AN ODYSSEY OF ODDITIES: THE ECCENTRICITIES

OF EVLIYA ELEBI

Robert Dankoff
(University of Chicago)

vliya elebi (1611 c. 1685), the author of a huge travel account

E entitled Seyahatname or Book of Travels, has been regarded as an
eccentric or unconventional writer. This view was enshrined in the title of
the international symposium at Bilkent University in Ankara in March of
2008 and in the title of its proceedings published in 2009: Evliya elebi the
Unconventional Writer of his Age.
In this paper, I will try to document some of ECs eccentricities at the
textual, linguistic and literary levels, and to account for them.

1. Orthography
The most immediate level at which we confront a writer in the age before
printing is the orthographic. In Evliyas case, we are fortunate to have, for
the first eight of the ten volumes of his work, a ms. that by scholarly
consensus is considered his autograph i.e., the ms. that he himself
prepared and considered as definitive.
It seems clear that Evliya employed a secretary with a fine hand to write
out the consonantal skeleton of the fair copy of his text, and that he himself
then went over it, putting in diacritics and vowel markings and making
emendations great and small.1 I do not know whether this procedure is
typical of Ottoman authors or can be considered one of Evliyas
peculiarities.
One unusual feature of the emendations, at what I have called the final
fair-copy stage, has to do with the letter r. It seems that Evliyas
amanuensis had a problem with this letter, since he frequently left it out,
and Evliya himself restored it with his own distinctive hooked r, quite

1 Evidence for this hypothesis is laid out in my article #u Rasad Ykalm m? Evliya
elebi ve Filoloji, in Tezcan, Nuran and Kadir Atlansoy (eds.), Evliya elebi ve
Seyahatname (Mersin: Dou Akdeniz niversitesi, 2002): pp. 99-118; English original
as Shall We Tear Down That Observatory: Evliya elebi and Philology, in
Dankoff, Robert, From Mahmud Ka@gari to Evliya elebi: Studies in Middle Turkic
and Ottoman Literatures (Istanbul: ISIS, 2008): pp. 329-51.

Eurasian Studies, VIII/1-2 (2010): pp. Xxx-xxx.

Istituto per lOriente C.A. Nallino \ Orientalisches Institut der Martin Luther Universitt, Halle-Wittenberg
2 Robert Dankoff

different from that of his secretary.2 Furthermore, he very frequently wrote

his own r over the original one or rather, extended it downward with his
own flourish as though he thought it was too short or not prominent
enough. Here is a sample (III 92a):

Note the elongated r (or z which is the same grapheme plus a dot) in the
following: line 1 ire; line 2 sergze@t, ta@r; line 3 Shrb, mizden,
drd; line 5 birbirimize, arb; line 6 ellerinde.
Clearly in these cases there was nothing really wrong with the original r
(or z). The second hand (Evliyas, according to hypothesis) that came along
and corrected it is exhibiting a kind of tic or obsession at any rate, a
practice peculiar to this manuscript and not typical of Ottoman texts.
While we may interpret this phenomenon as an example of Evliyas
obsessiveness3 a character trait exhibited at other levels, as we shall see

2 For examples, see the article cited in the previous note.

3 Evliyas own characterization of this obsessive quality is iltizm- ml-yelzem,
implying the taking on of an obligation beyond what is strictly necessary, taking pains
to do something properly. E.g., IV 401b, characterizing his pacing out of fortifications:
birka kerre bu kalalarn endern [u] brnundan hakr ve gulmlarm
admlam@lardr ve her biri mahallinde tahrr olunma zerime iltizm- ml yelzem
etmi@izdir; V 19a, recording personal observation as opposed to second-hand
information: debimiz oldur kim ilmel-yakn hsl etdiimiz tahrr etmeyp ayne'l-
yakn hsl etdiimiz tahrr etmei zerimize iltizm- ml-yelzem etmi@iz; VIII 379b,
recording the monuments of Islamic civilization: Rm ve Arab u Acemde ve Belh [u]
Buhrda elbette her cmi ve hn u imret ve tekyeghlarda vel-hsl bu elli bir yl
seyhat ire on sekiz pdi@hlk yerlerde elbette ve elbette stme iltizm- ml-
yelzem edp; X Y392a, recording cities and mountains and rivers and stages en route:
Hakr-i pr-taksr dahi seyhat etdiim bild- memlik-i mahrselerde olan kur ve
kasabtlar ve @ehr-i muazzamlar ve cibl-i azmleri ve nehr-i kebrleri ve cemi
menzilleri @imle ve cenba ubr etdiimiz tahrr etmeden iltizm- ml-yelzem
edp murdmz ge@t [] gzr etdiimiz diyrlar kylden kle, klden hle getirp
e@kllerin yazmakdr.
 An Odyssey of oddities 3

