What has carried the name of Âşık Mehmet İnan, a folk minstrel (âşık) of the village of Yeşilöz in the Aydınca subdistrict of Amasya who sang songs and told tales to the saz, down to the present is a minstrels' gathering in 1960, when he hosted Âşık Veysel and his travelling companion Âşık İbrahim in his home. The Köroğlu tale he told to the saz at that gathering was recorded on a sixty-minute cassette; half a century later the tape reached Serdar Uğurlu through the family and was published as a variant of the Aleppo branch, one of the branches of the Köroğlu cycle known by name but whose text had never been found. No published information exists on the minstrel's dates of birth and death, his own poems or the rest of his life.

Life

What is known of Âşık Mehmet rests on the accounts of his family. Uğurlu's informants were the minstrel's daughter Firdevs İnan, his son-in-law Nebi İnan and Nebi İnan's grandson Hünkâr Mehmet İnan. According to Nebi İnan, in 1960, when he himself was about twenty, a wandering minstrel named Âşık İbrahim came to Yeşilöz, accompanied by a blind man with a walking stick, a fedora on his head and black rubber shoes on his feet. The villagers learned only later that this man was Âşık Veysel. The two minstrels travelled from village to village and town to town, making their saz and their words known. A gathering was held in Yeşilöz at which Âşık Mehmet, Âşık Veysel and Âşık İbrahim came together, and the guests stayed three days in Âşık Mehmet's house.

Firdevs İnan also recalls that her father welcomed the guests in their own home and talked with Veysel at a table laid out in the village square. She says her father always described himself with a certain quatrain, that he kept a notebook, and that this saying of Veysel's was read from that notebook. On the day of parting the two minstrels exchanged their instruments, and Veysel left Amasya with Âşık Mehmet's saz. Veysel's saz is still in the hands of the same family. In Firdevs İnan's words, all that remained of those days was "only his saz and the sound recordings, and a photograph." According to the family, in those years when the saz was played and devotional songs (nefes) were sung in the cemevi, Âşık Mehmet was a minstrel known throughout Amasya, able to compose fine songs.

The Aleppo Branch of Köroğlu

At the gathering Âşık Mehmet told, to the accompaniment of his saz, a Köroğlu tale in which prose and verse sections alternate. Listening to the recording, it becomes clear that Veysel took no part in the telling and that the tape is entirely Âşık Mehmet's performance. Only before some of the verse passages does the minstrel ask his listeners, "let's see what Köroğlu will say, what the aghas will hear, shall he say it now," and one of them answers "let him say it." Uğurlu believes this voice to be Veysel's. Hünkâr Mehmet İnan first tried to transcribe the recording, playing the unclear passages to the village elders, and for the remaining parts went to Şarkışla to consult Âşık Hasan, a close friend of Âşık İbrahim. Uğurlu then transcribed the whole tape anew.

The subject of the tale is Demircioğlu's love for Mektup Hanım of Aleppo. Seeing that Demircioğlu lacks the strength to bring back the girl he loves, Köroğlu takes the task upon himself, rides to Aleppo on Kırat, reaches Mektup Hanım through an old woman's mediation, confronts Paşaoğlu and finally carries the girl off on his horse's crupper. When he stops on the way to sleep and lays his curved sword down the middle of the bed, treating the girl as one forbidden to him, Mektup Hanım learns at that moment that she has been carried off for Demircioğlu. This branch is named in Pertev Naili Boratav's classifications of 1931 and 1946 and in later lists of the Köroğlu branches, but according to Uğurlu its text had never been published. For this reason Uğurlu calls the recording "the Amasya Variant of the Aleppo Branch." Nowhere in the tale is there any reference to Amasya or its surroundings; what ties the variant to Amasya is the narrator's speech and the place of recording.

Poetry

Copyright note: Âşık Mehmet İnan was alive in 1960, and no published information on the date of his death has been found. It therefore cannot be determined whether the poems he sang are under copyright protection or in which year that protection would end. The transcribed text of the recording is moreover a work published by the researcher. For these reasons the poems cannot be published on separate pages of our site, and only two quatrains are quoted below.

