The greatest traveler of the Ottoman Empire: Evliya Çelebi

Evliya Celebi (1611 - 1682)

Evliya Çelebi, whose real name is Derviş Mehmed Zilli, was born in 1611 in Istanbul Unkapanı. His father, Derviş Mehmed Zilli, was a jeweler in the palace. Evliya Çelebi's family came from Kütahya and settled in the Unkapanı region of Istanbul. After seeing his primary education privately, he studied at a madrasa for a while. He learned illumination, calligraphy and embroidery from his father. He was interested in music. He became a "Hafiz" by memorizing the Qur'an. Enderuna was taken, with the help of his uncle Melek Ahmed Pasha, Sultan IV. He entered the service of Murad.

Evliya Çelebi began to travel around Istanbul in 1635, following a dream, and writing down what he saw and heard. He traveled to Bursa, Izmit and Trabzon in the 1640s. In 1645, he went to the Crimea with Bahadır Giray. He went on distant journeys with some of the statesmen he became close to. He participated in the wars as a messenger, with the task of delivering letters. In the war that resulted in the capture of Ioannina in 1645, he was in charge of Yusuf Pasha. In 1646, he became the treasurer of Erzurum Governor Defterdarzade Mehmed Pasha. He visited the eastern provinces, some parts of Azerbaijan and Georgia. He was assigned to bring letters to Revan Han for a while. For this reason, he traveled around Gümüşhane and Tortum regions. Returning to Istanbul in 1648, he went to Damascus with Mustafa Pasha and toured the region for three years. After 1651, he began to wander around Rumelia, staying in Sofia for a while. He visited the regions of Austria, Albania, Thessaly, Heraklion, Komotini, Thessaloniki between 1667 and 1670.

Evliya Çelebi made observations reflecting the living order and characteristics of societies in the places he visited over a period of 50 years. These trips do not include narrations and narrations based on observations alone. It also allows important reviews and comments for researchers. The subjects included in the Seyahatname cover everything related to people, not a specific field of study. When considered in terms of style, it is seen that Evliya Çelebi did not adhere to the prose that was common in Ottoman society at that time, especially in divan literature.

Derviş Mehmed Zillî (25 March 1611 – 1682), known as Evliya Çelebi was an Ottoman explorer who travelled through the territory of the Ottoman Empire and neighboring lands over a period of forty years, recording his commentary in a travelogue called the Seyâhatnâme ("Book of Travel"). The name Çelebi is an honorific title meaning "gentleman" or "man of God"

In Divan literature, prose was regarded as a product of ingenuity and was presented in a luscious form. As a writer, Evliya Çelebi did not follow this tradition, he adopted a language that is close to the daily spoken language and is easily spoken and written. This language is fluent, gripping, sometimes funny and sarcastic. Evliya Çelebi not only conveyed what he saw and heard in the places he visited, but also added a new content to his travel writing by adding his own comments and thoughts to them. Here, the success of the author in terms of expression stems from the writing method he uses. The narration is not limited to a certain time period, the past and the future, the present and the past are intertwined. This feature is the result of the author's playing with time as he wishes, due to the stories and myths told. Evliya Çelebi describes two events that took place at the same time in a certain period of time, as if he saw them on the spot, thus eliminating the concept of time. While the impressions of the places the author has visited and seen are displayed in the Seyahatname, information and documents that can be a research topic in their own right are revealed. Among these, stories, folk songs, folk poems, myths, fairy tales, mania, dialect differences, folk dances, clothing, weddings, entertainment, beliefs, neighborhood connections, social behaviors, art and craft assets have an important place.

Evliya Çelebi mentions the houses of the region, mosques, masjids, fountains, inns, palaces, mansions, baths, churches, monasteries, towers, castles, city walls, roads and synagogues, as well as information about the people. It tells the years of their construction, their repairs, the one who made them, the one who made them, the ones who repaired them. He talks about the environment of the building, the air and water of the environment. Thus, it brings a liveliness to the subject and brings integrity to the environment. Another feature of the Seyahatname is that it gives a wide coverage to the lifestyles and behaviors of different local people, from agricultural studies to ornaments and instruments. In some parts of the work, the administration of the region visited, their former families, notables, poets, actors, and officials at various levels are mentioned in detail. The work of Evliya Çelebi is also important in terms of language. The author gives examples of the words used there while conveying the events that took place in the places he visited and his observations about them. These examples have been useful in language studies in terms of determining the usage and spread of words. Although Evliya Çelebi's Seyahatname has gained a lot of fame, it has not been the subject of a wide study and study in terms of science. It is thought that he died on the way back from Egypt in 1682 or in Istanbul. For fifty years, he devoted his life to travel, and his book Travelogue, in which he wrote about what he traveled and saw, has also managed to become a work that is recognized by the whole world. Evliya Çelebi's Travel Book was added to the UNESCO Memory of the World List in 2013.