Klasik Türk Edebiyatında Bilinen İlk Mizahî Takvim Risalesi: İznikli Vahyî nin Meselü l-Îhâmât ı
Authors: BÜYÜKER GÜNGÖR Nilgün 
Published: July 2024

One of the institutions established in the Ottoman Empire in the 15th
century was the “müneccimbaşı” (chief astrologer). The main duty of this
institution is to examine the sky and its objects and create calendars, timetables,
sunrises, etc. was to prepare. While the chief astrologer was preparing
"numerical calendar(s)" called hijri, rumi, jalali, etc., which show the
dimensions of time due to his duty every year, after a while, he started to prepare
a second calendar in addition to these calendar(s): "Ahkam (judgments)
calendars”. In the judgments calendar, which was initially included in the
numerical calendar and later began to be prepared and distributed in the form of
a separate treatise, based on the notes prepared by the chief astrologer, in the
newly entered year, the sultan and the dignitaries, starting from the sultan and
the dignitaries, made provisions regarding the conditions of people from all
classes, predicted comments about the events that would occur, and what was or
was not appropriate to do. It would include jobs. These judgments, which
concern the entire society, a kind of "astrological fortune telling" in today's
view, were met with interest by both the state officials and the public.
The poets and writers of the period ignored the Ahkam calendars and
managed to give them a literary spirit by adding some humor, some satire, some
praise, some stoning and some ironic figures of speech within the section,
without spoiling the structure of these features too much. Today's researchers
mostly call these literary works derived from Ahkam calendars as "humorous
calendars". In classical Turkish literature, four names have been identified as
having a humorous calendar: 1. Vahyî-i Evvel, 2. Nasûhî, 3. Zâtî, 4. Küfrî-i
Bahâyî. In the studies carried out so far, the texts of the last two of these works
were published by experts in the field in an article in 1976 and 2016, while it
was stated that the texts of the first two works had not yet been obtained and the
sections cited by the biographies from these works were shared as sample texts.
In this study, firstly, general information about humorous calendars was
given and the life and works of Vahyî-i Evvel, known as the first humorous
calendar writer in our literature, were emphasized, and then the calendar that
the poet wrote under the name "Meselü'l-Îhâmât" in 1496 and presented to
Selim I was discussed. The text of his treatise has been published. While some
concepts and terms in the text were explained with footnotes, the copy of the
work in the British National Library was compared with the section included in
Âşık Çelebi's memoirs, and the detected differences were also stated in the
footnotes.
Anahtar Kelimeler
Vahyî-i Evvel, Meselü’l-Îhâmât, Mizahi Takvim, XV. Yy., Yavuz Sultan
Selim, Letayif, Mensur Risale, Mizah, Hiciv.
The Journal of Turkish Studies 51, İstanbul 2024, 179-226. | Research Article
The First Known Humorary Calendar Tract In Classical Turkish
Literature: Meselü'l-Îhâmât Of İznikli Vahyî
Nilgün BÜYÜKER GÜNGÖR
Dr., Düzce University Rectorate Turkish Language Department, Düzce, Türkiye
ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7109-007X
ROR ID: https://ror.org/04175wc52
nilgunbuyuker@duzce.edu.tr
Citation
Büyüker Güngör, Nilgün. " The First Known Humorary Calendar Tract In Classical
Turkish Literature: Meselü'l-Îhâmât Of İznikli Vahyî". The Journal of Turkish Studies, 51
(Spring 2024), 179-226.
https://doi.org/...
Date of Submission 29.02.2024
Date of Acceptance 22.04.2024
Date of Publication 12.07.2024
Peer-Review Double anonymized - Two External
Ethical Statement
It is declared that scientific and ethical principles have been
followed while carrying out and writing this study and that
all the sources used have been properly cited.
Plagiarism Checks Yes - Turnitin
Conflicts of Interest The author(s) has no conflict of interest to declare.
Complaints tkidergisii@gmail.com
Grant Support The author(s) acknowledge that they received no external
funding in support of this research.
Copyright &
License
Authors publishing with the journal retain the copyright to
their work licensed under the CC BY-NC 4.0.
182 Nilgün BÜYÜKER GÜNGÖR
ABSTRACT
After the February 27 Revolution in the Russian Empire, the
Provisional Government took over the administration of the state and
governed the country until the Bolshevik Revolution. One of the most
important problems that the government had to solve was to continue the
functioning of the administrative mechanism as much as possible in order
to support the normal flow of life. Thus, it would ensure that local
institutions remained under its control. With the decision taken on March
4, 1917, temporary commissars were appointed to the regions where local
governments existed. In places where there were no local governments,
commissars would be appointed in agreement with the social organizations
and officials there. Although this was the basic law, it was seen that the
Provisional Government took a number of different decisions for
administrative management in the Turkestan Region. In fact, the
administration of the Turkestan Region by the general-governorship,
which became a kind of exploitation system during the imperial period, was
an important region that would test the Provisional Government, which
was described as a democratic government. The new government was not
supposed to repeat the mistakes of the old regime. Therefore, in this article,
the administrative regulations of the Provisional Government in the
Turkestan Region, their implementation and reflections on a local scale are
examined, and it is aimed to contribute to periodic evaluations. Turkestan
Region is the official designation used for the territory of the Turkestan
General-Governorship. When the sources related to the study were
examined, it was determined that the administrative decisions of the
Provisional Government evolved into three stages depending on the special
conditions in the region and that the government representatives had
difficulty in imposing their authority on the Regional Soviet and the
Tashkent Soviet. It was understood that in all three stages, the Muslim
people of the region were excluded from the administrative staff in the
decision-making authority.