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MARVELS AND WONDERS IN THE SEYAHATNME


Yeliz zay
The Seyahatname is an extraordinary source for literary and cultural
studies, not just because of its gigantic size but also because it includes a wide
range of narrative styles and discourses. The volume and variety have led
researchers to treat the text in segments and sub-categories. In fact, the
narratives are not randomly chosen and fragmentary. They are intentionally
selected, fictionalized narratives with an organic connection among themselves
and forming a consistent whole. To see how Evliya elebi composes his work
and generates a firm fictional structure, we have to trace how the polyphonic and
polychromatic strands intersect and intertwine, producing new and surprising
texts. While we need this kind of holistic reading to analyze formal and
contextual structure, Evliya himself draws our attention to some narratives in
particular by repeated recourse to certain harrative genres. One such genre, in
which literary taste pushes the limits of imagination of both narrator and reader,
is that of marvels and wonders (acayib garayib; Arabic ajib wa
gharib).
With the heading marvels and wonders Evliya prepares his readers for a
different narrative world. This is important for appreciating him as a storyteller
and understanding the fictional dimensions of his work. This favored category
reflects the ideals and beliefs of his age. Narratives of this kind do not merely
satisfy literary taste and cultural curiosity, nor are they completely independent
from the larger narrative world of the Seyahatname. As with other kinds of
narratives, to analyze them correctly we must pay attention to the context, what
Evliya says before and after them. Following these references is essential for
understanding Evliyas narrative style and the integrity of his fiction.
Some commentators, while accepting the Seyahatname as a cultural
treasure and an extraordinary piece of literature, are ambivalent about the
marvels and wonders sections, which in their view reflect Evliyas weak side
and his tendency toward excess. Fahir z, for example, argues that Mntehabat-
Evliya elebi the first publication of Evliyas work in Turkey [see in this
book # 9], a book that especially collected these kinds of stories has given the
Seyahatname a bad name: Even after the first eight volumes of the work had
been published, many people, including some scholars, did not believe anything
that Evliya related. (1979, 61) For z as well,
Sometimes he goes too far and relates a lot of extraordinary
events that reflect the beliefs of his age, including saints
miracles, magical feats, sorceries, prophecies, and stories of

supernatural creatures. This weakness has worked against Evliya in


that for a long time nothing that he wrote was taken seriously. (61)
Nuran Tezcan argues that the Seyahatname is a work formed in the spiral
of objective information and fiction. If we take the scientific criteria used to
judge the objective layer and apply them to the work as a whole, we overlook its
power as fiction (2009, 388). Indeed, evaluations based on the distinction
between reality and fiction threaten to compromise the literary and cultural
value of the work. Also, for the episteme of 17th-century Ottoman society, we
cannot argue about such a distinction between reality and fiction, or a distinction
between evidence-based knowledge and wisdom, using the critical measures of
our own day. As a narrator picking up his story from his social ground, Evliya
does not distinguish history, mythology, legend and rumor; so fitting his
narratives into sharply defined categories of reality and fiction is
unproductive.
Robert Dankoff suggests that the Seyahatname is a huge example on the
literary level of [an] Ottoman mentality [that] oscilates between a down-to-earth
realism and a love for marvels and wonders (2004, 214). This way of looking
at the issue is useful in determining both the mentality of the period and the
function of the wondrous narrations in the text. Dankoff also points out:
The Seyahatname is by no means simply a straightforward travel
narrative. Rather, the roughly chronological travel account merely
provides the armature within which the author does many other
things. These other things make up the bulk of the work, and so
cannot be considered simply as digressions to the travel account.
(2005, 72)
Narratives of marvels and wonders, while they seem to be digressions,
have a long-standing history and an indispensable function in the tradition of
travel narratives. Beginning in the ninth century, the Ajib marvelous tales
made up an entire sector of knowledge and participated in both edifying
literature and literature for entertainment (Touati 2010, 227). Despite this long
history, debate persists as to what genre they belong to, what layer of discourse
they reside in, whether the information they provide is objective or subjective.
As opposed to those who see them only as examples of literary art, Carra de
Vaux has argued: The word Marvel does not represent something that does
not exist or never has existed. Marvels are monuments, facts, and beings like
those we encounter in geography and history. It is not sure that they are true; it is
even less sure that they are false: they are above all hard to confirm (after
Touati, 227-28). At this point we are confronted with a twofold approach

