HOME
*





Turkish Folk Literature
Turkish folk literature is an oral tradition deeply rooted, in its form, in Central Asian nomadic traditions. However, in its themes, Turkish folk literature reflects the problems peculiar to a settling (or settled) people who have abandoned the nomadic lifestyle. One example of this is the series of folktales surrounding the figure of Keloğlan, a young boy beset with the difficulties of finding a wife, helping his mother to keep the family house intact, and dealing with the problems caused by his neighbors. Another example is the rather mysterious figure of Nasreddin, a trickster figure who often plays jokes, of a sort, on his neighbors. Nasreddin also reflects another significant change that had occurred between the days when the Turkish people were nomadic and the days when they had largely become settled in Anatolia; namely, Nasreddin is a Muslim imam. The Turkish people had first become an Islamic people sometime around the 9th or 10th century CE, and the religion hence ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Oral Tradition
Oral tradition, or oral lore, is a form of human communication wherein knowledge, art, ideas and cultural material is received, preserved, and transmitted orally from one generation to another. Vansina, Jan: ''Oral Tradition as History'' (1985), reported statements from present generation which "specifies that the message must be oral statements spoken, sung or called out on musical instruments only"; "There must be transmission by word of mouth over at least a generation". He points out, "Our definition is a working definition for the use of historians. Sociologists, linguists or scholars of the verbal arts propose their own, which in, e.g., sociology, stresses common knowledge. In linguistics, features that distinguish the language from common dialogue (linguists), and in the verbal arts features of form and content that define art (folklorists)."Ki-Zerbo, Joseph: "Methodology and African Prehistory", 1990, ''UNESCO International Scientific Committee for the Drafting of a Gene ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Minstrel
A minstrel was an entertainer, initially in medieval Europe. It originally described any type of entertainer such as a musician, juggler, acrobat, singer or fool; later, from the sixteenth century, it came to mean a specialist entertainer who sang songs and played musical instruments. Description Minstrels performed songs which told stories of distant places or of existing or imaginary historical events. Although minstrels created their own tales, often they would memorize and embellish the works of others. Frequently they were retained by royalty and high society. As the courts became more sophisticated, minstrels were eventually replaced at court by the troubadours, and many became wandering minstrels, performing in the streets; a decline in their popularity began in the late 15th century. Minstrels fed into later traditions of travelling entertainers, which continued to be moderately strong into the early 20th century, and which has some continuity in the form of today's bu ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Yaşar Kemal
Yaşar Kemal (born Kemal Sadık Gökçeli; 6 October 1923 – 28 February 2015) was a Turkish writer and human rights activist and one of Turkey's leading writers. He received 38 awards during his lifetime and had been a candidate for the Nobel Prize in Literature on the strength of ''Memed, My Hawk''. An outspoken intellectual, he often did not hesitate to speak about sensitive issues, especially those concerning the oppression of the Kurdish people. He was tried in 1995 under anti-terror laws for an article he wrote for ''Der Spiegel'' highlighting the Turkish Army's destruction of Kurdish villages during the Turkish-Kurdish conflict. He was released but later received a suspended 20-month jail sentence for another article he wrote criticising racism in Turkey, especially against the Kurds. Kemal was a major contributor to Turkish literature in the early years after Turkish fell into decline as a literary language after Atatürk's language reforms of the 1930s. Early life ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Mehmed I
