Âşık Mehmed Ağa was a Janissary sergeant (çavuş) of Amasya, a minstrel poet who played the çöğür and a singer of epics (destancı), who lived in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Because he was the grandson of Odabaşı Halil Ağa, he is known as Odabaşıoğlu. According to Hüseyin Hüsâmeddîn Yasar's Amasya Tarihi (History of Amasya), as "an accomplished folk poet" he was of great use to the Janissaries in wartime, gathered his friends in the coffeehouse near the Garibler Mosque at Selağzı, and died towards the year 1220 (1805-06). Everything known about him rests on Hüsameddin's short entry. No example of his epics or poems has come down to us.

Hüsameddin's Entry

Hüsameddin introduces the poet in the eleventh volume of the Amasya Tarihi, in the section listing natives of Amasya whose names begin with the letter "ayn":

Âşık Mehmed Ağa-Odabaşıoğlu. Amasya yeniçerilerinden Ahmed Ağa bin Odabaşı Halil Ağa'nın oğludur. Bu da yeniçeri çavuşlarından olup Çöğür çalar, destân söylerdi. Mükemmel bir halk şâiri olduğundan muhârebelerde çok işe yarardı. Garibler Mescidi-Selağzı civârındaki kahvehânede yarânı toplardı. 1220 yılına doğru ömrü âhir oldu. Sesi ve nağmesi güzel, orta boylu, yakışıklı saz çalmada mâhir bir destancı idi. İçerişehir'de Kırkbedel civârında hânesi var idi. Evlâdına Âşıkoğulları dendi. Bunlardan diş tabîbi Ahmed Hamdi Efendi, Amasyalı İsmail Hakkı Paşa'ya dâmâd olup Üsküdar'da icrâ-yı sanat etmekte iken 1338'de vefât etdi.

In English the entry reads: Âşık Mehmed Ağa is the son of Ahmed Ağa, son of Odabaşı Halil Ağa, of the Janissaries of Amasya. He too was one of the Janissary sergeants; he played the çöğür and sang epics. Being an accomplished folk poet, he was of great use in battles. He gathered his friends in the coffeehouse near the Garibler Mosque and Selağzı. His life came to an end towards the year 1220. He was a singer of epics with a fine voice and melody, of medium height, handsome and skilled at playing the saz. He had a house near Kırkbedel in İçerişehir. His descendants were called the Âşıkoğulları. One of them, the dentist Ahmed Hamdi Efendi, became the son-in-law of İsmail Hakkı Pasha of Amasya and died in 1338 while practising his profession in Üsküdar.

The site's transcription of the entry, with notes, can be read in the Hüsameddin encyclopedia.

Life

Âşık Mehmed Ağa's date of birth is unknown. Hüsameddin traces his descent back three generations: his father was Ahmed Ağa of the Amasya Janissaries and his grandfather Odabaşı Halil Ağa. An odabaşı was the officer responsible for the daily order of an oda, that is, a unit of the Janissary corps. The family evidently remained within the corps for three generations, and Mehmed Ağa too became one of the Janissary sergeants. Whether "Âşık" is a pen name here or the general title given to minstrel poets cannot be told from the source. Hüsameddin opens the entry with this name and writes that the poet's children were called the "Âşıkoğulları"; the name seems to have passed to the family from the poet's art.

The information Hüsameddin gives traces the main lines of a Janissary minstrel's life. Mehmed Ağa sang epics to the çöğür and lifted the soldiers' spirits in war. The Turkish Language Association's dictionary defines the çöğür as "a kind of folk saz with a large body and a short neck". In peacetime the poet's meeting place was the coffeehouse near the Garibler Mosque at Selağzı. Hüsameddin finds his voice and melody fine, his height medium and his face handsome, and stresses his skill at the saz. This description must rest on local knowledge that remembered the minstrel's appearance and voice in company; Hüsameddin does not say where his information came from.

