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PREFACE
The Seyahat-name is a treasure-house, whose riches have hardly begun to be explored. I have here extracted a gem, and placed it in a setting where, I hope, it will be appreciated.
The book is aimed at a general and a specialized audience. The general reader, curious about Middle Eastern cultural history, or simply enjoying a good yam, will find much in the translation that is instructive or amusing. The specialist, interested in things Turkish, or Kurdish, or Ottoman, will find a carefully edited text, and may also be served by the translation, at least as an interpretive guide to the text.
The Introduction provides some background on Evliya Çelebi and his work as a whole; an outline of the narrative content of the portions here extracted; a brief account of the geographical and historical setting; and (for the specialists) an analysis of the linguistic data.1 The Turkish text and the translation are given on facing pages, to ease cross-reference. In order not to overburden the translation with explanatory notes, I have put at the end: 1) a glossary of terms left untranslated (this includes well-known terms pertaining to Ottoman and Islamic culture, but excludes such common English words as vizier, caliph, pasha, and the like); 2) a list, with some references and discussion, of unusual terms and expressions (for the specialist); and 3) an index of all proper names — persons, groups, places, book titles, etc.- with brief identifications.
Several people have read over all or part of an early draft of this book, or have discussed various aspects with me, and I have profited greatly from their suggestions, some of which saved me from gross or minor errors. (Any such errors that remain are wholly my own responsibility.) I am grateful to Andreas Tietze, Halil Inalcik, the late Mehmed Çavuşoglu, Cornell Fleischer, Hendrik Boeschoten, Semih Tezcan, and especially Mertol Tulum for their corrections of some misreadings, mistranslations, and faulty transcriptions; to Michael Rogers, Julian Raby, and John Carswell for their help in identifying and translating terms relating to material life and the visual arts; to Walter Feldman for musical terminology; to J. J. S.
Weitenberg for Armenological advice; to Selahattin Zülfikaroglu, my gracious informant in Bitlis during a brief stay in the summer of 1984; and to Zafer Onler, my travel companion and assistant.
Finally, a word of thanks to Laurie Abbott, who composed the text. Without her patience, good humor, and expertise, this book would not be.
R. D.
Chicago, September, 1989
1 Those readers tempted to go straight to the Ottoman text without consulting section V on orthography and transcription should be warned that forms such as zikr and hazir are not “errors" for zikr and hazir.
Introduction
I. Background
In the mid-seventeenth century, the Ottoman Empire stretched from the Hungarian border with the Habsburgs to the Kurdish-Armenian border with the Safavids. The Black Sea and the Eastern Mediterranean were Ottoman lakes; although Cossack raids were a constant harrassment in the former, while the latter was marked by a shifting maritime frontier with the Venetians. Austria, Venice and Iran loomed beyond the Ottoman domain as actual or potential foes; while the icy wastes of Muscovy and the steamy jungles of the Sudan lay beyond the “well- guarded regions” of Islam.
One man, Evliya Çelebi, travelled throughout the empire, and even penetrated into the surrounding darkness. He also left a ten-book account of his travels.
For Evliya, who was born on the Golden Horn and raised in the Sultan’s palace, Istanbul was naturally the center of his world, as it was of the empire. He devoted the entire first book of his account to that city, which he always lovingly refers to as Islam-bol, meaning “full of Islam.” All roads led there, of course; but for Evliya, Istanbul was also the touchstone and measure of everything he saw. To characterize the height of the wall of the citadel of Van, for example, he says that it is as tall as a Suleymaniye minaret.1 He was the opposite of parochial, however. Like most travel writers, he loved to make comparisons, and he had many other points of reference than Istanbul. The cold of Erzurum and the cats of Van; the hot springs of Bursa and the fishing weirs of Silistria; the ruins of Akhlat near Lake Van and the carnival-like fair at Mashkolur in Thessaly; the clockwork gadgetry of Vienna and the hieroglyph obelisks on the upper Nile (but there was one of these in the Istanbul hippodrome as well)2 -- he had experienced them all, and could refer to any when the occasion demanded.
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1 See text below, 262a.22.
2 See text below, 275b.8; also X 383a.9 (822). |