regarding narratives of marvels and wonders and a choice between enjoying


them as entertainment literature and checking them for their truth value.
However, the persistence of marvels in the world of narrative demonstrates that
this genre has a special function, both for the reader or listener and for the
literary work in which it is found. Thus, rather than assuming our own
opposition between historical and artistic truth (Eagleton 1996, 1), we need
to focus on the practical and textual functions of these narratives.
Touati emphasizes that whileAjib are frequently found in medieval
literature, entertainment is not their sole function:
In geography, for example, they operated within the categories of
the admirable and the believable. The admirable was what is
worthy of holding attention and being fixed in writing in a book
that, in turn, was itself judged worthy of being read or learned by
heart. As the Ajib merged with the medieval travel narrative,
the categories of the admirable took on added force and
authority. For the Greeks, a travel narrative could not claim to be
a faithful account without including material that comes under the
heading of thma [wonders]. The same might be said of Muslims of
the Middle Ages, who considered that such a work had missed its
target if it did not include some Ajib, particularly since all
medieval travel narratives were programmed to end with something
extraordinary. This constraint was both cultural and narrative. At
times it seems the only justification for reading or listening to a
travel narrative. (229-30)
Thus Evliyas use of this category cannot be considered an accidental or
individual choice, but seems to be a conscious decision based on the Islamic
tradition of travel writing.
To fully understand what Evliya finds to be strange and wondrous and
why he does so, and at what points he warns readers or listeners that they are
facing a narrative of marvels and wonders, we may classify such narratives
under certain concepts, such as talisman and spells, magic and witchcraft,
dreams and prophecies, adventures, physical appearances, animals, different
beliefs or cultures, landforms, architectural structures, etc. These include most of
the basic concepts in Evliyas travels, indeed in his life. Thus it is difficult to say
that narratives of marvels and wonders in the Seyahatname focus on certain
restricted topics. That is to say, it is possible for Evliya to see a strange ritual in
one church that he has not seen in other churches; or while one cave is ordinary,
another can be full of mysteries. This suggests that the process of travel is
extremely important in the formation of such stories.
Here we should point out the defining elements of what Evliya finds
worth recounting as strange and wondrous. After describing the Ashura rituals

in the polo grounds of Tabriz, characterized as a noteworthy and strange and


wondrous excursion spot (mesregh- ibret-nm-y acbe ve garbe), Evliya
mentions other excursion spots, including a pavilion with an inscription, and
concludes: There are many other such noteworthy monuments, but there is no
profit in enumerating those that are obscure or not worth dwelling upon, and the
prolongation of discourse gives rise to tedium, so this much will suffice.
(II.301a) [Translation from An Ottoman Traveller, 60] As is clear from
explanations of this kind, especially found at the end of his narratives, Evliya is
not a scribe recording everything he sees or hears. He is a storyteller who selects
his narratives according to individual criteria and considers what the reader or
the listener will find useful and valuable. Stories of marvels and wonders are
generally based either on his own observation and life experience, or on sources
of oral culture, or both. For every strange and wondrous incident he records,
he feels the need to emphasize that he witnessed it with his own eyes. This lived
experience is the most reliable source both for himself and his readers.
In Volume 7, for example, under the title Explanation of the noteworthy
marvels and wonders, the battle of witches and vampires (Der-beyn-
acibt u garibt- ibret-nm-y ceng-i cidl-i sehere-i oburt), he
witnesses the combat in the sky between Circassian and Abkhazian oburs
bloodsucking witches. After vividly telling the story of this battle, he feels
obliged to offer this explanation:
In short, I used to deny this kind of thing. But thousands of soldiers
who were with us saw it and were astonished. And there were many
men who had seen it before. But the Circassians swore that they
had not seen so much warfare among the oburs for forty or fifty
years. (VII.152a)
Although the Circassians were used to the existence of these vampires, only the
eyewitness of Evliya and those him makes the narrative persuasive. In this way
the stage is set for Evliyas other narratives about the oburs.
Although Evliya drives the point home about the strange and wondrous
stories he has witnessed with his own eyes, sometimes he does not find this
enough and feels obliged to reason out the situation. Robert Dankoff points out
that Evliya does sometimes challenge the authenticity of marvels and
wonders, especially when they are not in Islamic but in Christian context:
When Evliya was in Kilise (Three Churches), the great
Armenian monastic compound of Echmiadzin, in 1647, he saw an
iron bar suspended in mid-air beneath a vault of one of the
churches. The monks explained the phenomenon as a miracle of St.
Peter (emun-i Safa). Foolish Muslims also, says Evliya, are
amazed when they see it, and believe in it. His own explanation is

