Savaş ve Şiir: Tarihin Tanığı Olarak Şairler
Tarihî hadiselerin izah edilip yorumlanmasında arşiv belgeleri kadar edebî verimlerin şahitliğinden de istifade edilmesi gerekmektedir. Zira sanatçı; yaşanmışlıkları gelecek nesillere aktarma ve tarihten ebediyete taşıma noktasında oldukça değerlidir. Bu yazıda, savaş ve şiir bağlamında tarihin tanığı olarak şairlerin ne derece önemli bir yere sahip oldukları Horatius’dan Nef’î’ye, Merahî’den Edip Ahmet Yüknekî’ye, Hoca Saadettin Efendi’den Rûdekî’ye çeşitli isimlerin bu husustaki tanıklıklarına başvurularak tartışılmaktadır.
War and Poem: Poets as a Witness to History
It is necessary to benefit from the witness of literary yields as much as archival documents in the explanation and interpretation of historical events. An artist is highly precise about transferring experiences to future generations and bringing them from history to the future. As witnesses of history in the context of war and poem, the importance of poets is discussed in this text paper by referring to the witnesses of various people on this point from Horatius to Nef’i, Merahi to Edip Ahmet Yuknekî and Hodja Saadettin to Rudeki.
The interpretation of historical events as they witness social life, literary yields can be considered a reference point. Although history researchers do not regard utilizing literary resources as preferable for explaining historical events literary texts are actually resources for the interpretation of life experiences. In this study, first discuss what kind of breakdowns would have occurred if there had not been poets as witnesses in the transfer of history to the present-day; further, the study presents evidence from the those who lived in different social environments and various centuries, such as Horatius, Nef’î and Edip Ahmet Yuknekî, about the importance of the historical witness of the poets. As aforementioned people stated, emperors, kings, and sultans can be represented to future generations by reviving the words of poets. The best way for historical events to be eternality from the day they occurred is through a poet. Sharing the experiences via poems was considered as effective and as permanent as “carving into a marble”. Another important point that the study focuses on is that poets reveal the reasons behind wars with images and symbols according to their social and political environment they are in by interpreting why warriors fight. At this point, the poet is the voice of the silent crowd and a contact between sultans and soldiers, especially during campaigns. In addition, poems convey wars with a literal language blow-by-blow via “gazavatnamesliterary resources telling about the wars against Christian powers.” For example, gazavatname Cehrin by Vuslati cinematographically highlights a war from the beginning to the end. It is significant that poets witness important events in history, especially wars, in order to light on historical events. However, it should be remembered that above all, literary texts are written on the basis of images; thus, proper comprehension of these texts will be related to the analysis of their images by the reader. After all, it is certain that the issue of approaching historical and archival documents but also the experience of the poet into consideration is a needed in today’s interpretation of history. If the witness of the poet and the witness of the history corroborate each other, something having two witnesses will cause no harm. However, a poet explains everything that is experienced regarding war blow-by-blow like a journalist of the time, especially in genres like Gazavatname. It is known that the Ottoman people preferred to express almost every problem or happiness through poems. It would be a deficient and simple approach to access history to the an extent permitted only by archival documents.
