Funny joke personality of Turks: Who is Nasreddin Hodja?
The most important personality in the history of Turkish comedy and humor. It is not known whether he lived, but the hundreds of jokes attributed to his name still continue to make people laugh.
Nasreddin Hodja was born in Akşehir in 1208. Akşehir is a town in the province of Konya, which is considered the wheat warehouse of Turkey. It is famous for its very beautiful lake, although it is drying up now.
Nasreddin (or Nasreddin Hodja (other variants include: Mullah Nasreddin Hooja, Nasruddin Hodja, Mullah Nasruddin, Mullah Nasriddin, Khoja Nasriddin) (1208-1285) is a fictional character in the folklore of the Muslim world from Arabia to Central Asia, and a hero of humorous short stories and satirical anecdotes. There are frequent statements about his existence in real life and even archaeological evidence in specific places, for example, a tombstone in the city of Akşehir, Turkey.
Although there are debates about whether Nasreddin Hodja, who is mostly known for the stories in which he is reflected as a witty and witty sage, lived in reality, and if he did, what his real personality is, there are some documents showing that he is a real historical personality. According to the information obtained from these documents, Nasreddin Hodja, who was born in the village of Hortu in 1208, received his basic education here, studied at the madrasah in Sivrihisar and assumed the duty of village imam in his hometown, where he returned after his father's death.
After a while, Nasreddin Hodja migrated to Akşehir, one of the centers of mystical thought of the period, and became the dervish of Mahmud-ı Hayrânî, where he assumed civil duties. At the same time, Nasreddin Hodja, who is thought to have been in the regions around Akşehir for a short time, died in Akşehir in 1284 and was buried in the present Nasreddin Hodja Tomb.
Nasreddin Hodja's legendary personality, which developed around the stories and stories, emerged in the same century as his death, and the narratives considered to be him increased from the numbers expressed with them to thousands over the centuries. Although the oldest known narrative of Nasreddin Hodja's written culture, which has a bibliographic value today, is found in Saltuknâme, which was copyrighted in 1480, the Povest o Hodja Nasreddine series is the Nasreddin Hodja compilation with the highest sales of 1.5 million. Anecdotes compiled from these works have been examined in different contexts such as the messages they contain, their features, and mythological elements, and are also used in education in many countries.
Stories about Nasreddin Hodja, who have a place in folk beliefs such as the burial of the newborn baby in the tomb of the baby tie, and the newlyweds visiting his tomb for the first time, have taken place in different societies such as Arabs, Bulgarians, Chinese, Persians, Hungarians, Russians as well as Turkish peoples. is intertwined with the narratives of local heroes such as Jiyrenşe Şeşen. Due to his geographical influence, many works have been given about Nasreddin Hodja in the fields of art and popular culture.
The issue of whether Nasreddin Hodja really lived or not is discussed by folklorists and different opinions are put forward. German orientalists Albert Wesselski and Martin Hartmann claimed that no one named Nasreddin Hodja actually existed. French orientalist René Basset claimed that the Arab comedy type, Juhâ, whose fame spread in the Arab world in the 10th century, turned into Hodja among the Turks over time, and Yugoslav Turcologist Fehim Bajraktarević also supported Basset's idea. While the Azerbaijani folklorist Hanefi Zeynallı was skeptical about the treatment of Nasreddin Hodja as a historical figure, Tehmasib Ferzeliyev; defended the view that Nasreddin Hodja's real personality was unimportant and that he was the common hero of every culture he lived in as a typing.
Folklorist İlhan Başgöz, who argues that Nasreddin Hodja was a historical figure, states that there is no doubt that such a person lived in the 13th century. Again, folklorists Saim Sakaoğlu, Ali Berat Alptekin, and Fatma Ahsen Turan state that Nasreddin Hodja lived in the 13th century and show him as one of the peaks of Anatolian Turkishness, along with Yunus Emre and Hacı Bektaş-ı Veli. Folklorists Pertev Naili Boratav and historians Mehmet Fuad Köprülü and Tuncer Baykara are among those who argue that Nasreddin Hodja is a historical figure.
JOKES FROM NASRADDIN HODJA
EAT MY FUR COAT
The Hodja was invited out to dinner. He went in his old clothes and nobody was interested in him. When he found a few minutes to spare, he rushed home and collected his fur coat.
When he came back, he was treated with great respect. Everybody wanted to speak to him.
When they sat down for dinner he said: “Eat, fur coat, eat!”
And he explained to the curious people:
“If this regard is for my coat, it must eat also.”
END OF THE WORLD
The Hodja said to his friends:
“Bury me feet over, when I die.”
They asked the reason for this and he explained:
“They told me that at the end of the world everything will turn over and if you bury me so, I can easily stand up at that time.”