it also illustrates the extreme care that Evliya took to make sure that the
reader of his text would read it correctly.
Another example is the consistent distinction between c (with one dot)
and (with three dots). Note, in line 1 of the above sample, the spellings of
in, ire, be. Such words as penere and haner are invariably spelled
with . As I have pointed out elsewhere,4 there is never a confusion in the
autograph ms. between nice how and nie how much, so many. I
doubt if this can be said of any other Ottoman manuscript.
The use of te@did to indicate the doubling of a consonant shows the
same consistent (or, if you will, obsessive) quality. Thus the word
ammm one of the commonest words in the Seyahatname always has
te@did over the m. Also, as I have pointed out elsewhere,5 Evliya regularly
adds a second l, along with te@did, to indicate double l.
One implication of the consistent use of te@did is that where it is lacking,
in such words as and sed, we should not restore these to and
sedd. Evliya wished us to drop the doubling of the consonant in word final
position6 (as is the case with modern Turkish) and he occasionally indicates
this quite clearly by putting skun where we might otherwise expect te@did.
As for Evliyas very unconventional spellings of originally Arabic and
Persian words, these too show a consistent pattern, as I have shown in detail
elsewhere.7
To conclude this discussion of orthography, let me reiterate two points.
First, Evliyas training in the arts of Koran recitation, particularly ilm-i
tecvid, gave him a sensitivity to phonetic nuance as well as an appreciation
for the capacity of Arabic script to reflect phonetic distinctions.8 Second,
his general rule of orthography and this was unconventional indeed
was: Spell as pronounced.9 These two points, combined with his
obsessive character, account for many of the textual peculiarities.

4 Dankoff, An Evliya elebi Glossary: Unusual, Dialectal and Foreign Words in the
Seyahat-name (Cambridge, Mass.: The Department of Near Eastern Languages &
Civilizations Harvard University, 1991): p. 8 (henceforth: Glossary); expanded Turkish
translation as Evliya elebi Seyahatnamesi Okuma Szl (Istanbul: Yap Kredi
Yaynlar, 2008): p. 27 (henceforth: Okuma Szl).
5 Dankoff, Evliya elebi in Bitlis (Leiden: Brill, 1990): p. 38.
6 For the word s, at least in its meaning of imperial domain, the doubling is dropped
in every position, since he always writes and never .
7 Dankoff, Evliya elebi in Bitlis: pp. 27-36.
8 Glossary: p. 8; Okuma Szl: p. 26.
9 Glossary: p. 9; Okuma Szl: p. 27.
4 Robert Dankoff

2. Use of Language
The second level we can analyze this or any text is the linguistic. I have
attempted to document Evliyas unusual lexicon;10 and Christiane Bulut
has made a study of Evliyas syntax.11 Here I will just give a few examples
of lexical distortions and playful substitutions and make some general
remarks on phraseology and stylistics.
The distortion of a vocabulary item in order to associate it with a
different semantic field Verbalhrnung in German, a sort of folk
etymology is something that Evliya indulges in frequently. As I wrote
elsewhere, such usages can be considered hallmarks of Evliyas style,
reflecting a quirky or willful attitude, as though he had decided on these
forms long ago and then stuck with them.12 To the examples cited in my
Glossary / Okuma Szl we can add the following:
peksimet biscuit bek-sumt firm dinner-table (cf. English
hardtack)
@atranc chess ad-renc a hundred troubles
bee child pe as though it has something to do with p/pe
curl or pi bastard.
The distortion of proper names is a subclass of the above. With regard
to place names, I have written that this practice is at times disconcerting in
a work that amounts to a geographical encyclopedia.13 It is interesting in
each instance to inquire whether it is Evliyas creation (as appears to be the
case with arez for azer Caspian14) or a common Ottoman usage that
Evliya simply standardized (as is the case with slambol for stanbul).
With regard to personal names, I have given the example elsewhere of
hir (Pure) substituting for hir (Splendid) as the epithet of the
Mamluk Sultan Baybars.15 I now have evidence that Evliya sometimes
substituted hir for hir as a vocabulary item as well.16 If this occurred
only once or twice, one could dismiss it as simply leaving off the dot a
common scribal error. But the frequency of occurrence in parts of the
autograph ms. definitely checked by Evliya, combined with the fact that
the dot is always left off in hir/hir Baybars, argues against this.

