Biçare was an Alevi eren and minstrel whose real name was Mehmet and who lost his sight at the age of seven. He came from the village of Dağsaray in the Mecitözü district of Çorum; he is said to have lived between the last years of the Ottoman Empire and the first years of the Republic. Because he regarded Kul Fakır of Merzifon as his spiritual guide and grew up within the tradition of Gaziler Ovacığı, which takes in Merzifon, Suluova and Gümüşhacıköy, his name appears in every list of the minstrels of Amasya. As the village where he was born lies outside the borders of Amasya, his tie to Amasya is formed indirectly, through this tradition and through his guide; the matter is discussed separately at the end of the page.

Life

The fullest study of Biçare is Ali Onar's article "Gaziler Ovacığından Bir Eren: Biçare'nin Hayatı ve Deyişleri" (A Dervish from Gaziler Ovacığı: The Life and Poetry of Biçare), published in 2019 in Alevilik Araştırmaları Dergisi. The full text of the article could not be obtained; the information below rests on the Turkish and English abstracts of the article published in TR Dizin. According to them, Biçare's real name was Mehmet; Biçare (the helpless one) is his pen name, and he is known by it in the surrounding villages. According to the information gathered in field collections, his spiritual guide was Kul Fakır, who lived in the same region. He lost his sight at the age of seven.

His date of birth is not known with certainty; he is said to have lived between the end of the Ottoman Empire and the founding years of the Republic of Turkey. Onar writes that Biçare, together with other erens who lived in the same period, had an important place in the establishment of the Republic in the region. The narratives full of extraordinary deeds told about him and the deyiş he sang have come down to the present orally. His date of death is not given in the abstracts.

His Minstrelsy and Circle

Necdet Kurt, in his paper on the zakirs of the Amasya region, says that Kul Fakır of Merzifon (1873-1938) contributed to the training of many minstrels of his time, and names Biçare together with Derviş Edna, Dervişoğlu and Mihnetî; this agrees with the relationship of guide and disciple given by Onar. Haluk Yücel too, in his studies of 2018 and 2021, names Biçare among the important figures who lived in Gaziler Ovacığı. In 2015 Ali Cem Akbulut collected the poems of Biçare and Dervişoğlu in a separate book published in Ankara, Gazilerovacığı Âşıklarından Biçare ve Dervişoğlu.

His Poetry

According to Onar, Biçare has deyiş that are known by heart in the region; besides these, he also sang improvised mani quatrains. Some of his deyiş are recorded in printed collections, others in the notebooks of the zakirs and minstrels of the region. Onar searched and compared these sources, supported them with fieldwork, and presented a compiled edition of the deyiş. However, neither the full text of Onar's article nor Akbulut's book could be obtained; Biçare's poems have therefore not been reached. As his date of death is unknown, the copyright status of his poems cannot be determined either. Once the sources are obtained, and if their copyright status allows, his deyiş will be given in this category on separate pages.

His Tie to Amasya and the State of the Sources

Biçare's tie to Amasya is open to discussion. The village of Dağsaray where he was born belongs today to the Mecitözü district of Çorum and lies outside the borders of Amasya. On the other hand, Onar plainly introduces him as "a dervish from Gaziler Ovacığı", the local name of the region that takes in Merzifon, Suluova and Gümüşhacıköy. His guide Kul Fakır was from Merzifon and is buried there. Yücel's list of the minstrels of Amasya, Özer and Topal's list based on the book Dünden Bugüne Gümüşhacıköy, and Kurt's paper on the zakirs of Amasya all count Biçare among the minstrels of Amasya. Biçare should therefore be seen as a minstrel who was from Çorum by birth, but bound to Gaziler Ovacığı, and so to Amasya, by tradition and by the ties of the path.

The information on his life is taken only from the abstract of Onar's article; the details of his life story, the place and date of his death and the texts of his deyiş are in the article itself and in Akbulut's book. The words "edna kul", "fakır" and "biçare" coming together in one quatrain of a deyiş by Dervişoğlu recall the names of this circle, but this is no more than an interpretation.

Bibliography

Academic studies

Books

  • Ali Cem Akbulut, Gazilerovacığı Âşıklarından Biçare ve Dervişoğlu, Ankara, 2015 (as cited in the bibliography of Onar 2019).

Online sources