The Archetypes of Aldanmış Kevakib

Abstract

Mirza Fatali Akhundzade, the author of Aldanmış Kevakib (1857), one of the first stories of modern type in the literatures of the Turkic-Islamic countries, pointed out that the theme of the story was taken from Iskender Bey Munshi’s Tarih-i Âlemârâ-yi Abbasi. However, historical parallels expose that the first prototypes of Aldanmış Kevakib are older, since the motif in the story of Munshi is not original and its roots date back to ancient ages. These archetypes are the Mesopotamia and Hittite sources which include the motif of sacrificing the so-called “şar pûhi” (substitute king), a person who become a temporary king when celestial omens, especially lunar and solar eclipses, showed the real king to be in danger in the frame of ancient astrology. Akhundzade himself had naturally no idea about these sources because they were not discovered by historians until that time. These sources have not been mentioned in studies on Aldanmış Kevakib until now. This article gives information about the archetypes of Aldanmış Kevakib. In this way, the parallels between the story and the ancient sources, as well as Tarih-i Âlemârâ-yi Abbasi are shown.