For the date of death Hüsameddin says "towards the year 1220". The hijri year 1220 falls between April 1805 and March 1806. Nor is it stated which wars the poet took part in; the great campaigns in which the Amasya Janissaries were engaged during his lifetime were the Ottoman-Russian wars of 1768-1774 and 1787-1792. That Mehmed Ağa may have served in these campaigns is a conjecture and is not written in the source.

Âşık Mehmed Ağa was a native of Amasya. He grew up in the Amasya Janissary corps, his house stood near Kırkbedel in İçerişehir, and he practised his art in the coffeehouse at Selağzı. This coffeehouse is one of the places that show where saz and epic were heard within the city of Amasya. In the seventeenth century Celâlî Mehmed Ağa had sung in the coffeehouse called the "High Coffeehouse" (Yüksek Kahve), and in the second half of the eighteenth century Âsafî Ahmed Bey in a coffeehouse near the Tomb of the Princes. Âşık Mehmed Ağa is among the last links of this chain. This milieu is described on the site in the articles Coffeehouse and Conversation Culture in Amasya, The Minstrel Tradition in Amasya and Amasya Folk Songs and Long Songs.

Poetry

None of Âşık Mehmed Ağa's poems has been found. Hüsameddin writes that he sang epics and was an accomplished folk poet, but gives no example of an epic or a quatrain. Cavit Güzel, in his study of the minstrel epic tradition in Amasya, likewise notes that the Amasya Tarihi contains no examples of the works of the minstrels it names and that he could find none of their works in other sources either. Which wars or events his epics told of is unknown.

Family

Hüsameddin says that the poet's descendants were called the "Âşıkoğulları" and names only one of them: the dentist Ahmed Hamdi Efendi. Ahmed Hamdi Efendi became the son-in-law of İsmail Hakkı Pasha of Amasya and died in 1338 (1919-20) while practising dentistry in Üsküdar, Istanbul. Hüsameddin counts him among the poet's "evlâd" (offspring); whether Ahmed Hamdi was the poet's son or grandson cannot be told from this word. The gap of more than a century suggests a grandson or a later generation; this is an inference.

The name of the poet's grandfather Odabaşı Halil Ağa also appears in other entries of the Amasya Tarihi. According to the entry on Ak Hasan Ağa in the sixth volume, Ak Hasan Ağa, son of Odabaşı Halil Ağa, was likewise a Janissary, won fame in the Iranian wars, was several times serdar (commander) of Amasya and died in Zilhicce 1173 (1760). Hüsameddin does not say whether this Halil Ağa is the same person as Âşık Mehmed Ağa's grandfather. The same name and rank suggest that the family had deep roots among the Amasya Janissaries, but there is no explicit record linking the two entries.

The State of the Sources

All information on Âşık Mehmed Ağa rests on Hüsameddin's entry; his name has not been found in any other source. Güzel's article and the site's articles on the minstrel tradition and folk songs also repeat this entry. In Güzel's text the name of the instrument appears as "çukur [çöğür]"; this difference probably arises because the two words are written with the same letters in Ottoman script; the text in the e-book clearly reads "çöğür".

The same page holds other entries whose names begin with the word "Âşık", and these should not be confused. The entry immediately before belongs to Kara Hâfızzâde Âşık Mehmed Çelebi, who was born in 952, taught and served as şeyhülharem (head of the Prophet's Mosque) in Medina and died in 1021 (1612); he was a scholar and historian, and there is no record of him as a minstrel poet. İmâmzâde Âşık Ahmed Çelebi, on the preceding page, was a folk and minstrel poet who won fame around 1070 (1659-60). Janissary service, the çöğür and the Selağzı coffeehouse appear only in the entry on Odabaşıoğlu Âşık Mehmed Ağa.

Chronology

Zilhicce 1173 (1760): Ak Hasan Ağa, son of Odabaşı Halil Ağa, dies.

1220 (1805-06): Âşık Mehmed Ağa dies towards this year.

1338 (1919-20): The dentist Ahmed Hamdi Efendi, of the poet's line, dies in Üsküdar.

Bibliography

Primary sources

Academic studies

Official sources

Online sources