Dedezâde Seyyid Mehmed Hilmî Efendi was a divan poet who lived in Merzifon in the second half of the nineteenth century and the early twentieth, known among the people as "Hilmî Dede". He belonged to the Merzifon branch of the Dedezâde family, which claimed descent from Dede Yûsuf Ağa, father-in-law of the grand vizier Köprülü Mehmed Pasha. He was long remembered in the town for his ready wit, his improvised couplets and his satires, and his poems and his Mevlid were published by Orhan Bilgin. Hüseyin Hüsâmeddîn Yasar met him several times in Merzifon, gave him an entry in his Amasya Tarihi and recorded some pieces of his poetry by hearing them from the poet's own lips. The family as a whole is treated in the site's article The Dedezâdes, and the full text of Hüsameddin's entry is on the page Hilmi Mehmed Efendi-Dedezâde es-Seyyid.

Hüsameddin's Record

In the ninth volume of Amasya Tarihi, in the section listing natives of Amasya named "Hilmî", Hüsameddin introduces the poet as follows (abridged here, since the poems he quotes are given on separate pages):

Merzifonludur. Tercemesi yazılan es-Seyyid el-Hâc Hüseyin Ağa bin es-Seyyid el-Hâc Mehmed Ağa'nın mahdûmu ve hazîne-i hümâyûn kethüdâsı es-Seyyid el-Hâc Ebûbekir Efendi'nin birâderzâdesidir. Merzifon'da ve Amasya'da oldukça tahsîl-i ulûm edib, edebiyata fevkalâde meyl etdi. Amcasının hüsn-i terbiyesini gören Sivas Valilerinin teveccühâtını kazanıb devriye müderrisliği ve mikdâr-ı kâfi maâş ile taltîf edilerek Merzifon'da ikâmet etdi. Bâ'dehû nakîbü'l-eşrâf kâ'im-makâmı olup şiir ve inşâ ile iştigâl ederek 1330'da vefât etdiği haber alındı. Mû'mâ-ileyh kavâid-i Arabiyye ve Farisiyyeye âşinâ, oldukça âlim fakat tab'an şâir, mecîd, karihâsı ceyyid eş'ârı selîs, zemm ü medhe kâdir, kısaca boylu, müşekkel, gâyet latîf, nekre-gû, ekseriyâ sözleri mevzûn idi. Şâ'ir-i meşhûr Hacı Bayramzâde Sıdkı Efendi ile müşâ'âre ve muhâcâtı marûfdur. (…) Merhûm ile mükerreren görüştüm. Kendisinden gazeliyyât ve kasâide aid eş'ârından ba'zı parçalar taleb ve rica etdim. Yazıb göndereceğini vaad etdiği halde maalesef vaadini incâz etmedi. Eş'ârından yazdığım parçaları kendi lisanından işidib kayd etdim.

In English the record says: Hilmî Efendi is from Merzifon. He is the son of Seyyid Hacı Hüseyin Ağa, whose biography has been given earlier, and the nephew of Seyyid Hacı Ebûbekir Efendi, steward (kethüda) of the Imperial Treasury. He studied a good deal in Merzifon and Amasya and was strongly drawn to literature. Having enjoyed the good upbringing of his uncle, he won the favour of the governors of Sivas; he was rewarded with a rotating professorship (devriye müderrisliği) and an adequate salary and settled in Merzifon. Later he became deputy (kaymakam) of the nakîbüleşraf, the official in charge of the affairs of the Prophet's descendants, in the town; while occupied with poetry and prose, news came that he had died in 1330. He knew the rules of Arabic and Persian and was quite learned, but a poet by nature; his poems were fine, his pen strong and his words fluent. He was equal to both praise and invective. He was short, well built, most agreeable in company and a wit, and his words often came out in metre. His exchanges of verse and mutual satires with the famous poet Hacı Bayramzâde Sıdkı Efendi are well known. Hüsameddin relates that he met him many times and asked him for some pieces of his ghazals and kasides; although the poet promised to write them out and send them, he did not keep his word, so Hüsameddin wrote down the pieces he recorded by hearing them from the poet himself.