Mehmed I ( 1386 – 26 May 1421), also known as Mehmed Çelebi ( ota, چلبی محمد, "the noble-born") or Kirişçi ( el, Κυριτζής, Kyritzis, "lord's son"), was the Ottoman sultan from 1413 to 1421. The fourth son of Sultan Bayezid I and Devlet Hatun, he fought with his brothers over control of the Ottoman realm in the Ottoman Interregnum (1402–1413). Starting from the province of Rûm he managed to bring first Anatolia and then the European territories (Rumelia) under his control, reuniting the Ottoman state by 1413, and ruling it until his death in 1421. Called "The Restorer," he reestablished central authority in Anatolia, and he expanded the Ottoman presence in Europe by the conquest of Wallachia in 1415. Venice destroyed his fleet off Gallipoli in 1416 as the Ottomans lost a naval war. Early life Mehmed was born in 1386 or 1387 as the fourth son of Sultan Bayezid I () and one of his consorts, the slave girl Devlet Hatun. Following Ottoman custom, when he reac ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Sultan
Sultan (; ar, سلطان ', ) is a position with several historical meanings. Originally, it was an Arabic abstract noun meaning "strength", "authority", "rulership", derived from the verbal noun ', meaning "authority" or "power". Later, it came to be used as the title of certain rulers who claimed almost full sovereignty (i.e., not having dependence on any higher ruler) without claiming the overall caliphate, or to refer to a powerful governor of a province within the caliphate. The adjectival form of the word is "sultanic", and the state and territories ruled by a sultan, as well as his office, are referred to as a sultanate ( '. The term is distinct from king ( '), despite both referring to a sovereign ruler. The use of "sultan" is restricted to Muslim countries, where the title carries religious significance, contrasting the more secular ''king'', which is used in both Muslim and non-Muslim countries. Brunei and Oman are the only independent countries which retain the ti ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Nazım Hikmet
A nazim is the coordinator of a city or town in Pakistan. Nazim or variant spellings may also refer to: *Nazim (given name), including a list of people with the given name *Nazim (surname), including a list of people with the surname See also *Nazimabad, a suburb of Karachi, Sindh, Pakistan *Nizam of Hyderabad The Nizams were the rulers of Hyderabad from the 18th through the 20th century. Nizam of Hyderabad (Niẓām ul-Mulk, also known as Asaf Jah) was the title of the monarch of the Hyderabad State ( divided between the state of Telangana, Mar ...
, monarch of the Hyderabad State {{disambiguation ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Shaykh Bedreddin
Sheikh Bedreddin (1359–1420) ( ota, شیخ بدرالدین), full name Sheikh Bedreddin Mahmud bin Israel bin Abdulaziz was an influential mystic, scholar, theologian, and revolutionary. He is best known for his role in a 1416 revolt against the Ottoman Empire, in which he and his disciples posed a serious challenge to the authority of Sultan Mehmed I and the Ottoman state. Early life Many details of Bedreddin's early life are disputed, as much of it is the subject of legend and folklore. He was born in 1359 in the town of Simavna (Kyprinos), near Edirne. His father was the '' ghazi'' of the town, and his mother was the daughter of a Byzantine fortress commander. He was born in a family with political and intellectual prominence. His grandfather was a high-ranking Seljuk officer. Notably, Bedreddin was of mixed Muslim and Christian parentage, with a Christian mother and a Muslim father; this contributed to his syncretic religious beliefs later in life. Turkish scholar Cemal Ka ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Epic Of Köroğlu
The ''Epic of Koroghlu'' ( az, , tr, ; tk, , uz, ) is a heroic legend prominent in the oral traditions of the Turkic peoples, mainly the Oghuz Turks. The legend typically describes a hero who seeks to avenge a wrong. It was often put to music and played at sporting events as an inspiration to the competing athletes. Koroghlu is the main hero of epic with the same name in Azerbaijani, Turkmen and Turkish as well as some other Turkic languages. The epic tells about the life and heroic deeds of Koroghlu as a hero of the people who struggled against unjust rulers. The epic combines the occasional romance with Robin Hood-like chivalry. Due to the migration in the Middle Ages of large groups of Oghuz Turks within Central Asia, South Caucasus and Asia Minor, and their subsequent assimilation with other ethnic groups, Epic of Koroghlu spread widely in these geographical regions leading to emergence of its Turkmen, Kazakh, Uzbek, Tajik, Azerbaijani, Turkish, Crimean Ta ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Transoxiana
