The
VOICE
of
ANATOLIA
By TALÂT SAIT HALMANTurkish troubadours have been mystics, musicians, teachers, rebels, humorists,
heroes, entertainers- above all, gifted men who preserve and ex pand the national folk lore in lyric poetry and indigenous mu sic. They often leave their audiences spell bound with their
spontaneity, extemporizing their poems in full stanzaic forms and elaborate ryhme patterns. Their voices are tender or vehement, loving or lamenting. They chant paeans of nature, heroism,
love and bemoan
poverty, injustice, sadness. Anatolia expresses its joys and sorrows through its minstrels.
The last great master of the troubadour tradition was Âşık Veysel, who died in March 1973 at the age of 78. His lyrics, which he sang to the accompaniment of his saz (the traditional string instrument), found ent husiastic audiences not only in his own region but all over the country, including the urban areas. His numerous recordings and his Collected Poems have been best-sellers. "If I go," he once said addressing his saz, "You should en
dure in the world." Veysel's poems and music will undoub tedly endure.
he proclaimed: "God's existence is imbedded in Man." He expressed his profound devotion to his country in the following two memorable lines: "You are closer to me than myself / I would have no life if you did not exist." The Turkish Moslem folk poet was a humanist with boundless religious tolerance and an ecumenical vision: "The Koran and the Bible are God's grace / Which
is what all four Holy Books embrace; / To scorn and segregate this or
that race / Would be the darkest of stains on one's face." He made a plea for universal brotherhood and unity: "Come, brother, let us unite in harmony... Let us love each other like
brothers, heart to heart."
Âşık Veysel was born in the village of Sivrialan in the central Anatolian pro vince of Sivas. At age seven, during a smallpox epidemic, he became totally blind in his left eye. Later, an accident (a stick held by his father pierced the other eye) thrust him into utter darkness. "When I was little, fate struck me on the head / Both of my eyes were taken away from me / The seventh year of my life had just started / I gave my springs and summers as casualty." His father taught Veysel innumerable folk poems and took him to popular readings. When the boy's talent became appa rent, he was given a saz. His burgeoning poetic resources were to mature through years of lonesome work in total blind ness. At age 25, his parents found a wife for him. Two years later both his father and mother died. His wife gave birth to a daughter. A year later they had another baby who died ten days after birth while being suckled. Veysel plunged into deep despair. Ju st then, his wife abandoned him and never came back. The poet was left alone with his little daughter. Later he was to say: "I became a le gend in my land / Yet my wife just didn't care for me." For two The Turkish minstrel is referred to as "Â şık" - meaning both
"lover" and "folk poet." The popular imagination believes that the poet is a man of love: Love of beauty, of God, of nature, of the nation, of justice, of humanity. Âşık Veysel uttered
the eloquence of love. "Love and passion and the loved one are all in
me" was his declaration of all-embracing love. Like his mystic predecessors,
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The troubadour is the true voice of Anatolia. He sings poems of the people and for the people - poems rich
in folk mythology, in the best expressive resources ^ of colloquial Turkish, in sonorous tones and sensual
affection for nature. The minstrel, a pivotal figure of Turkish communal and cultural life, can be a resi dent poet or a wandering bard. He embodies an A unbroken tradition of at least ten centuries in \
Anatolia and many more if one takes into
account the literary life of the V v
Turks before they settled in \ Anatolia.
years, Veysel carried his daughter around and took care of her. His second marriage was a happy one, and gave him seven children and 18 grandchildren.
In 1933, Âşık Veysel walked three days from his village to the capital city Ankara for the Tenth Anniversary celebrations of the inauguration of the Turkish Republic. He came to national attention on this occasion. In later years he travelled the length and breadth of the country, and worked as a teacher of folk music at the Institutes for Village Teachers.
A lyric poet above all, Veysel often dealt with the social and economic problems of the peasant. Many of his poems bemoan the cruelties of nature - flood, drought, etc. - and urge the people to wage war against poverty by preserving the forests, building factories, and working with a heroic effort. "If you work hard, the soil will yield crops, it is generous / For man, hard work is the greatest of treasures." To prove his point, to overcome the challenge of ruthless nature, he started the first orchard at his village. Since no fruit had ever been grown in the area, villagers were openly skeptical. But, with unswerving determination, Veysel worked at his orchard for months and months - and finally, to the amazement of the villagers, was able to grow all types of fruit - cherries, apricots, apples...
The minstrel's triumphs in life and art were impressive but not sufficient to remove his deep sorrow. His poems are full of dark forebodings: "Again my ears hear a pain ful sound / Will the nightingale hush or the rose w ilt?" He suffers from love and exile: "Love and the longing for home scorch my chest / I yearn to reach it before this mad heart grows old / Now is the season of purple flowers on mountains / I long to get there before the roses fade and die." Veysel laments his fate in poem after poem referring to "my wounded heart," "there's no cure for my affliction," "The darkest soil is my faithful friend." One of his best-known poems, "The Road," which was also one of the top hit songs of Turkey in the 1960s, depicts Âşık Veysel's arduous spiritual odyssey :
I walk on a road long and narrow: Night and day, on and on I go. Where am I heading? I don't know: Night and day, on and on I go. Since I took my first painful stride, I've been travelling far and wide; The inns have doors that lead outside. ■Night and day, on and on I go.
Even in sleep I must forge ahead: No rest for the weary, no warm bed; Fate has doomed me to the roads I dread.
Night and day, on and on I go. Who can tell why my life went awry? Sometimes I laugh, sometimes I cry. Craving a caravanserai,
Night and day, on and on I go.
Âşık Veysel was scarcely a poet of gloom and doom. Many of his lyrics are celeb rations of life and its beauties. "The birds awaken at daybreak in their nests / Bran ches sing out and the hills echo / Each one with its own outcry of joy / Roses break into song and the orchards echo." He revelled in the power of his love: "Your beauty wouldn t be worth a penny / If I didn't have this love and passion / You could find no place to enjoy yourself / If my heart didn't offer you its mansion."
The Turkish word for "folk song" is "türkü," a variation of "türkî" meaning "Turkish." One of Veysel's lines observes this felicitous coincidence: "Türküz, türkü çağırırız." (We are Turks, we sing our own songs.) The joys and sorrows of Anatolia are truly in the songs and poems chanted by the troubadours for the entertainment and en lightenment of the people.
Veysel s death deprives Turkey of an eloquent and poignant poetic voice. But his tradition - the tradition he inherited and kept alive - is bound to produce many other exciting troubadours. Veysel's literary achievement will endure. In 1965, Turkey's Grand National Assembly paid tribute to his "services to the Turkish language and national unity. Admiration for his work and humanism will stay alive among Turks, in one of his famous poems, "May Friends Remember Me," which is also the title of his Collected Poems, he made this plea: "I'll go away, but my name stays / I hope my friends wiN recall me / There'll be weddings and holidays / I hope my friends will recall me. Âşık Veysel is gone. But Turkey will always remember her greatest modern troubadour.
