19th Century Ankara Through Historical Poems

• Main Author: Özge Öztekin
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Koc University, Vehbi Koc Ankara Studies Research Center (VEKAM) 2015-12-01
• Series: Ankara Araştırmaları Dergisi
• Subjects: Classical literature; Divan; Manzume poetry; 19th century; Ankara
• Online Access: http://www.journalagent.com/jas/pdfs/JAS_3_2_212_219.pdf

A city is a place whose meaning is found in the poetry created there. In Kevin Lynch’s words, a city presents the imagination with an unlimited potential for “readability”. If we consider this unlimited readability through poetry, it can be said that attempts to find the zeitgeist of a city at a certain time through literary texts must evaluate the poetry, the city and the time. This is because poetry (or literature in general), just like a city, has an important memory which oscillates through ideas of its past and future. In this sense, divan poetry and one particular example of it—historical “manzume” poems—are memories which richly illustrate the ‘continuity’ and ‘change’ within a period. This work, on 19th century Ankara, aims to evaluate the traces reflected in historical manzume poems of the time they were written. Five historical manzume poems in three texts out of seventy 19th century divan collections scanned for this work were found to be about Ankara. Two of these manzumes are by Cazib, one by Ziver Pasha, and one by Mahmud Celaleddin Pasha. The first of these is on Ankara’s dervish lodge; the second on a barracks being built in Ankara; the third on Vecihi Pasha’s governorship of Ankara; the fourth on the the Mayoral Residence. In addition to these, a manzume on the construction of Hamidiye Caddesi by Mahmud Celaleddin Pasha is discovered with in scope of the work. The aim of this work is to provide a contribution to city history through a commentary on elements of 19th century poetry concerning Ankara.