Among the Janissaries of Amasya Hasan Çelebi was known as "Yazıcı Civânî Çelebi" (Civânî the Scribe), a nickname that carried both his trade and his name as a poet. In the second half of the seventeenth century he served as a secretary in the circle of the corps and won a name there for his verse and prose. His father was Genc Ahmed, a Janissary; the family name Gencoğlu comes from him. Hüseyin Hüsâmeddîn Yasar counts him among the poets of Müderris Abdî Efendi's time and records that he died in the turmoil that burned and ravaged Amasya in 1099 (1688). All we know of him derives from an entry of a few lines in the eighth volume of Amasya Tarihi.

Hüsameddin's Entry

Amasyalıdır. Yeniçerilerden Genc Ahmed'in oğludur. Biraz tahsîl-i ma'ârifden sonra yazıcı olarak yeniçeriler arasında şi'r u inşâsıyla iştihâr etdi. "Yazıcı Civânî Çelebi" demekle ma'rûf oldu. Müderris Abdî Efendi'nin zamân-ı şu'arâsından olup 1099 vak'asında vefât etdi. Şâ'ir, kâtib idi.

In English: A native of Amasya, son of Genc Ahmed of the Janissaries. After some schooling he became famous as a scribe among the Janissaries for his poetry and inşâ (formal and literary prose). He was known as "Yazıcı Civânî Çelebi". He was one of the poets of Müderris Abdî Efendi's time and died in the event of 1099. He was a poet and secretary.

A Scribe in the Janissary Corps

Hasan Çelebi's path was set by his father's profession. Growing up as a Janissary's son in the circle of the corps, he chose the pen rather than the sword. Hüsameddin's phrase "some schooling" suggests that he did not pursue a long madrasa education but went to work once he had acquired the reading, writing and knowledge a secretary needed. "Yazıcı" was the name of the clerk who kept the registers and correspondence of Ottoman military units and of the corps. That his nickname was "the Scribe" shows that it was this post that first made him known among those around him.

Hüsameddin ties his fame to "poetry and inşâ". The phrase describes a man of the pen whose skill reached beyond verse to letters and prose. His reputation, too, spread among the Janissaries; this suggests that the corps in Amasya formed a community of its own that read and admired poetry and knew its poets. From the same generation, Berkî Hasan Çelebi, who came from a family known as "Yeniçerioğlu", also learned literature from Abdî Efendi, rose from secretary of the treasury of escheats (beytülmal) to divan secretary of the sanjak, and he too lost his life in the turmoil of 1099. The story of these two Hasan Çelebis, who lived by the pen, wrote poetry and died in the same disaster, also brings out how heavy a loss the generation of secretary-poets in Amasya suffered at the end of the seventeenth century.

A Contemporary of Abdî Efendi

Hüsameddin counts Civânî among "the poets of the time" of Müderris Abdî Efendi. Abdî Efendi, professor at the Abdullah Paşa Madrasa, had gathered the lives and poems of the poets who came up in Amasya between 1000 and 1081 (1592-1670) into a biographical anthology (tezkire). Hüsameddin saw this work and used it in his entries on poets; it later burned. The phrase used of Civânî says that he was a poet of the period the anthology covers, but does not state plainly whether it contained an entry on him. The anthology's contents and the poems Hüsameddin rescued are brought together in Abdî Efendi: The Lost Anthology of Amasya Poets and Its Poems.

The Event of 1099

Civânî's death is tied to one of the gravest disasters Amasya suffered in the seventeenth century. Hüsameddin narrates it in the fourth volume of his book as the opening of the fourth period of Amasya's Ottoman history. In 1099 (1688) a great fire and massacre took place in the town: many people died, valuable buildings, mansions and inns burned, and property was plundered. Among those responsible Hüsameddin names the commander of the seyyids, Mumcuzâde Seyyid Ahmed Paşa, his brother Deli Seyyid, and the men known as Koca Emîr and Saçlı Emîr; the Yeğenlis, followers of the governor of Amasya Hüseyin Paşa, also joined in the plunder and killing. The event left so deep a mark that Abdî Efendi's son Şeyh Ali Efendi described it in a collection called Sergüzeşt-i Amasya, written as a continuation of his father's anthology, and it was mostly through that collection that the people of Amasya came to know of it.

How Civânî died is unclear; the entry contents itself with "he died in the event of 1099". Whether death came in a clash, in the fire or in the aftermath is also unknown; in Hüsameddin's account the Janissaries are not named as a party to the event. In the same disaster Bülbül Hâfız Ahmed Çelebi, the beloved muezzin of the Sultan Bayezid Mosque, fell gravely ill and died at the beginning of the following year.

His Pen Name

"Civânî" is a pen name formed from the Persian word "civân" (young, youth) and means "youthful, of youth". That it carries the same meaning as the family name "Genc" (young) hardly looks like chance: the poet seems to have turned his father's nickname into a pen name through its Persian equivalent. The link is not in Hüsameddin; it is a reading based on what the two words mean. The same work states plainly that Cüneydî Ahmed Çelebi took his pen name from the nickname "Cüneydoğlu"; Civânî's choice fits this kind of practice.

His Poetry

His poems have not reached us. Hüsameddin, who ties his fame to poetry and inşâ, gives not a single example of either, and no divan or anthology text under the name Civânî is known. The few lines of the entry, in the original and with glosses, are found under the title Civânî Hasan Çelebi-Gencoğlu.

Chronology

1000-1081 (1592-1670): The period covered by Abdî Efendi's anthology; Civânî is counted among the poets of this era.

1099 (1688): Great fire and massacre in Amasya; Civânî Hasan Çelebi dies during these events.

Bibliography

Primary sources

Online sources