (Paris, 1897); idem, Le Sultan, l'Islam et les Puissances (Paris, 1907); idem, La Revolution turque (1909).
3. Official Publications and Collections of Treaties: Sir E. Hertslet's Treaties Regulating the Trade, ez'c., between Great Britain and Turkey (London, 1875) presents a summary of all the principal treaties between Turkey and other states; see also Gabriel Effendi Noradounghian, Recueil d'actes internationaux de l'empire ottoman, 1300-1789, t. i. (Paris, 1897). Much valuable information is to into three periods, which may be termed respectively the pre-classical, the classical and the post-classical. Of these the first extends from the early days of the empire to the accession of Suleiman I.,1301-1520(loo-926); the second from that event to the accession of Mahmud I.,1520-1730(926-1143); and the third from that date to the accession of 'Abd-u1-`Aziz,1730-1861(1143-1277).
The works of the old school in all its periods are entirely Persian in tone, sentiment and form. We find in them the same beauties and the same defects that we observe in the production of the Iranian authors. The formal elegance and conventional grace, alike of thought and of expression, so characteristic of Persian classical literature, pervade the works of the best Ottoman writers, and they are likewise imbued, though in a less degree, with that spirit of mysticism which runs through so much of the poetry of Iran. But the Ottomans did not stop here: in their romantic poems they chose as subjects the favourite themes of their Persian masters, such as Leyli and Mejnun, Khusrev and Shiriri, Yusuf and Zuleykha, and so on; they constantly allude to Persian heroes whose stories occur in the Shah-Nama and other storehouses of Iranian legendary lore; and they wrote their poems in Persian metres and in Persian forms. The mesnevi, the kasida and the ghazel - all of them, so far at least as the Ottomans are concerned, Persian - were the favourite'verse-forms of the old poets. A mesnevi is a poem written in rhyming couplets, and is usually narrative in subject. The kasida and the ghazel are both monorhythmic; the first as a rule celebtates the praises of some great man, while the second discourses of the joys and woes of love. Why Persian rather than Arabian or any other literature became the model of Ottoman writers is explained by the early history of the race (see Turks). Some two centuries before the arrival of the Turks in Asia Minor the Seljuks, then a mere horde of savages, had overrun Persia, where they settled and adopted the civilization of the people they had subdued. Thus Persian became the language of their court and government, and when by-and-by they pushed their conquests into Asia Minor, and founded there the Seljuk Empire of Ram, they carried with them their Persian culture, and diffused it among the peoples newly brought under their sway. It was the descendants of those Persianized Seljuks whom the early Ottomans found ruling in Asia Minor on their arrival there. What had happened to the Seljuks two centuries before happened to the Ottomans now: the less civilized race adopted the culture of the more civilized; and, as the Seljuk Empire fell to pieces and the Ottoman came gradually to occupy its place, the sons of men who had called themselves Seljuks began thenceforth to look upon themselves as Ottomans. Hence the vast majority of the people whom we are accustomed to think of as Ottomans are so only by adoption, being really the descendants of Seljuks or Seljukian subjects, who had derived from Persia whatever they possessed of civilization or of literary taste. An extraordinary love of precedent, the result apparently of conscious want of original power, was sufficient to keep their writers loyal to their early guide for centuries, till at length the allegiance, though not the fashion of it, has been changed in our own days, and Paris has replaced Shiraz as the shrine towards which the Ottoman scholar turns. While conspicuously lacking in creative genius, the Ottomans have always shown themselves possessed of receptive and assimilative powers to a remarkable degree, the result being that the number of their writers both in prose and verse is enormous. Of course only a few of the most prominent, either through the intrinsic merit of their work or through the influence they have had on that of their contemporaries, can be mentioned in a brief review like the present. It ought to be premised that the poetry of the old school is greatly superior to the prose.
