Evliya Çelebi

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Evliya Çelebi

Evliya Çelebi (اوليا چلبي), the son of the imperial goldsmith Derviş Mehmed Zılli (March 25(?), 1611 – 1682) and an Abkhazian mother, was a famous Ottoman traveler who journeyed throughout the territories of the Ottoman Empire and the neighbouring lands over a period of forty years.

Contents

Life

Evliya Çelebi was born in Constantinople (present-day Istanbul) in 1611 to a family from Kutahya. As his father was a jeweller for the Ottoman court, he received an excellent education. He may have joined the Gülşenî sufi order; evidence for this claim comes from his intimate knowledge of its lodge in Cairo and from a graffito referring to himself as "Evliya-yı Gülşenî" (Evliya of the Gülşenî). He began his travels in Istanbul, taking notes on buildings, markets, customs and culture; in 1640, he started his first journey outside the city. His collection of notes from all of his travels formed a ten-volume work called the Seyahatname (Book of Travels).

He died sometime after 1682; it is unclear whether he was in Istanbul or Cairo at the time.

The Seyahatname

Evliya Çelebi.jpg

Although many of the descriptions in this book were written in an exaggerated manner or were plainly inventive fiction or 3rd-source misinterpretation, his notes are widely accepted as a useful guide to the cultural aspects and lifestyle of 17th-century Ottoman Empire. The first volume deals exclusively with Istanbul, the final volume with Egypt. Despite being characterized as unreliable, the work is valued as both a study of Turkish culture and the lands he reports on.

Currently, there is no English translation of the entire work. There are translations of various parts of the Seyahatname, but not the whole. The longest single English translation was published in 1834 by Ritter Joseph von Hammer-Purgstall, an Austrian Orientalist; it may be found under the name "Evliya Efendi." Von Hammer's work covers the first two volumes: Istanbul and Anatolia. The translation is by now quite antiquated, but other sections have been translated, such as Erich Prokosch's nearly complete German translations of the tenth volume. An introduction to the work entitled The World of Evliya Çelebi: An Ottoman Mentality was published in 2004 written by University of Chicago professor Robert Dankoff.

Evliya is noted for having collected specimens from language he traveled in each region. There are some thirty Turkic dialects and languages cataloged in the Travelogue cataloged. Çelebi notes the similarities between several words from the German and Persian, though he denies any common Indo-European heritage. His notes on Kurdish in Eastern Anatolia are highly valued by linguists. The Travelogue also contains the first transcriptions of many Caucasian languages and Tsakonian, and the only extant specimens of written Ubykh outside the linguistic literature.

In the ten volumes of his Seyahatname he describes the following journeys:

  1. Istanbul and surrounding areas (1630)
  2. Anatolia, the Caucasus, Crete and Azerbaijan (1640)
  3. Syria, Palestine, Kurdistan, Armenia and Rumelia (1648)
  4. Eastern Anatolia, Iraq, and Iran (1655)
  5. Russia and the Balkans (1656)
  6. Military Campaigns in Hungary (1663/64)
  7. Austria, the Crimea, and the Caucasus for the second time (1664)
  8. Greece and then the Crimea and Rumelia for the second time (1667-1670)
  9. the Hajj to Mecca (1671)
  10. Egypt and the Sudan (1672)

Popular culture

İstanbul Kanatlarımın Altında (Istanbul Under My Wings, 1996) is a film about the lives of Hezarfen Ahmet Çelebi, his brother Lagari Hasan Çelebi, and the Ottoman society in the early 17th century, during the reign of Murad IV, as witnessed and narrated by Evliya Çelebi.

Evliya Çelebi appears in Orhan Pamuk's novel The White Castle.

Bibliography

In Turkish

  • Evliya Çelebi. Evliya Çelebi Seyahatnâmesi. Beyoğlu, İstanbul: Yapı Kredi Yayınları Ltd. Şti., 1996-. 10 vols.
  • Evliya Çelebi: Seyahatnamesi. 2 Vol. Cocuk Klasikleri Dizisi. Berlin 2005. ISBN 975-379-160-7 (A selection translated into modern Turkish for children)

In English

  • Robert Dankoff: An Ottoman Mentality. The World of Evliya Çelebi. Leiden: E.J. Brill, 2004.
  • Evliya Çelebi’s Book of Travels. Evliya Çelebi in Albania and Adjacent Regions (Kosovo, Montenegro). The Relevant Sections of the Seyahatname. Trans. and Ed. Robert Dankoff. Leiden and Boston 2000. ISBN 90-04-11624-9
  • Evliya Çelebi in Diyarbekir: The Relevant Section of The Seyahatname. Trans. and Ed. Martin van Bruinessen and Hendrik Boeschoten. New York : E.J. Brill, 1988.
  • The Intimate Life of an Ottoman Statesman: Melek Ahmed Pasha (1588-1662) as Portrayed in Evliya Çelebi's Book of Travels. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1991.
  • Narrative of travels in Europe, Asia, and Africa, in the seventeenth century, by Evliyá Efendí. Trans. Ritter Joseph von Hammer. London: Oriental Translation Fund of Great Britain and Ireland, 1846.

In German

  • Im Reiche des Goldenen Apfels. Des türkischen Weltenbummlers Evliâ Çelebis denkwürdige Reise in das Giaurenland und die Stadt und Festung Wien anno 1665. Trans. R. Kreutel, Graz, et al. 1987.
  • Kairo in der zweiten Hälfte des 17. Jahrhunderts. Beschrieben von Evliya Çelebi. Trans. Erich Prokosch. Istanbul 2000. ISBN 975-7172-35-9
  • Ins Land der geheimnisvollen Func: des türkischen Weltenbummlers, Evliyā Çelebi, Reise durch Oberägypten und den Sudan nebst der osmanischen Provinz Habes in den Jahren 1672/73. Trans. Erich Prokosch. Graz: Styria, 1994.
  • Evliya Çelebis Reise von Bitlis nach Van: ein Auszug aus dem Seyahatname. Trans. Christiane Bulut. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1997.
  • Manisa nach Evliyā Çelebi: aus dem neunten Band des Seyāḥat-nāme. Trans. Nuran Tezcan. Boston: Brill, 1999.
  • Evliyā Çelebis Anatolienreise aus dem dritten Band des Seyāḥatnāme. Trans. Korkut M. Buğday. New York: E.J. Brill, 1996.
  • Klaus Kreiser: Edirne im 17. Jahrhundert nach Evliyâ Çelebî. Ein Beitrag zur Kenntnis der osmanischen Stadt. Freiburg 1975. ISBN 3-87997-045-9
  • Helena Turková: Die Reisen und Streifzüge Evliyâ Çelebîs in Dalmatien und Bosnien in den Jahren 1659/61. Prag 1965.

See also

External links

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