Department for History and Cultural Studies

In contemporary studies of Ottoman literature, a two-layered scheme is used which divides Ottoman literature into two parts, ‘folk’ literature and ‘court’ literature. In these studies, the oral is totally attributed to folk literature, while court literature is considered entirely written. However, these two ways of producing, transmitting, and consuming literature, the oral and the written, have always existed together, nourishing and transforming each other. This thesis challenges the constructed binary opposition between the oral and the written in Ottoman literature studies, focusing on a popular work called the Story of Fîrûzşâh, widely read throughout the eighteenth century. For the purposes of this thesis, Fîrûzşâh is especially important because of its paratextual elements. The manuscript under study, actually the forty-fifth volume of the entire story, contains many marginal notes. These notes give information about the names of the public readers, and the places and dates of the public readings. In addition, there are notes that show the daily, aesthetic, and even political reactions of the readers in the eighteenth century. Depending on these reactions, four types of readers were identified and named the romantic, the pedantic, the foul-mouthed and the Janissary. Focusing on the case of the Story of Fîrûzşâh, it has been shown that aspects of oral culture and their everyday expressions can also be traced from written texts.

In contemporary studies of Ottoman literature, a two-layered scheme is used which divides Ottoman literature into two parts, ‘folk’ literature and ‘court’ literature. In these studies, the oral is totally attributed to folk literature, while court literature is considered entirely written. However, these two ways of producing, transmitting, and consuming literature, the oral and the written, have always existed together, nourishing and transforming each other. This book challenges the constructed binary opposition between the oral and the written in Ottoman literature studies, focusing on a popular work called the Story of Fîrûzşâh, widely read throughout the eighteenth century. For the purposes of this book, Fîrûzşâh is especially important because of its paratextual elements. The manuscript under study, actually the forty-fifth volume of the entire story, contains many marginal notes. These notes give information about the names of the public readers, and the places and dates of the public readings. In addition, there are notes that show the daily, aesthetic, and even political reactions of the readers in the eighteenth century. Depending on these reactions, four types of readers were identified and named the romantic, the pedantic, the foul-mouthed and the Janissary. Focusing on the case of the Story of Fîrûzşâh, it has been shown that aspects of oral culture and their everyday expressions can also be traced from written texts.

Starting from the 17th century, different groups in Istanbul—such as wealthy merchants, warrior-turned-artisan Janissaries, and unemployed madrasa students—became involved in the literary and intellectual life of the city. This involvement changed individuals’ relationship with books and created new types of literacies. This project will work to assess these changes by scrutinizing the notes made by readers in the manuscripts of popular genres such as Hamzaname, Eba Müslimname, and Antername which tell the heroic deeds of prominent figures in Islamic history. These notes, both written and visual, are important sources that offer an intimate view into the life of the Ottoman ‘everyday’. Written notes carry details about the names, origins, and titles of manuscript readers; the places where they read (such as coffeehouses or neighbourhood streets); and individual and collective reactions to the stories the manuscripts contained. Visual notes, on the other hand, offer simple and amateur depictions of a variety of subjects—from human portraits to doodles of weapons, flowers, and birds—and are valuable sources of information on popular Ottoman art history. Mainly through the medium of reader notes, but also other contemporary sources, this thesis aims to follow historical processes such as ‘urbanisation,’ ‘esnafization,’ and ‘bureaucratization’ of the Ottoman society as processes that went hand in hand with ‘the democratization’ of the written word. In the overall picture, this thesis proposes, in juxtaposition with the fountains, squares, coffeehouses and shops that have been frequently discussed by the Ottoman historians, the texts themselves would serve as the public space in which people from different socio-economic ranks come together and enjoy.

In the early 1990s, Harold Love defined his term of “scribal community” as “the groups bonded by the exchange of manuscripts” which was conceptualized later as “manuscript network” and “manuscript community” by Jason Scott-Warren in 2000. In 2012, David Olafsson and Sigurður Gylfi Magnússon applied these ideas to the 19th-century Icelandic reading community, and, as Margaret Ezell, they emphasized the importance to reassess manuscript practices in predominantly print cultures. Informed by this literature, I discuss different uses of manuscripts that were produced, circulated, and read by the urban reading community in the 19th century Ottoman Istanbul. Readers from various socio-economic backgrounds (janissary soldiers, low rank religious men, artisans and craftsmen, newly-emerged bureaucrats, etc.) left innumerable notes on the manuscripts of storybooks in which they inform us about their collective and individual reading practices, These note, for example, include prayers for or curses against the stories’ protagonists; they sometimes include suggestions for further reading to other readers. They sometimes even squabbled with each other about contemporary political events. As such, these marginal notes left to us on the manuscripts of epic storybooks were veritable communication media. They acted as platforms through which individuals conveyed and advertised ideas, desires, and fears. They played the role of contemporary social media if except their platform is the analog page and pen.

Milli Kütüphane, Yazmalar, Nr.8504/30 künyesiyle kayıtlı yazma üzerindeki notlardan hareketle yazmanın okurları/seslendirenleri, okuma mikdârı ve süresi, okurlar arası iletişim, okuma mekânları, dua/ beddua ve kahramanlık kültleri ile resimleme gibi meselelere değinilmiştir.

Hikâye kahramanlarının ruhuna Fatiha
okumak caiz midir? Bu kuşkusuz provokatif
bir soru ve bildiğim kadarıyla konuyu
aydınlatacak bir fetva da yok. Ancak
18. ve 19. yüzyılda dolaşımda olan hikâye elyazmaları
üzerindeki yüzlerce okuyucu notuna binaen, kıraat
meclislerinde edilen dualar –hatta beddualar – ve bu
duaların toplumsal hafıza ile ilgili bize neler söylediği
kafa yormaya değer bir mesele gibi duruyor.