Ottoman literature may be said to open with a few mystic lines, the work of Sultan Veled, son of Maulana Jelal-ud-Din, the author of the great Persian poem the Mathnawi. Sultan Veled flourished during the reign of ` Osman I., though he did not reside in the territory under the rule of that prince. Another mystic poet of this early time was `Ashil Pasha, who left a long poem in rhyming couplets, which is called, inappropriately enough, his Divan. The nocturnal expedition across the Hellespont by which Suleiman, the son of Orkhan, won Galipoli and therewith a foothold in Europe for his race, was shared in and celebrated in verse by a Turkish noble or chieftain named Ghazi Fazil. Sheikhi of Kermiyan, a contemporary of Mahommed I.and Murad II., wrote a lengthy and still esteemed mesnevi on the ancient Persian romance of Khusrev and Shirin; and about the same time Yaziji-oghlu gave to the world a long versified history of the Prophet, the Muha.mmediya. The writers mentioned above are the most important previous to the capture of Constantinople; but there is little literature of real merit prior to that event. The most notable prose work of this period is an old collection of stories, the History of the Forty Vezirs, said to have been compiled by a certain Sheikh-zada and dedicated to Murad II. Afewyearsafter Constantinople passed into the hands of the Ottomans, some ghazels, the work of the contemporary Tatar prince, Mir `Ali Shir, who under the nom de plume of Nevayi wrote much that shows true talent and poetic feeling, found their way to the Ottoman capital, where they were seen and copied by Ahmed Pasha, one of the viziers of Mahommed II. The poems of this statesman, though possessing little merit of their own, being for the most part translations from Nevayi, form one of the landmarks in the history of Ottoman literature. They set the fashion of ghazel-writing; and their appearance was the signal for a more regular cultivation of poetry and a greater attention to literary style and to refinement of language. In Sinan Pasha (d. 1420), another minister of Mahommed the Conqueror, Ottoman prose found its first exponent of ability; he left a religious treatise entitled Tazarru`at (Supplications), which, notwithstanding a too lavish employment of the resources of Persian rhetoric, is as remarkable for its clear and lucid style as for the beauty of many of the thoughts it contains. The most noteworthy writers of the Conqueror's reign are, after Ahmed and Sinan, the two lyric poets Nejati and Zati, whose verses show a considerable improvement upon those of Ahmed Pasha, the romantic poets Jemali and Hamdi, and the poetesses Zeyneb and Mihri. Like most of his house, Mahommed II. was fond of poetry and patronized men of letters. He himself tried versification, and some of his lines which have come down to us appear quite equal to the average work of his contemporaries. Twenty-one out of the thirty-four sovereigns who have occupied the throne of 'Osman have left verses, and among these Selim I. stands out, not merely as the greatest ruler, warrior and statesman, but also as the most gifted and most original poet. His work is unhappily for the greater part in the Persian language; the excellence of what he has done in Turkish makes us regret that he did so little. The most prominent man of letters under Selim I. was the legist Kemal Pasha-zada, frequently called Ibn-Kemal, who distinguished himself in both prose and verse. He left a romantic poem on the loves of Yusuf and Zuleykha, and a work entitled Nigaristan, which is modelled both in style aad matter on the Gulistan of Sa`di. His contemporary, Mesihi, whose beautiful verses on spring are perhaps better known in Europe than any other Turkish poem, deserves a passing mention.
