Evliya Çelebi
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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.
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[edit] Life
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).
Çelebi died sometime after 1682; it is unclear whether he was in Istanbul or Cairo at the time.
[edit] The Travelogue
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 Cairo. Despite being characterized as unreliable, the work is valued as both a study of Turkish culture and the lands he reports on.[citation needed] Currently, there is no English translation of the entire work. There are translations of his stays in Albania, Bitlis, Diyarbakir, and Uzundzhovo. The longest single English translation was published in 1834 by Ritter Joseph von Hammer-Purgstall, an Austrian Orientalist; it may be found under the authorial name "Evliya Efendi." Von Hammer's work covers the first two volumes: Istanbul and Anatolia. The translation is somewhat inaccurate and uses a bizarre transliteration system.[citation needed] An introduction to the Travelogue, The World of Evliya Çelebi : An Ottoman Mentality, was published in 2003 and features brief excerpts-written by University of Chicago professor Robert Dankoff.
Çelebi 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.
[edit] 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.
[edit] Bibliography
[edit] 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)
[edit] In English
- Robert Dankoff: An Ottoman Mentality. The World of Evliya Çelebi. Leiden 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
[edit] In German
- Evliya Çelebi: 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.
- Evliya Çelebi: Kairo in der zweiten Hälfte des 17. Jahrhunderts. Beschrieben von Evliya Çelebi. Trans. Erich Prokosch. Istanbul 2000. ISBN 975-7172-35-9
- 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.
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
- "An Ottoman mentality: the world of Evliya Çelebi" (2004) by Robert Dankoff, a book-length biography
- Selections from the Seyahatname in modern Turkish
- Volume 10 of the Seyahatname, describing Egypt