10 Glossary: passim; Okuma Szl: passim.

11 Bulut, Christiane, Evliya elebis Reise von Bitlis nach Van (Wiesbaden:
Harrassowitz, 1997): pp. 55-123.
12 Glossary: p. 7; Okuma Szl: p. 22.
13 Glossary: p. 6; Okuma Szl: p. 19.
14 Okuma Szl: p. 24. But I am now uncertain of the explanation suggested there.
Ktib elebi has azez (arabice Khazaz for original Khazar). So there seems to have
been uncertainty among the Ottomans as to the correct form.
15 Okuma Szl: pp. 23-4.
16 E.g., III 19b14, 36b8, 37a24, 83b16, 131a34, 138a9.
 An Odyssey of oddities 5

Rather, it is similar to bk / pk in b-pk b-perv i.e., deliberate on

Evliyas part. Apparently he thought this was cute; I doubt if any other
Ottoman writer would.
Another example rather disconcerting for someone with Evliyas
credentials as a Koran scholar and a |f (one who has memorized the
Koran) is the substitution of af for af. This af, who lived in the
2nd/8th century, was a key transmitter of Koranic readings and one whom
Evliya frequently cites in this regard. He Occasionally spells the name
correctly.17 But much more often he spells it af, as though the name has
something to do with memorizing the Koran. But Evliya goes beyond this,
associating afa bt. Umar, one of the wives of the Prophet, both with
memorizing the Koran and with the Koranic recension of af, by spelling
her name afa and mythologizing about her.18 This kind of mythologizing
is almost as blatant as that regarding the prophet aff|, which I have
analyzed as a kind of hoax.19 One can only wonder what he thought his
readers would make of it, and whether he convinced himself of its truth or
whether he considered it a hoax or perhaps a bagatelle.
On the level of the phrase, we can discern the following categories:
Substitution of a collective for a substantive. To the examples in
Okuma Szl p. 23 we may add: erbb- tccr (VIII 314a10, etc.)
masters of traders instead of erbb- ticret masters of trade for
merchants.
Misapplication from one semantic field to another. Thus he uses kelle
ve paa head and trotters a well-known dish in Turkish cuisine for a
dead soldier (VIII 289b6, etc.); and a-y sumn a stroke of fate from
heaven for a kadi district (also a).

17 III 64b, VIII 348a25, 370b, 381b.

18 In Muslim tradition (see EI2 s.v. afa) she was known for her ability to read and
write and had a connection with the first collection of the fragments of the Koran.
According to Evliya, she was the first to memorize the Koran and the recension of
af derives from her: I 156a hfz- krati bu Hafza Htndan kalmala Hafz
krat derler, IV 370a, VI 140b33, IX Y290a: Hazret-i mer Ve duhter-i pkze-
ahterleri Hafzadr. Gyetl-gye zek hfza-i Kurn idi. Hatt Hazret-i Osmn-
cmil-Kurn Kurn- azmi cem ederken bu bint mer Hafzadan istim edp
cem ederdi. Annin hl cemi kurr me@yihleri mbeyninde krat-i Hafz itibr
etdikleri Hazret-i mer kz Hafzadan kalm@dr. IX Y353a: Ve Hafza binti Hazret-i
mer hfza-i Kurn idi. Hazret-i Osmn cmil-Kurn bu Hafzadan Kurn-
azmi cem edp Krat-i Hafz denmesinin asl oldur. X 107a: amm Rmda Hafz
krat makbldr. Bu kratlar Hazret-i mer hilfetinde men olup kendlerinden
sonra kermeleri Hafza Hazret-i Osmn ile cmiul-Kurn olup Hafza kzdan ahz
olunduyn krat- Hafz derler.
19 See Dankoff, An Ottoman Mentality: The World of Evliya elebi (Leiden: Brill,
2004; 2nd ed., 2006): pp. 176-84; Turkish translation as Seyyah- lem: Evliy
elebinin Dnyaya Bak@ (Istanbul: Yap Kredi Yaynlar: 2010): pp. 196-204.
6 Robert Dankoff

