From: deniz@mandolin.ctr.columbia.edu (Deniz Akkus)
Subject: Re: Turkish Culture
Organization: Columbia University Center for Telecommunications Research
Date: Mon, 28 Dec 1992 11:33:44 GMT
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In article <1992Dec24.165853.10444@nynexst.com> erkin@nynexst.com (Erkin Cubukcu) writes:
>
>
>TURKISH CULTURE
>
>As a digression  from  the hot topic, seriat vs.  secularism.  I decided to
>write  about  something  which  I  felt  we,  as  Turks,  should  pay  more
>attention,   that   is   our   culture.   Speaking   of   culture,  in  any 
>typical international gathering, someone will come up and say Chineese have
>(8000?), Iranians have (5000?) & Greeks have (3000?) years of civilization,
>what have you got, as Turks. My typical comment has been that we have  also  
>a very long  history of civilization, maybe (2000?) or (3000?) years, maybe
>longer.  But I am not sure, in the back of my mind, the  exact  length  and
>how to  measure  it,  in the first place.  Usually, discussion ends with no
>concrete result.  So the question is how can we measure its length.    When
>someone  talks  about  its lenth does he/she mean the written civilization.
>If that is  so, then do the tales, (e.g. Dede Korkut, Homer) told from  one
>generation to   another   count?    What  about  the  interactions  between

Well, this is somewhat problematic for nomadic cultures.  The first
written Turkic literature of course dates from 3rd century AD.  On the
other hand, these people obviously did not spring from a hole in the
ground complete with their own alphabet, literary style and a language
that hasn't changed too drastically in the grammar in the last 1600
years.  The claims I have seen for a date on the Turkic peoples is that
the language that today we call Turkic languages is at least 2000 or so
years old.  I don't really see why 2000 vs. 1600 vs. 5000 is better.  

>Again, one day I was browsing the Magazine, National Geographics. In one of 
>the letters to the editor, an Iranian wrote that National Geogrphics made a 
>mistake  identifying  Mevlana  Celaddin  Rumi as a Turkish Sufi although he
>lived or died in Asia Minor. The letter, I assume  was  referencing  to  an
>article   about   Mevlana   published  in  an  earlier  issue  of  National
>Geographics, According to this letter, Mevlana is  Iranian  with  his  name
>spelling (and possibly sounding) Iranian as given in the letter.   

People did not use to worry too much about whether they were Turkish or
not in a 'pure sense' in the old days.  Mevlana Celaleddin -i Rumi wrote
most of his poetry in Farsi, especially the best known works.  On the
other hand, there is one or two lines in his poetry where I think he
makes the claim that his poetry tongue is Farsi but his mother tongue is
Turkish or something like that.  Again, who cares?  I don't want to
start flame wars with the Greek netters, but one example that comes to
mind is whether El Greco is a Spanish or Greek artist.  I would claim
that Mevlana Celaleddin -i Rumi is big enough for two countries to claim
his heritage.  BTW, Fuzuli is claimed by the Azeris as their greatest
poet.  

>I do not even remember seeing a book  about  Dede  Korkut  selling  in  the
>bookstores in Turkiye. I am sure it is published somewhere in Turkiye,  but 
>is not  very popular so you do not see it in the bookstores.  I do not dare
>to imagine seeing translations of Dede Korkut or similar literature selling 
>in New York, Paris or London. I keep wondering if it is  too  difficult  or
>not  worth  the  effort  to  translate  them to other  languages by Turkish
>literati born and/or living in these places.  Or other  possibility  we  do
>not have capable people to the job.   

We do have English translation of Dede Korkut, Penguin classics has a
version that I bought for one of my friends, from the Penguin shop in
Harvard Square in Boston (closed since then).  It is fairly good too.  I
was also similarly surprised to find a great book 'Portrait of a Turkish
family' in a bookstore in London.  It is possible, but comparable to
finding gold in the river.  

Generally I agree that we can do a better job of preserving and
researching our culture.  Most of the better Turkologists to our day
have been foreign -- kind of frustrating for someone like me who goes
looking for stuff to find great titles -- in Russian or Hungarian,
neither of which I speak...

The situation is not quite as bad as you seem to think though -- look
more carefully in the bookstores,  Dede Korkut will never make it to the
NY Times bestseller list (just kidding) .

regards,
Deniz Akkus deniz@ctr.columbia.edu