Ali Divanî, whose real name is Ali Kiziroğlu, is a folk minstrel (âşık) born in 1951 in the village of Küçükçay near Merzifon. Raised within the Alevi-Bektashi tradition of the path, he has performed his art with saz and song at cem gatherings, at muhabbet assemblies and at minstrel evenings. Almost everything known about his life and poetry comes from Sabri Yücel's 2003 book Merzifonlu Âşık Ali Divani (Yaşamı, Sanatı ve Şiirleri) and from the entry in the Dictionary of Names in Turkish Literature that draws on it. Since his poems are protected by copyright, this page describes only his life, his career as a minstrel and the general features of his poetry.

His Life

Ali Kiziroğlu was born on 1 February 1951 in Küçükçay, a village of Merzifon whose older name is Küçükelbiz. The family belongs to the Turkmen İdrisler clan. The clan first settled in the village of Kıreymir near Merzifon, and part of it later moved to the village of Kiziroğlu in the district of Gümüşhacıköy; the family surname carries the name of this village. The poet's great-grandfather Bektaş Dede settled in Merzifon in order to educate his son Mustafa, and Mustafa was later sent by the family elders to Küçükçay, which needed an imam, to serve as its imam and dede; he married there and stayed. Grandfather Mustafa was one of the well-known minstrels of the area, composing poems under the pen names "Nikabî" and "Fehmî" and serving as dede and zakir (ritual singer) in cem ceremonies.

Ali Divanî attended the first three grades of primary school in his village and completed the rest in Merzifon. After finishing middle school and high school in Merzifon he did his military service. On his return he joined the Tekel (state monopoly) administration as a civil servant, worked in various provinces, and retired from the Amasya branch of Tekel in 2002. The dictionary entry was published in 2019 and updated in 2020 and gives no date of death; the poet was alive at that time. No verified information has been found for the years that followed.

His Career as a Minstrel

Ali Divanî often stresses that his gift for minstrelsy came from his grandfather Nikabî Mustafa and that the memory of his grandfather occupies a large place in his art. He says that he was not trained in a formal master-apprentice relationship, but he singles out the part played by two minstrels. In his childhood Âşık İrfanî from the village of Kemalli in Sungurlu, Çorum, often visited the family, playing the saz and singing deyiş at cem and muhabbet gatherings; Ali Divanî names him as the strongest influence on his desire to become a minstrel. After İrfanî's death he went to Mazlum Ahmet Dede of Artova, who lived in İzmir, and stayed with him for a while. It was there that he received his pen name. According to Yücel, the name "Divani" was written beside his own in the last quatrain of a deyiş he had composed, and he was told, "Be like Ali Divani and keep faith with it." Since that day he has sung his poems under the pen names "Ali Divani" and "Divani".

By his own account he also contributed to the training of Âşık Kul Semaî of Turhal, Âşık Selmanî of Almus and Âşık Söylerî of Zile. He says he was influenced by contemporary minstrels such as Âşık Mahsunî, Âşık Daimî, Âşık Hüdaî, Hüseyin Çırakman, Şekip Şahadoğru, Ali İzzet Özkan and Âşık Veysel, and that he tried to form himself by drawing on the lives and songs of older masters such as Yunus Emre, Nesîmî, Hatâyî, Kaygusuz Abdal, Pir Sultan, Kul Himmet, Yemînî, Vîrânî, Harâbî, Emrah and Karacaoğlan. This long list shows that he is bound in equal measure to the nefes and deyiş of the cem tradition and to minstrel poetry dealing with worldly subjects.

His Poetry

Copyright note: Since Ali Divanî was alive when the sources were published, his poems are under copyright protection and cannot be published on this site as separate pages. Protection lasts until the end of the seventieth year after the poet's death.

Throughout his career Ali Divanî has played and sung at cem ceremonies, muhabbet gatherings, meetings, national holidays, festivals, commemorations and celebrations, competitions and minstrel evenings, and he is known as a minstrel faithful to the tradition. His poems take up social, political, cultural and personal problems and treat the good and bad sides of society in a critical voice. He has taken as his guide the teaching of Hacı Bektaş Veli, which places the human being at the centre and rests on love and tolerance. In all his poems he uses syllabic metre, favouring lines of 7, 8 and 11 syllables, and he has also written poems in lines of 15 and 16 syllables.

Sabri Yücel's book contains 180 of the poet's poems. Because the sources accessible while this page was being prepared do not publish the texts of his poems, no quotation is given here. Readers may consult Yücel's book for the poems.

Ali Divanî's link with Amasya is clear: he was born in Merzifon, completed his education there and ended his civil service career in Amasya, and his family's history reaches back to villages of Merzifon and Gümüşhacıköy. The information about him, however, rests on a single chain of sources. Ayşegül Kuşdemir, author of the dictionary entry, takes all her information from Yücel's book; the book itself could not be consulted for this page. His name does not appear in the lists of minstrels of the Gümüşhacıköy and Merzifon area, including the list quoted in our article on the minstrel tradition in Amasya. The spelling of his surname also deserves attention: although some lists give it as "Kızıroğlu", the dictionary writes "Kiziroğlu", in keeping with the village from which the family took its name.

Chronology

1951: Born on 1 February in the village of Küçükçay (Küçükelbiz), Merzifon.

2002: Retires from the Amasya branch of the Tekel administration.

2003: Sabri Yücel's book on his life, art and 180 of his poems is published.

2019: His entry is published in the Dictionary of Names in Turkish Literature.

Bibliography

  • Ayşegül Kuşdemir, "Ali Divanî, Ali Kiziroğlu", Türk Edebiyatı İsimler Sözlüğü, 25.04.2019 (updated 05.12.2020). https://teis.yesevi.edu.tr/madde-detay/ali-divani-ali-kiziroglu
  • Sabri Yücel, Merzifonlu Âşık Ali Divani (Yaşamı, Sanatı ve Şiirleri), İstanbul: Can Yayınları, 2003, pp. 10-40 (as cited by Kuşdemir).

Online sources