With the accession of Selim's son, Suleiman I., the classical period begins. Hitherto all Ottoman writing, even the most highly Classical finished, had been somewhat rude and uncouth; but. now a marked improvement becomes visible alike in the Period manner and the matter, and authors of greater ability begin to make their appearance. Fuzuli (d. 1563), one of the four great poets of the old school, seems to have been a native of Bagdad or its neighbourhood, and probably became an Ottoman subject when Suleiman took possession of the old capital of the caliphs. His language, which is very peculiar, seems to be a sort of mixture of the Ottoman and Azerbaijan dialects of Turkish, and was most probably that of the Persian Turks of those days. Fuzuli showed far more originality than any of his predecessors; for, although his work is naturally Persian in form and in general character, it is far from being a mere echo from Shiraz or Isfahan. He struck out a new line for himself, and was indebted for his inspiration to no previous writer, whether Turk or Persian. An intense and passionate ardour breathes in his verses, and forms one of the most remarkable as well as one of the most attractive characteristics of his style; for, while few even among Turkish poets are more artificial than he, few seem to write with greater earnestness and sincerity. His influence upon his successors has scarcely been as far-reaching as might have been expected - a circumstance which is perhaps in some measure owing to the unfamiliar dialect in which he wrote. Besides his Divan, he left a beautiful mesnevi on the story of Leyli and Mejnun, as well as some prose works little inferior to his poetry. Balfi (d. 1599) of Constantinople, though far from rivalling his contemporary Fuzuli, wrote much good poetry, including one piece of great excellence, an elegy on Suleiman I. The Ottomans have as a rule been particularly successful with elegies; this one by Bati has never been surpassed. Ruhi, Lami`i, Nevi, the janissary Yahya Beg, the mufti Ebu-Su`ud and Selim II. all won deserved distinction as poets. During the reign of Ahmed I. arose the second of the great poets of the old Ottoman school, Nef'i of Erzerum, who owes his preeminence to the brilliance of his 1p.sidas. But Nef'i could revile as well as praise, and such was the bitterness of some of his satires that certain influential personages who came under his lash induced Murad IV. to permit his execution. Nef'i, who, like Fuzuli, formed a style of his own, had many to imitate him, of whom Sabri Shakir, a contemporary, was the most successful. Na`ili, Jevri and Fehim need not detain us; but Nabi (d. 1712), who flourished under Ibrahim and Mahommed IV., calls for a little more attention. This prolific author copied, and so imported into Ottoman literature, a didactic style of ghazel-writing which was then being introduced in Persia by the poet Sa'ib; but so closely did the pupil follow in the footsteps of his master that it is not always easy to know that his lines are intended to be Turkish. A number of poets, of whom Seyyid Vehbi, Raghib Pasha, Rahmi of the Crimea, Kelim and Sand are the most notable, took Nabi for their model. Of these, Sami is remarkable for the art with which he constructed his ghazels. Among the writers of this time who did not copy Nabi are Sabit, Rasikh and Talib, each of whom endeavoured, with no great success, to open up a new path for himself. We now reach the reign of Ahmed III., during which flourished Nedim, the greatest of all the poets of the old school. Little appears to be known about his life further than that he resided at Constantinople and was alive in the year 1727 (A.H. 1140). Nedim stands quite alone: he copied no one, and no one has attempted to copy him. There is in his poetry a joyousness and sprightliness which at once distinguish it from the work of any other Turkish author. His ghazels, which are written with great elegance and finish, contain many graceful and original ideas, and the words he makes use of are always chosen with a view to harmony and cadence. His hasidas are almost equal to his ghazels; for, while they rival those of Nef `i in brilliancy, they surpass them in beauty of diction, and are not so artificial and dependent on fantastic and farfetched conceits. The classical period comes to an end with Nedim; its brightest time is that which falls between the rise of Nef'i and the death of Nedim, or, more roughly, that extending from the accession of Ahmed I. 1603 (1012), to the deposition of Ahmed III., 1 73 0 (1143).
We will now glance at the prose writers of this period. Under the name of Humayun Nama (Imperial Book) 'Ali Chelebi made a highly esteemed translation of the well-known Persian Classical classic Anvar-i Suheyli, dedicating it to Suleiman I. e Sa`d-ud-Din (d. 1599), the preceptor of Murad III., wrote a valuable history of the empire from the earliest W riters. times to the death of Selim I. This work, the Taj-ut-Tevarikh (Crown of Chronicles), is reckoned, on account of its ornate yet clear style, one of the masterpieces of the old school, and forms the first of an unbroken series of annals which are written, especially the later among them, with great minuteness and detail. Of Sa`d-ud-Din's successors in the office of imperial historiographer the most remarkable for literary power is Na`ima. His work, which extends from 1591 (1000) to 1659 (Iwo), contrasts strongly with that of the earlier historian, being written with great directness and lucidity, combined with much vigour and picturesqueness. Evliya, who died during the reign of Mahommed IV., is noted for the record which he has left of his travels in different countries. About this time Tash-kOprizada began and 'Ata-ullah continued a celebrated biography of the legists and sheikhs who had flourished under the Ottoman monarchs. Haji Khalifa, frequently termed Katib Chelebi, was one of the most famous men of letters whom Turkey has produced. He died in 1658 (1068), having written a great number of learned works on history, biography, chronology, geography and other subjects. The Persianizing tendency of this school reached its highest point in the productions of Veysi, who left a Life of the Prophet, and of Nergisi, a miscellaneous writer of prose and verse. Such is the intentional obscurity in many of the compositions of these two authors that every sentence becomes a puzzle, over which even a scholarly Ottoman must pause before he can be sure he has found its true meaning. The first printing-press in Turkey was established by an Hungarian who had assumed the name of Ibrahim, and in 1728 (1141) appeared the first book printed in that country; it was Vanlpuli's Turkish translation of Jevheri's Arabic dictionary.