Use of a poetic clich for an actuality. Examples are meydn- |sn

field of beauty for any meydan; rs-y |sn/bzr- |sn market of
beauty for any market; bzr- ma|abbet market of love for any
market; d|ter-i rez daughter of the vine, i.e., wine for any young girl;
ab- ecel butcher of destiny for actual butchers (III 120b1); bdbn-
murdlarn aup they raised the sail of desire for setting sail in a boat
(VIII 289a20).
On the rhetorical level, or that of stylistic register, we should take into
account Evliyas own pronouncement on the subject:
In the years of my journeyings I saw thousands of strange places
and experienced thousands of wondrous events. Because we
humans are creatures of forgetfulness, lest their traces be effaced
and their names be concealed, I began to make a record of
noteworthy items both man-made and God-made (i.e., naturally
occuring) and to write them down in order to provide memory-
clues, using well-worn expressions and a middling style, in
accordance with the dictum, Talk to people according to the
measure of their intellects.20
We may understand the well-worn expressions (elf- adm) to refer to,
or at least to include, what I have elsewhere termed cliched expressions.
To the examples in Okuma Szl p. 23 we may add: karrlar firra
mbeddel olup; Kassb Cmerd kekleri gibi; py-beste ve dil-haste; mr
mra @er gibi @p; hisn-i hasn ve sedd-i metn; evc-i eflke (sumna)
ser ekmi@; b- haytdan ni@n verir; nak@- bkalemn- ibret-nmn;
deryda katre ve gne@de zerre; duhter-i pkze-ahter; burder-i cn-
berber; yende v revendelere nimetler mebzl; @r-i hurm ve katr-i
nebt; imn- nazar ile nazar etmek; midhatinde lisnlar ksr ve kalemler
ksirdir. Such expressions come up over and over again in the Seyahatname
and are a hallmark of Evliyas personal style.21 In another context I have

20 IX 3b: Ve eyym- seyhatimizde bu aktr- arzda nie nie bin emkine-i garbe ve
sr- dehrden nie kez hevdis-i acbe mnzur ve melhzum olup gile-i nisyndan
mrekkeb ben dem olmamz hasebiyle htrdan dr ve belki esm-i e@ya-y me@hr
ver-y hicb- hevlde mestr olmaya, dey ilmel-yakn ve aynel-yakn ve hakka'l-
yakn hsl edp seyr [] tem@ etdiimiz aktr- alyim-i sun- Hudlar ve ibret-
nm binlar sebt zabt ve asirl-hfz olan umrlar rbka-i elfz olmayup
kellimn-ns al kadri uklihim mazmnu zre beyne beynehu elfz- kadm ile halka-
i htra ri@te-i cn ile al-kadril-imkn akd-i sebt etmee ba@ladm.
21 Hanneke Lamers characterized it as a developed (though by no means refined)
private style; see her essay, On Evliyas Style in van Bruinessen, Martin and Hendrik
Boeschoten, Evliya elebi in Diyarbekir (Leiden: Brill, 1988): pp. 64-70; also Tezcan,
Nuran, Bir slup Ustas Olarak Evliya elebi in Tezcan and Atlansoy (eds.), Evliya
elebi ve Seyahatname : pp. 231-43; Dankoff, The Seyahatname of Evliya elebi as a
Literary Monument, Journal of Turkish Literature, II (2005): pp. 71-83 (reprint in
 An Odyssey of oddities 7

used the awkward term formulaicness to characterize his use of such

expressions as well as of certain narremes or narrative motifs.22
With regard to the middling style (beyne beynehu), we should note that
Evliya was well trained in chancellery style and occasionally resorted to it,
as with his Fethname for the Ottoman victory at Candia (VIII 326a-329a).
But for the most part he used straitforward even conversational language,
peppered to be sure with his own brand of wordplay and eccentricities of
lexicon, morphology and syntax. This is in marked contrast with Mehmed
A@k, who used a much more elevated style. Since Evliya otherwise
borrowed a great deal from Mehmed A@k, but never with attribution, we
may surmise that his rejection of that model was conscious and deliberate.23

