Turkish Poems of Tuzlalı Nabi

Abstract

The Balkans had a very important place for the history of Turkish people, which has been a meeting point of people from different nationalities, religion and civilization. Even though the relationship between Turks and the Balkans began much earlier; the long term and stable relations were set in the Ottoman period. With the Turkish control on the Balkans, the Turkish art and culture were affected in this region; therefore several authors, poets and scientist raised there. Bosnia-Herzegovina was one of the countries in the Balkans, where there were a lot of poet and literary men. After the conquest of Fatih Sultan Mehmet in 1463, Bosnian people accepted Islam as their religion and became one of the most privileged community of Ottoman Empire in the Balkans. In Bosnia-Herzegovina, Turkish was adopted as written language. Adni (1420-1474), Hersekli Arif Hikmet (1829-1903), Derviş Yakup Paşa, Vusuli, Mostarlı Ziyayi, Ubeydi, Edayi, Ağa Dede, Turabi, Mecazi, Süleyman, Varvarlı Ali Paşa, Nergisi, Selman, Hevayi, Ahmed Çelebi, Sabit, Derviş, Hüsami, Şehdi, Ali Alaaddin, Fevzi, Habibi, Miri, Nabi, Meyli, Vehbi, Seyfi, Fadıl Paşa, Seyfi, Ahmed Hamdi were raised in the region.

In the collection of biographies there are a lot of Bosnian poets who wrote in Turkish, and they were not mentioned in the sources. It is seen obviously that Bosnian poets’ Turkish poems were not reached today, the pieces were not worked on sensitively. Especially if the manuscripts and journals in the libraries are scanned and researched, a lot of Turkish poems can be determined.

In this study, Nabi who was a Bosnian poet in Ottoman period in 17th century, is going to be emphasized. Information about his life is very limited; he was from Tuzla and his father, Salih Efendi, was mufti of Tuzla. It cannot be determined that if there is a divan of him or not. The poet has Turkish and Persian poems in the journal (R-4007) in the section of 77b-84a in Gazi Hüsrev Bey Library. In the study his Turkish poems are going to be transcribed and presented to the world of knowledge.