Coming now to the post-classical period, we find among poets worthy of mention Beligh, Nevres, Hishmet and Sunbuli-zada Vehbi, each of whom wrote in a style peculiar to himself. Three poets of note--Pertev, Neshet and Sheikh Ghalib - flourished under Selim III. The last-named is the fourth great poet of the old school. Husn u 'A s4 (Beauty and Love), as his great poem is called, is an allegorical romance full of tenderness and imaginative power. Ghalib's style is as original as that of Fuzuli, Nefi or Nedim. The most distinguished prose writers of this period are perhaps Rashid, the imperial historio grapher, 'Asim, who translated into Turkish two great lexicons, the Arabic Itamus and the Persian Burhan-i and Kani, the only humorous writer of merit belonging to the old school.
When we reach the reign of Mahmud II., the great transition period of Ottoman history, during which the civilization of the West began to struggle in earnest with that of the East, we find the change which was coming over all things Turkish affecting literature along with the rest, and preparing the way for the appearance of the new school. The chief poets of the transition are Fazil Bey, Wasif, notable for his not altogether unhappy attempt to write verses in the spoken language of the capital, `Izzet Molla, Pertev Pasha, `Akif Pasha, and the poetesses Fitnet and Leyla. In the works of all of these, although we occasionally discern a hint of the new style, the old Persian manner is still supreme.
More intimate relations with western Europe and a pretty general study of the French language and literature, together with the steady progress of the reforming tendency fairly started under Mahmud II., resulted in the birth of the new or modern school, whose objects are truth and simplicity. In the political writings of Reshid and `Akif Pashas we have the first clear note of change; but the man to whom more than to any other the new departure owes its success is Shinasi Effendi, who employed it
1911 Edition of Encyclopaedia Brittanica about Turkey
(1859) for poetry as well as for prose. The European style, on its introduction, encountered the most violent opposition, but now it alone is used by living authors of repute. If any of these does write a pamphlet in the old manner, it is merely as a tour de force, or to prove to some faithful but clamorous partisan of the Persian style that it is not, as he supposes, lack of ability which causes the modern author to adopt the simpler and more natural fashion of the West. The whole tone, sentiment and form of Ottoman literature have been revolutionized by the new school: varieties of poetry hitherto unknown have been adopted from Europe; an altogether new branch of literature, the drama, has arisen; while the sciences are now treated and seriously studied after the system of the West. Among writers of this school who have won distinction are Ziya Pasha, Jevdet Pasha, the statesman and historian, Ekrem Bey, the author of a beautiful series of miscellaneous poems, Zemzema, Hamid Bey, who holds the first place among Ottoman dramatists, and Kemal Bey (d. 1878), the leader of the modern school and one of the most illustrious men of letters whom his country has produced. He wrote with conspicuous success in almost every branch of literature - history, romance, ethics, poetry and the drama; and his influence on the Young Turk party of later days was profound. (For the Turkish language see Turks.) (E. J. W. G.) The magnum opus in English on Turkish poetry is E. J. W. Gibb's History of Ottoman Poetry (5 vols., 1900-8, vol. v. ed. E. G. Browne).
{{NextPrev|Turkestan, Turkestan|Turkey (Bird)}}