3. Genre, subject, author

Finally we may analyze this or any text at the literary level, referring in
this instance to formal structures and an authorial voice.
In terms of genre, I have elsewhere concluded that the most exact
generic description of the Seyahatname is: Ottoman geographical
encyclopedia structured as travel account and personal memoir. It is a genre
without precedent and without imitation.24

Dankoff, From Mahmud Ka@gari to Evliya elebi: pp. 245-58); Turkish translation as
Bir edebiyat ant: Evliya elebi Seyahat-namesi in Talt Sait Halman (ed.), Trk
Edebiyat Tarihi, II (Ankara: ***, 2007): pp. 347-57.
22 Dankoff, The Intimate Life of an Ottoman Statesman: Melek Ahmed Pasha (1588-
1662), as portrayed in Evliya elebis Book of Travels (Seyahat-name) (New York:
State University of NY Press, 1991): p. 15: Evliyas narrative style, it seems to me,
oscillates between anecdotal inventiveness and epic formulaicness. The latter is
especially prominent in the descriptions of war and battle, feasts and gift exchanges,
and the like.
23 Evliyas dependence on Mehmed A@k has been remarked on by Richard Kreutel,
Pierre MacKay, Heath Lowry, and others. See also my article, Did Evliya elebi use
Mehmed A@k for his description of Trabzon? in: Csat, va . et. al. (ed.),
Turcological Letters to Bernt Brendemoen (Oslo: Novus, 2009): pp. 87-95.
24 Dankoff, Literary Monument: p. 248; Id. Bir edebiyat ant: p. 349. Elsewhere I
concluded, writing with Sooyong Kim, that what makes the Book of Travels distinct
from the Cosmorama [the Cihannma of Ktib elebi], or other comparable works, is
the mixture of the factual and the personal. Indeed, as Cemal Kafadar has observed,
the Book of Travels is the most monumental example of first person narratives in
Ottoman literature. The generic novelty of the Book of Travels perhaps explains its
relative neglect among Ottoman literati until the middle of the nineteenth century.
Dankoff, An Ottoman Traveller: Selections from the Book of Travels of Evliya elebi
(London: Eland, 2010): p. xii. The reference is to Kafadar, Cemal, Self and Others:
The Diary of a Dervish in Seventeenth Century Istanbul and First-Person Narratives in
Ottoman Literature, StIs, LXIX (1989): pp. 121-50.
8 Robert Dankoff

Again, we may draw a contrast with Evliyas predecessor, Mehmed A@k,

and also with his contemporary, Ktib elebi. They too wrote ambitious
works that can be characterized as geographical encyclopedias. But they
only rarely strike a first-person note; and the scope of their works is
explicitly universal, going well beyond their individual travels. In the
Seyahatname, on the other hand, the authorial presence is insistent; and the
scope is limited so Evliya claims25 to first hand observation.
Anyone reading the Seyahatname must be struck by the constant and
intrusive presence of hakir/fakir, Evliyas designation for himself. I have
analyzed this authorial presence elsewhere, concluding:
The self-portrait that emerges is one of a multi-faceted personality
probably the most richly drawn individual in Ottoman literature.
Revealing so much of ones self is itself unusual and an
eccentricity. To be sure, the various facets are all within the range
of Ottoman types. There is surely some exaggeration and self-
advertising along with the poses of humility and anti-hypocrisy;
but through the inconsistencies a unified personality comes into
focus. The boon companion of the sultan has become boon
companion of mankind. The sop-with-ears who made such a hit
at court has become the neutral sojourner who absorbs impressions
and records them in his travel diary. The witty and amiable
entertainer accepts kisses but refuses wine. The life of the party
wont compromise the dignity of his position. The servitor of the
Ottoman state avoids public office, confronts rebels and bandits
with banter and charm, braves it out on the battlefield by reciting
Koran and the prayer-call of victory, joins in siege warfare by
nursing the wounded and burying the dead. The Ottoman
gentleman, son of the chief jeweller, heir to a sizeable estate,
obsessively itemizing his wealth this gentleman wears the cloak
of a dervish, insists on shunning worldly attachments, and adopts
the pose of a homeless wanderer in order to pursue his
wanderlust.26
The front and center presence of this unique authorial voice a voice also
detected on the orthographic and verbal levels discussed above lends
charm to a work that would otherwise be extremely tedious.