that when the church was constructed, two strong magnets were
embedded, one at the top of the vault and one beneath the floor, and
the iron bar is suspended between them. He concludes: This
humble one, full of fault, with my faulty intellect, observed it to be
so; God willing there is no error in my observation (II.325b).
(Dankoff 2004, 197)
Dankoff contrasts Evliyas rational approach here with his attitude toward the
palm-fiber ropes from the time of Solomon in the courtyard of the Aqsa Mosque
in Jerusalem (197-98). Evliyas being more readily persuaded when it comes to
miracles of Muslim saints, and his not questioning any miracle if its source is
the Koran, are consistent with his views in the text as a whole. That is why does
not include Solomons miracle under the category of marvels and wonders.
Thus, the borderlines of Evliyas world of the strange and wondrous are drawn
by the mentality represented in his work.
While Evliya remains true to his faith with regard to divine cause and
effect, there are no limits when it comes to appreciating human effort and
creativity. In Vienna, for example, he is enthusiastic in his admiration of alarm
clocks, mechanical carriages and mills, effigies of Turkish captives moving like
a wound clock, and other clockwork mechanisms (VII.57b-59a).
Experience which is passed on from mouth to mouth is the source from
which all storytellers have drawn, says Walter Benjamin (1969, 84). As
mentioned above, if the narratives of marvels and wonders are not told as
events or situations that Evliya has himself experienced or witnessed, then they
come mainly from oral sources. These ear-witness sources may be narratives
transmitted by the oral memory of his own culture and kept in Evliyas mind, or
they may be storytellers from faraway places. Consider the legends about the
Rock of Ali in Mt. Subhan near Adilcevaz, told under the heading, Wonders of
Gods creation, marvelous to behold (Ve mine'l-garib sun- lh vcib'sseyr). Evliya relates different versions of how the dragon was turned to stone
and lets his readers choose which one they want to believe in (IV.243b-244a).
Presenting alternative narratives and not insisting on one point of view show that
Evliya is a storyteller who feeds and is fed by oral culture. In oral culture,
variations of a legend are as plentiful as repetitions, and there is no limit to
repetition. As Jack Goody remarks, in oral culture the genuine version is the
one produced by ones contemporaries not the oldest but the youngest
(1992, 17). Evliya puts into practice the way of generating new texts found in
oral tradition. Like every storyteller, his creativity lies in rearranging old
patterns and themes using new materials.
When his source for stories about marvels and wonders is other
storytellers, Evliya invariably informs us who told him the story and under what
conditions. As Benjamin remarks, The story teller takes what he tells from
experience his own or that reported by others. And he in turn makes it the

experience of those who are listening to his tale (1969, 87). Evliya especially
questions old people when he is suspicious about a story that he has heard; if
they approve it, he too begins to believe it. The important point here is that he
consults with the oldest i.e. the most experienced ones, which
demonstrates the relation he establishes as a storyteller between experience and
knowledge.
Evliyas position as narrator also shifts according to the source. We
observe him as: both narrator and one of the characters affecting the plot;
narrator who observes the event experienced by another person; narrator who
observes a situation and also questions it; narrator who gives the stage to another
storyteller; narrator who allows the story to be told through dialogue. And his
point of view changes in parallel with these positions. When he exercises his
position as narrator, his viewpoint establishes the viewpoint of the text and he
channels the reader or the listener in that direction. On the other hand, when the
story is told through dialogue, the viewpoint is no longer guided by the narrator.
In narratives recounted by this method, which occur frequently in the
Seyahatnme, Evliya keeps his characters at arms length especially those
who are not from his own social-ideological context and allows them to exist
by themselves. Then we have [t]hese distinctive links and interrelationships
between utterances and languages, this movement of the theme through different
languages and speech types, its dispersion into the rivulets and droplets of social
heteroglassia, its dialogization that Bakhtin specifies as the basic
distinguishing feature of the stylistic of the novel (Bakhtin 1981, 263). Even if
we limit our view of the Seyahatnme to narratives of marvels and wonders,
we see the structure of discourse of the work as heteroglot, polyphonic and
multi-stylistic.
While describing a very large geographical area, including his own social
ground of the Ottoman Empire and neighboring districts that are strange to him,
Evliya presents the human drama or the ethnology in fictional form, using all the
possibilities of language and narrative art. The narratives of marvels and
wonders, however much they accustom the reader or the listener to the
viewpoint of the work as a whole, primarily relate to Evliyas world of the
strange and wondrous. In other word, marvels and wonders do not
constitute a category independent of the narrator and the work as a whole. In
these narratives Evliya presents the extraordinary aspects of his travels. But in
doing so, he does not digress from the main text; rather he completes the work in
a manner suitable to the tradition of travel narrative. These narratives, that push
the limits of both the human and the divine, serve to awaken the amazement of
his contemporaries and to challenge their credulity. For us today they are a rich
treasure for both literary and cultural studies, as cultural products found worthy
to tell by a talented storyteller who pushed the limits of the art of description and
the art of narration.

Bibliography
Bakhtin, Mikhail. The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays, translated by Carly
Emerson and Michael Holquist, edited by Michael Holquist: University of
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Benjamin, Walter. The Storyteller: Reflections on the Works of Nilolai
Leskov. Illuminations. Edited and Introduction by Hannah Arendt.
Translated by Harry Zohn. New York: Schocken Books, 1969.
Dankoff, Robert. An Ottoman Mentality: The World of Evliya elebi. Leiden:
Brill, 2004.
The Seyahatname of Evliya elebi as a Literary Monument. Journal of
Turkish Literature 2 (2005), 71-83.
Eagleton, Terry. Literary Theory: An Introduction. 2nd ed. Oxford: Blackwell
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Entertainments. Edited by Richard Bauman. New York: Oxford University
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z, Fahir. Evliy elebi ve Seyahatnmesi. Boazii niversitesi Dergisi,
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Tezcan, Nuran. 17. Yzyl Osmanl Trk Edebiyat ve Seyahatname. ann
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