His Life

According to Mehtap Erdoğan, author of the entry in the Türk Edebiyatı İsimler Sözlüğü (Dictionary of Names in Turkish Literature), Mehmed Hilmî was born in 1244 (1828) in the Sormasud quarter of Merzifon. His father was Hüseyin Efendi and his mother Hamide Hanım. Hüsameddin calls his father Seyyid Hacı Hüseyin Ağa and records, in the entry on his uncle Ebûbekir Efendi, that he died in 1266 (1849-50). The poet, who evidently received a good education to judge by his works, won the patronage of Ziya Pasha during the pasha's term as mutasarrıf (district governor) of Amasya in the mid-1860s, according to Erdoğan. In his official career he went to many places, rose as far as the honorary rank of pasha and towards the end of his life received from the palace the honorary title of district nakibüleşraf. Hüsameddin, by contrast, limits his career to the rotating professorship he obtained through the favour of the governors of Sivas and the deputyship of the nakîbüleşraf, and says that he lived in Merzifon.

The anecdotes Erdoğan quotes from Vehbi Cem Aşkun's Merzifon Şairleri show vividly the poet's place in the town. On official days Hilmî Dede always stood in the front rank, and he went about with gold embroidery on his headgear. It was he who spoke on behalf of Merzifon with high-ranking guests visiting the town; with his pleasant conversation and learning he quickly won people over. He is said to have spoken all his life in rhymed and cadenced phrases, his sister is said to have been a poet too, and the two are said to have talked to each other in metre and rhyme. In his last years, when asked his age, he reportedly answered "Yaşım doksan / Yüzden on noksan / Onu da verir / Hazret-i Sübhan". According to Erdoğan, the poet died in May 1329 (1913) at the age of eighty-five.

His Family and Connection with Amasya

Hilmî's connection with Amasya comes from his birth in Merzifon, his studies in Merzifon and Amasya and the Dedezâde family that Hüsameddin counts among the notables of Amasya. In the entry on his uncle Seyyid Hacı Ebûbekir Efendi, Hüsameddin bases the family's line of descent directly on Hilmî's account: "according to the description and statement of Dedezâde es-Seyyid Mehmed Hilmî Efendi, whom I saw in Merzifon", Ebûbekir Efendi was the son of Seyyid Hacı Mehmed Ağa, one of the descendants of Dede Yûsuf Ağa, father-in-law of Köprülü Mehmed Pasha. This link is the only information joining the Dedezâdes of Köprü to the Merzifon branch, and it rests on family memory; the difficulties in the number of generations in this chain are discussed separately in the article on the Dedezâdes.

His uncle Ebûbekir Efendi entered the palace school (Enderun) at a young age, became coffee-master to Mahmud II, steward of the Imperial Treasury and superintendent of the Enderun, had a mosque and a school built in Merzifon and Hasankale, and died in 1251 (1835-36). In the same entry Hüsameddin says of Hilmî "meşâhîr-i şu'arâ-yı Merzifon'dan idi", he was one of the famous poets of Merzifon, and again gives his death as 1330. Besim Mehmed Pasha, whom Hüsameddin counts in the Merzifon branch, is likewise introduced as "the son of Hüseyin Efendi, a relative of Ebûbekir Efendi"; his father's name is the same as that of Hilmî's father, but the book does not say the two were brothers.

His Poetry

According to Erdoğan, Hilmî has an arranged Divan and a Mevlid; his poems were published by Orhan Bilgin in 1984 under the title Merzifonlu Dedezâde Hilmi, Külliyat. In Aşkun's assessment Hilmî was a poet of abundant inspiration and very strong powers of improvisation, who composed verse without strain like the masters of divan literature. His expression is plain; he produced mostly didactic works but remained a lyric poet as well. Hüsameddin also describes him as a witty poet skilled in praise and invective, whose words often fell into metre of their own accord. From what Hüsameddin writes, it appears that the poet owed much of his fame to his verse duels and satires with the Merzifon poet Hacı Bayramzâde Sıdkı Efendi.