25 But this is not always so, as pointed out in Dankoff, An Ottoman Mentality: pp.
153-4; Id., Seyyah- lem: pp. 173-4. And see MacKay, Pierre A., Real and Fictitious
Journeys in Evliya elebis Seyahatname: Some examples from Book VIII, Journal
of Turkish Literature, VI (2009): pp. 110-29; Turkish translation as Evliya elebinin
Seyahat Anlatmlarnda Gerek ve Fanteziyi Ayrmak: Sekizinci Ciltten Baz
rnekler, in Tezcan (ed.), ann Srad@ Yazar: pp. 259-80.
26 Dankoff, An Ottoman Mentality: pp. 151-2; Id., Seyyah- lem: p. 172.
 An Odyssey of oddities 9

The key element of this multifaceted even self-contradictory27

personality is the self-definition as traveler. Evliya elebi is probably the
only Ottoman to identify himself primarily as traveler.28 As I have
remarked elsewhere:
For Evliya travel was not a diversion but an obsession. He had to
see everything, and he had to record everything he saw. He was
nothing if not systematic.29
Travel is a catchall category. Both the actual travel, and the writing it up in a
travel account, satisfy a voracious appetite for experience combined with an
insistent drive to organize and recount that experience. Turned outward,
travel tends to the systematic and encyclopedic. Turned inward, it tends to
the anecdotal and picaresque. Sustaining it as a goal over a lifetime and
embodying it as a theme in a ten-volume magnum opus are heroic
achievements, justifying Stanford Shaws characterization of the
Seyahatname as a travel epic.30

In conclusion, I would propose that the unusual features of the Seyahatname

an odyssey of oddities, as we may call it are to be understood in the
context of the Ottoman cultural world. As I put it elsewhere, Evliyas
eccentricities do not necessarily contradict his typicalities.31 The
orthographic, linguistic and literary peculiarities should mainly be seen as
extensions of tendencies already present in Ottoman scribal practices, verbal
and rhetorical repertoires, and literary tropes extensions in the direction
of systematisation and verging on the obsessive. The playfulness and

27 Evliya might well have remarked, along with Walt Whitman:

Do I contradict myself?
Very well then I contradict myself,
(I am large, I contain multitudes).
28 See Vatin, Nicolas, Pourquoi un Turc ottoman racontait-il son voyage? Note sur
les relations de voyage chez les Ottomans des Vakat- Sultan Cem au Seyahatname
dEvliya elebi, Etudes Turques et Ottomanes: Documents de travail, IV (1995): pp.
5-15; reprint in Les Ottomans et loccident (XVe-XVIe sicles) (Istanbul: ISIS, 2001):
pp. 179-93; Turkish translation as Bir Osmanl Trkn Yapt Seyahati Niin
Anlatrd, Cogito, XIX (Yaz 1999): pp. 161-78.
29 Dankoff, An Ottoman Mentality: p. 148; Id., Seyyah- lem: p. 168; Id., An Ottoman
Traveller: p. xviii.
30 Shaw, Stanford J., History of the Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey: I (Empire of
the Gazis: The Rise and Decline of the Ottoman Empire, 1280-1808) (Cambridge:
CUP: 1976): p. 286.
31 Dankoff, An Ottoman Mentality: p. 115; Id., Seyyah- lem: p. 137.
10 Robert Dankoff

whimsicality that are omnipresent in the text reflect the comic strain of
Turkish culture, as we know it from the characters of Nasreddin Hoca and
Karagz, and the practice of hiciv or lampoon. The only major eccentricity is
egocentricity Evliyas tendency to put himself forward at every occasion,
even if not always in a flattering light and at times in a downright self-
deprecatory fashion.32

32 For examples, see Dankoff, An Ottoman Mentality: pp. 142-4; Id., Seyyah- lem:
pp. 162-5.