Transoxiana or Transoxania (Land beyond the Oxus) is the Latin name for a region and civilization located in lower Central Asia roughly corresponding to modern-day eastern Uzbekistan, western Tajikistan, parts of southern Kazakhstan, parts of Turkmenistan and southern Kyrgyzstan. Geographically, it is the region between the rivers Amu Darya to its south and the Syr Darya to its north. Historically known in Persian as ( fa, فرارود, – 'beyond the muriver'), ( tg, Фарорӯд) and ( tg, Варазрӯд), the area had been known to the ancient Iranians as Turan, a term used in the Persian national epic ''Shahnameh''. The corresponding Chinese term for the region is ''Hezhong'' (). The Arabic term ( ar, ما وراء النهر, – 'what is beyond the ayhūnriver') passed into Persian literary usage and stayed on until post-Mongol times. The region was one of the satrapies (provinces) of the Achaemenid Empire of Persia under the name Sogdia. It was defined wi ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Eastern Europe
Eastern Europe is a subregion of the Europe, European continent. As a largely ambiguous term, it has a wide range of geopolitical, geographical, ethnic, cultural, and socio-economic connotations. The vast majority of the region is covered by Russia, which spans roughly 40% of the continent's landmass while accounting for approximately 15% of its total population."The Balkans"
, ''Global Perspectives: A Remote Sensing and World Issues Site''. Wheeling Jesuit University/Center for Educational Technologies, 1999–2002.
It represents a significant part of Culture of Europe, European culture; the main socio-cultural characteristics of Eastern Europe have historically been defined by the traditions of Slavs and Greeks, as well as by the influence of Eastern Christianity as it developed through t ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Southwest Asia
Western Asia, West Asia, or Southwest Asia, is the westernmost subregion of the larger geographical region of Asia, as defined by some academics, UN bodies and other institutions. It is almost entirely a part of the Middle East, and includes Anatolia, the Arabian Peninsula, Iran, Mesopotamia, the Armenian highlands, Armenian Highlands, the Levant, the island of Cyprus, the Sinai Peninsula, and partly the Caucasus, Caucasus Region (Transcaucasia). The region is considered to be separated from Africa by the Isthmus of Suez in Egypt, and separated from Europe by the waterways of the Turkish Straits and the watershed of the Greater Caucasus. Central Asia lies to its northeast, while South Asia lies to its east. Twelve seas surround the region (clockwise): the Aegean Sea, the Sea of Marmara, the Black Sea, the Caspian Sea, the Persian Gulf, the Gulf of Oman, the Arabian Sea, the Gulf of Aden, the Red Sea, the Gulf of Aqaba, the Gulf of Suez, and the Mediterranean Sea. Western Asia cove ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Oghuz Turks
The Oghuz or Ghuzz Turks (Middle Turkic languages, Middle Turkic: ٱغُز, ''Oγuz'', ota, اوغوز, Oġuz) were a western Turkic people that spoke the Oghuz languages, Oghuz branch of the Turkic languages, Turkic language family. In the 8th century, they formed a Turkic tribal confederation, tribal confederation conventionally named the Oghuz Yabgu State in Central Asia. The name ''Oghuz'' is a Common Turkic word for "tribe". Byzantine Empire, Byzantine sources call the Oghuz the Uzes (Οὐ̑ζοι, ''Ouzoi''). By the 10th century, Islamic sources were calling them Muslim Turkmens, as opposed to Tengrist or Buddhist. By the 12th century, this term had passed into Byzantine usage and the Oghuzes were overwhelmingly Muslim. The term "Oghuz" was gradually supplanted among the Turks themselves by the terms ''Turkmen'' and ''Turkoman (ethnonym), Turcoman'', ( ota, تركمن, Türkmen or ''Türkmân'') from the mid-10th century on, a process which was completed by the beginn ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]