Hüznî is a saz and mani poet named among the folk poets of seventeenth-century Amasya in Hüseyin Hüsâmeddîn Yasar's Amasya Tarihi (History of Amasya). Hüsameddin lists him together with Cihâdî, Seyfî and Izzî among the folk poets who "lent lustre" to the literature of Amasya. Everything known about him rests on this single sentence: his real name, the dates of his birth and death, his occupation and his poems are not recorded. Even so, the entry is one of the rare testimonies showing that alongside the learned poets of the pen, Amasya had a circle of folk poetry known for its mani and its melodies. That is why Hüznî has been given a page of his own.

Hüsameddin's Entry

Hüsameddin divides the history of Ottoman Amasya into periods. The third period, described in his fourth volume, covers the eighty-two years from Rajab 1017 (1608) to the end of Rajab 1099 (1688); the grand vizierate of Köprülü Mehmed Pasha falls within it. While listing the scholars, calligraphers and crafts that Amasya produced in this period, the author also gives a few lines to its poets:

Bu devrede Amasya'nın yetişdirdiği kalem ve halk şâirleri de pek şâyân-ı dikkatdi. Kalem şuarâsından Kelâmî, Türâbî, Abdî, Remzî, Câmî, Zühdî, Şevkî, Hıfzî, Dâniş gibi fuzalâ ve halk şâirlerinden Cihâdî, Hüznî, Seyfî, Izzî gibi zevât Amasya'nın edebiyatına revnak veren erlerdi. Amasya'nın halk şâirleri pek âşık, yaptıkları mânilerle ezgiler pek yanıktı. Bu yanık mâniler, zamanımıza kadar nakl u muhafaza edilmişlerdi. Bunları zamanımızda en çok bilen, güzel bağlama şâiri olan Abdal Ağasızâde İsmâil Hakkı Efendi idi.

In English: "The poets of the pen and the folk poets that Amasya raised in this period were also most remarkable. Learned men among the poets of the pen such as Kelâmî, Türâbî, Abdî, Remzî, Câmî, Zühdî, Şevkî, Hıfzî and Dâniş, and among the folk poets such figures as Cihâdî, Hüznî, Seyfî and Izzî, were the worthies who lent lustre to the literature of Amasya. The folk poets of Amasya were full of passion, and the mani and melodies they made were deeply plaintive. These plaintive mani had been passed on by word of mouth and preserved down to our own time. The man who knew them best in our time was Abdal Ağasızâde İsmâil Hakkı Efendi, a fine bağlama poet."

Life and Period

No record of Hüznî's life has been found beyond this list. "Hüznî" is a pen name (mahlas) derived from the word "hüzün" (sorrow); the poet's real name is unknown. Since Hüsameddin counts him among the poets of the third period, he must have lived in the seventeenth century. The Cihâdî named in the same sentence is very probably Cihâdî Ahmed Ağa, who heartened the janissaries with his destans at the siege of Candia and died around 1093 (1682); this suggests that the folk poets on the list were known between the middle and the end of the century. Whether Hüznî, like Cihâdî, came from the janissary corps, or was a tradesman or a minstrel playing the saz in the coffeehouses, is not known. This dating is an estimate drawn from the position of the list.

Cavit Güzel's 2020 study of the destan tradition of the âşık (minstrel) style in Amasya places the same list earlier, at the end of the sixteenth and the beginning of the seventeenth century, and notes that Hüsameddin distinguishes these poets from the poets of the pen by calling them "folk poets". Relying on the 2004 edition of the work, Güzel gives the list as "Cihâdî, Hüznî, Seyfî and Garibî". Hüznî's name is the same in both readings; the difference over his period arises because the years to which the list belongs cannot be determined with certainty from the text. As Hüsameddin's sentence forms part of a general assessment of the period, both datings are to some extent interpretations.

Connection with Amasya

Hüsameddin explicitly counts Hüznî among the folk poets "raised by Amasya". The phrase shows that the poet was a native of Amasya, or at least grew up there. The connection rests on a single source, but that source is the standard work on the history of Amasya, and the author gives the list while describing the city's own literary life.

Poetry

None of Hüznî's poems has come down to us. Hüsameddin does not quote a single mani or quatrain by him. Güzel likewise notes that the Amasya Tarihi contains no examples of the works of the minstrels it names, and that his searches in other sources turned up no work by any of them. According to Hüsameddin, the plaintive mani of these folk poets lived on by word of mouth until the early twentieth century and were best known to Abdal Ağasızâde İsmâil Hakkı Efendi. Some of Hüznî's mani may have survived within this oral store; but there is no record showing which piece was his, and the store was largely lost before it was ever written down. The line running from the janissary saz poets to the destan singers of the twentieth century is treated more fully in the site's articles on Amasya folk songs and long songs and the minstrel tradition in Amasya.

State of the Sources

Hüznî is a single-source poet. His name appears only in this list in Hüsameddin's fourth volume; among the people of Amasya arranged alphabetically in volumes six to twelve, which form the biographical part of the work, no entry devoted to anyone with the pen name Hüznî has been found. Güzel's study again takes its information from Hüsameddin, and the name does not appear in recent studies listing the minstrels of the region. His dates, real name, occupation and poems therefore remain unknown. The dating on this page is our inference; the difference between Güzel's reading "Garibî" and the "Izzî" of Hüsameddin's e-book text concerns the fourth name in the entry and is discussed on the separate page devoted to Izzî.

Bibliography

Primary sources

Academic studies

Online sources