According to Uğurlu, the tale contains 46 quatrains scattered among the prose sections. These quatrains form eight koşma songs, three long verse contests (atışma) and seven independent quatrains. The poems are mostly in the eleven-syllable koşma metre, with some lines whose caesura falters. In the verse contests the speaker is not named, and Âşık Mehmet's name or pen name appears in none of the quatrains. Some of the quatrains are traditional pieces that Köroğlu addresses to the beys of Bolu, to the old woman and to the girls at the spring, and they have counterparts in other Köroğlu versions. The contest between Mektup Hanım and her younger sister, and the poem with the refrain "Ak kuğuda böyle teller olur mu" ("Does a white swan have such plumes?") in which Köroğlu praises Mektup Hanım, were however not found in the other Köroğlu texts Uğurlu examined. Uğurlu notes that the skill with which the verse passages are delivered is such as to captivate the listener. After the tale ended the minstrel sang several more songs in a row, but because that part of the tape is damaged it could be transcribed only with difficulty.

The two quatrains that Köroğlu addresses to Paşaoğlu as he leaves Aleppo are quoted from the dialect-faithful text published by Uğurlu:

Ezelden biledim de ben saña kini
Garşıluĥlu yapdurmışım ben hanı
Terkime almışım (ĥano) mektup ĥanımı
Allāsmarladuĥ derim paşōlu
Çamlıbel'i sorarsan bir ġuççüķ çiftlik
İçinde yayılır doksan bin etlik
Terkime almışım (ĥano) ġınalı keklik
Allāsmarladuĥ derim paşōlu

In English Köroğlu says: I sharpened my grudge against you long ago, I have had an inn built with rooms facing each other, I have taken Mektup Hanım up behind me, farewell, Paşaoğlu. If you ask about Çamlıbel, it is a little farm where ninety thousand fattened beasts graze; I have taken the henna-dyed partridge up behind me, farewell, Paşaoğlu. Forms such as "garşıluhlu," "ġuççük" and "paşōlu," and the interjection "hano" that breaks into the line, show that the text was set down exactly as it came from the minstrel's mouth. To call Çamlıbel a little farm and then say that ninety thousand beasts graze in it is an example of the mocking exaggeration Köroğlu uses when defying his enemy.

Connection with Amasya

Âşık Mehmet lived in the village of Yeşilöz in Amasya and gave his only known performance there. On the basis of what he learned in the field, Uğurlu writes that further recordings of this kind exist in the surrounding villages and that collecting work ought to extend to electronic archives as well. Âşık Mehmet's tale and his exchange of instruments with Veysel are also mentioned in the site's article on Amasya folk songs and long airs; the minstrel tradition of the region is described in the article on the minstrel tradition in Amasya.

State of the Sources

Everything known about Âşık Mehmet rests on three studies published by Serdar Uğurlu in 2017 and 2018 and on the family accounts reported in them. The article in the TEKE journal gives the minstrel's surname as "İnan," and the text record at the end of the 2018 article likewise lists the informant as "Âşık Mehmet İnan." Apart from the family's account and the recording itself, no independent record mentioning the minstrel has been found. His year of birth and death, his occupation and his own songs are unknown. The date of Veysel's visit also rests on the family's memory. Only published, publicly available information has been used on this page.

Chronology

1960: Âşık Veysel and Âşık İbrahim come to Yeşilöz and stay three days in Âşık Mehmet's house. The Köroğlu tale told by Âşık Mehmet is recorded on cassette.

2017: Serdar Uğurlu publishes the text of the recording in Millî Folklor and examples of its variation in the TEKE journal.

2018: Uğurlu publishes the full text, a word-for-word rendering of the recording, in Türk Dünyası İncelemeleri Dergisi.

Bibliography

Academic studies

Books

Online sources