Dastan ( fa, داستان ''dâstân'', meaning "story" or "tale") is an ornate form of

oral history Oral history is the collection and study of historical information about individuals, families, important events, or everyday life using audiotapes, videotapes, or transcriptions of planned interviews. These interviews are conducted with people wh ...

from

Central Asia Central Asia, also known as Middle Asia, is a subregion, region of Asia that stretches from the Caspian Sea in the west to western China and Mongolia in the east, and from Afghanistan and Iran in the south to Russia in the north. It includes t ...

Iran Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...

Turkey Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a list of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolia, Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with ...

and

Azerbaijan Azerbaijan (, ; az, Azərbaycan ), officially the Republic of Azerbaijan, , also sometimes officially called the Azerbaijan Republic is a transcontinental country located at the boundary of Eastern Europe and Western Asia. It is a part of th ...

. A dastan is generally centered on one individual who protects his tribe or his people from an outside invader or enemy, although only occasionally can this figure be traced back to a historical person. This main character sets an example of how one should act, and the dastan becomes a teaching tool — for example the

Sufi Sufism ( ar, ''aṣ-ṣūfiyya''), also known as Tasawwuf ( ''at-taṣawwuf''), is a mystic body of religious practice, found mainly within Sunni Islam but also within Shia Islam, which is characterized by a focus on Islamic spirituality, ...

master and Turkic poet

Ahmed Yesevi Ahmad Yasawi ( kk, Қожа Ахмет Ясауи, Qoja Ahmet Iasaui, قوجا احمەت ياساۋٸ; fa, خواجه اَحمدِ یَسوی, Khwāje Ahmad-e Yasavī; 1093–1166) was a Turkic poet and Sufi, an early mystic who exerted a pow ...

said "Let the scholars hear my wisdom, treating my words like a dastan". Alongside the wisdom, each dastan is rich with cultural history of interest to scholars. During the

Russian conquest of Central Asia The partially successful Territorial evolution of Russia, conquest of Central Asia by the Russian Empire took place in the second half of the nineteenth century. The land that became Russian Turkestan and later Soviet Central Asia is now divide ...

, many new dastans were created to protest the Russian occupation. It is possible that they came into contact and influenced each other. According to Turkish historian Hasan Bülent Paksoy, the

Bolsheviks The Bolsheviks (russian: Большевики́, from большинство́ ''bol'shinstvó'', 'majority'),; derived from ''bol'shinstvó'' (большинство́), "majority", literally meaning "one of the majority". also known in English ...

tried to destroy these symbols of culture by only publishing them in insufficiently large quantities and in a distorted form "in order to weaken the heroic impact". A notable dastan is '' Korkut Ata'' of the

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 th ...

— which may have been created as early as the beginning of the 13th century.{{cite journal, last=Meeker, first=Michael E., title=The Dede Korkut Ethic, journal=International Journal of Middle East Studies, volume=24, issue=3, date=August 1992, pages=395–417, doi=10.1017/S0020743800021954, quote=The ''Book of Dede Korkut'' is an early record of oral Turkic folktales in

Anatolia Anatolia, tr, Anadolu Yarımadası), and the Anatolian plateau, also known as Asia Minor, is a large peninsula in Western Asia and the westernmost protrusion of the Asian continent. It constitutes the major part of modern-day Turkey. The re ...

, and as such, one of the mythic charters of Turkish nationalist ideology. The oldest versions of the ''Book of Dede Korkut'' consist of two manuscripts copied in the 16th century. The twelve stories that are recorded in these manuscripts are believed to be derived from a cycle of stories and songs circulating among

Turkic peoples The Turkic peoples are a collection of diverse ethnic groups of West, Central, East, and North Asia as well as parts of Europe, who speak Turkic languages.. "Turkic peoples, any of various peoples whose members speak languages belonging t ...

living in northeastern Anatolia and northwestern Azerbaijan. According to

Lewis Lewis may refer to: Names * Lewis (given name), including a list of people with the given name * Lewis (surname), including a list of people with the surname Music * Lewis (musician), Canadian singer * "Lewis (Mistreated)", a song by Radiohead ...

(1974), an older substratum of these oral traditions dates to conflicts between the ancient Oghuz and their Turkish rivals in Central Asia (the Pecheneks and the Kipchaks), but this substratum has been clothed in references to the 14th-century campaigns of the Akkoyunlu Confederation of Turkic tribes against the Georgians, the Abkhaz, and the Greeks in Trebizond. Such stories and songs would have emerged no earlier than the beginning of the 13th century, and the written versions that have reached us would have been composed no later than the beginning of the 15th century. By this time, the Turkic peoples in question had been in touch with Islamic civilization for several centuries, had come to call themselves “Turcoman” rather than “Oghuz,” had close associations with sedentary and urbanized societies, and were participating in Islamized regimes that included nomads, farmers, and townsmen. Some had abandoned their nomadic way of life altogether.

References

Central Asian culture Iranian folklore Oral history Persian words and phrases Turkic culture Turkish folklore

See also

References