Hüseyin Hüsâmeddîn Yasar’ın hayatını vakfettiği,
şehir tarihçiliğinin en son ve en değerli örneklerinden biri
olan Amasya Tarihi, Amasya Üniversitemiz ile Amasya
Belediyemizin gayretli çalışmaları sayesinde bütün ciltleri
ile tam metin olarak ilim âlemine sunulmuştur. Hüseyin
Hüsâmeddîn Yasar’ın tüm Türklük âlemi için temel
kaynaklardan biri olarak ortaya koyduğu, Anadolu’nun kadim
tarihinden Osmanlı’ya; Osmanlı’dan Cumhuriyet’e uzun bir
tarih yolculuğu olan bu eser, aynı zamanda yüzlerce şahsiyetin biyografileri ile tabakat türünün de önemli bir mihenk taşıdır. Yasar’ın titiz şecere takibi ile binlerce şahsiyet hak ettiği yeri bu eserle bulmuştur. Ümerâ, ulemâ, fukahâ, şuarâ ve mutasavvıflar için en temel kaynaklardan biri olan eser, neredeyse tüm sosyal bilimler için ilginç araştırma konuları sunacak genişliğe sahiptir. On iki cillten oluşan eserin beşinci cildinin eksik olduğu bilinmektedir. Eksik olan bu bölüm hariç tüm ciltler üç büyük ciltte toplanarak kolay kullanım imkanı sağlanmıştır.
Amasya Tarihi yaklaşık yüz yıldır akademik bir çalışmayla tam metin olarak yayımlanmayı beklemekteydi. Böyle bir eserin gün yüzüne çıkmasında emeği geçen başta Amasya Belediyemiz olmak üzere, editörlerimiz ve çalışmada emeği geçen tüm akademisyenlerimize teşekkür ederim. Bu titiz çalışma ile Amasya Tarihi ilim dünyasındaki hak ettiği yeri alacaktır. Amasya ve Anadolu tarihine ışık tutan bu nadide çalışmaya Amasya Üniversitesi olarak katkı sunmuş olmak bizleri onurlandırmıştır. Akademik dünyamıza hayırlı olmasını diliyorum.
Amasya Üniversitesi Rektörü
Prof. Dr. Süleyman ELMACI
In Modern English
Amasya Tarihi, to which Hüseyin Hüsâmeddîn Yasar devoted his life and which is one of the latest and most valuable examples of city historiography, has been presented to the world of scholarship in full text, with all its volumes, thanks to the diligent work of our Amasya University and our Municipality of Amasya. This work, which Hüseyin Hüsâmeddîn Yasar produced as one of the basic sources for the entire Turkic world, is a long journey through history, from the very ancient history of Anatolia to the Ottomans and from the Ottomans to the Republic; at the same time, with its biographies of hundreds of figures, it is an important yardstick of the tabakat genre. Thanks to Yasar's meticulous tracing of lineages, thousands of figures have found in this work the place they deserve. A work that is one of the most basic sources for emirs, scholars, jurists, poets and mystics, it is broad enough to offer interesting research topics for almost all of the social sciences. It is known that the fifth volume of the twelve-volume work is missing. Apart from this missing part, all the volumes have been gathered into three large volumes to make them easy to use.
Amasya Tarihi had been waiting for nearly a hundred years to be published in full text through an academic study. I thank our editors and all the academics who contributed to bringing such a work to light, above all our Municipality of Amasya. With this meticulous work Amasya Tarihi will take the place it deserves in the world of scholarship. It has honored us, as Amasya University, to have contributed to this distinguished work that sheds light on the history of Amasya and Anatolia. I wish that it may be of benefit to our academic world.
Rector of Amasya University
Prof. Dr. Süleyman Elmacı
Notes and Research
Old Words in the Text
- tabakat: a genre of biography that recounts the lives of people generation by generation, class by class
- mihenk taşı: a touchstone, a criterion that measures the worth of something
- şecere: family tree
- ümerâ: emirs, state officials
- ulemâ: scholars
- fukahâ: scholars of fiqh, jurists of religious law
- şuarâ: poets
- nadide: rare, choice
The Tabakat Tradition and the Place of the Work
The tradition the rector has in mind with "the tabakat genre" is the old form of biographical writing that presents famous people together, in order of profession and period. According to Köksal's paper, volumes 6-12 of Amasya Tarihi were written in this manner; the persons are given in alphabetical order, and scholars, statesmen, sheikhs, soldiers, poets and waqf founders appear, among them many women. These volumes can be read like an independent work.
The biography section breaks off at the letter ayn, with the entry Osman Paşa (Gürcüzâde el-Hâc), and this page is also the last page of the twelve-volume work. At the beginning of the eleventh volume the author states that "everything after the letter şın was entirely burned." Köksal reports that six notebooks he bought from a second-hand bookseller in Ankara are partly completed drafts of this missing part; the notebooks contain the names of about 1300 persons, and about 900 of them have biographical information.
The Status of the Fifth Volume
The foreword says that the fifth volume is missing. According to the encyclopedia entry this volume has been lost; it is not in the copy that the Municipality of Amasya bought in 1979. A paper relates a rumor that the fifth volume was damaged and destroyed in a fire at the printing house during its printing. No document for this rumor is given, so it should be cited not as established fact but as a story.
Bibliography
Primary sources
Academic studies