Hilmî's accessible poems are given in this category on separate pages, with the original text, a modern rendering and commentary. The ghazal "Halk ile bilmem nedir beyhûde ülfetden garaz", which Erdoğan quotes from Aşkun, speaks of the emptiness of attachment to the world and to wealth; its couplet questioning riches that build neither a fountain nor a bridge also recalls his family's tradition of charitable works. The pieces Hüsameddin recorded from the poet's lips show his satirical side: the kıt'a "Zühd ü takvâdır tarîkatdan murâd-ı sâdıkân" on Mir Hamza Nigârî, renowned in Amasya for poetry and Sufism; the kıt'a "Ni'met-i Yezdânı gör kim âlemi olmuş muhît" on Saraczâde Mehmed Yaşar Efendi of Amasya, who worked in Merzifon as a tithe officer; and the couplet "Burnunu her şeye sokdukda kokuttun âlemi" from the long satire on his rival Sıdkı Efendi, which passed from mouth to mouth among the people. The answer "Yaşım doksan" that he gave when asked his age is also given separately as a piece of rhymed speech.

The State of the Sources

The two main sources on Hilmî are Hüsameddin's entry, based on personal acquaintance, and Erdoğan's entry, based on Aşkun and Bilgin; they differ on several points. Hüsameddin gives the date of death as 1330 and reports it as hearsay with the words "news came that he had died"; the hijri year 1330 falls between December 1911 and December 1912. Erdoğan places the death in the month of May of the Rumi year 1329, that is, May 1913. The date Erdoğan gives is more detailed and probably rests on local records; the difference between the two dates ranges from a few months to a year.

The two accounts also differ on the poet's career. Erdoğan speaks of Ziya Pasha's patronage, of posts in many places and of the honorary rank of pasha; Hüsameddin does not mention Ziya Pasha and writes that the poet was a rotating professor and deputy of the nakîbüleşraf who lived in Merzifon. Hüsameddin's phrase "having enjoyed the good upbringing of his uncle" does not fully agree with the chronology either: when his uncle Ebûbekir Efendi died in Istanbul in 1835-36, the poet was seven years old according to the birth year given by Erdoğan. The phrase may describe the uncle's patronage rather than direct upbringing; this is an inference. Erdoğan also notes that the age the poet gave did not agree with the birth date in the population register and that his birth may have been entered in the register a few years late.

It is very probable that Hacı Bayramzâde Sıdkı Efendi, with whom Hilmî exchanged verse, is the same person as Bayramzâde Yusuf Sıdkî Hoca of Merzifon, who gathered the poems of Eyüb Sabrî into a divan in 1309 (1893); but this is an inference based on the similarity of the name and family name given in the two sources. Hüsameddin's book also includes other Hilmî Mehmed Efendis who lived in the same century: the Amasya mufti Caniklizâde Hâfız Hilmî Mehmed Efendi (died 1274) and the Merzifon preacher Veysi Hocazâde Hilmî Mehmed Efendi (died 1276) should not be confused with Dedezâde Hilmî.

Chronology

1244 (1828): Mehmed Hilmî is born, according to the population register, in the Sormasud quarter of Merzifon.

1251 (1835-36): His uncle Ebûbekir Efendi, steward of the Imperial Treasury, dies in Istanbul.

1266 (1849-50): His father Seyyid Hacı Hüseyin Ağa dies.

1865: Ziya Pasha, whose patronage he had won, is transferred from the governorship of Amasya to Canik.

1318 (1901): His rival Sıdkı Efendi is arrested over the disturbance about the start of the Feast of the Sacrifice; Hilmî writes a long satire on him.

1330 (1911-12) or May 1329 (1913): Hilmî dies in Merzifon.

1984: Orhan Bilgin publishes the poet's collected works.

Bibliography

Primary sources

Books

  • Mehtap Erdoğan, "Hilmî, Dede-zâde Mehmed Hilmî Efendi", Türk Edebiyatı İsimler Sözlüğü, 05.11.2014 (updated 02.12.2020). https://teis.yesevi.edu.tr/madde-detay/hilmi-dedezade-mehmed-hilmi-efendi
  • Vehbi Cem Aşkun, Merzifon Şairleri, Merzifon: Utku Basımevi, 1937, pp. 60-61 (as cited by Erdoğan 2014).
  • Orhan Bilgin, Merzifonlu Dedezâde Hilmi, Külliyat, Istanbul, 1984 (as cited by Erdoğan 2014).
  • Niyazi Ünver, "Hilmî", Türk Dünyası Edebiyatçıları Ansiklopedisi, vol. 5, Ankara: AKM Yayınları, 2004, pp. 46-47 (as cited by Erdoğan 2014).

Online sources