The Yeniçerioğulları were a family that gave Amasya its commanders of the local Janissaries in the seventeenth century, and one branch of it ended on the executioner's block. Hasan Efendi, one of the family's grandsons, spent his life in the scribal offices instead: he rose from clerk of the poll tax to divan efendi of the sanjak of Amasya, went to Istanbul as secretary to a pasha, and died in 1131 (1718-19). In his poems he used the pen name "Şerîf". We know he was a poet from Şeyh Alizâde Rüşdü Ahmed Efendi, who wrote a continuation of Abdî Efendi's tezkire; not a single line of his verse has come down to us.

What Hüsameddin Records

The entry that Hüseyin Hüsâmeddîn Yasar gives in Amasya Tarihi under the heading Şerîf Hasan Efendi-Yeniçerizâde reads:

Amasyalıdır. Yeniçerioğlu Serdâr Hüseyin Ağa bin Hasan Ağa'nın mahdûmudur. Amasya'da tahsîl-i hat ve kitâbet edib cizye kâtibi, ba'dehû Amasya Sancağı divân efendisi oldu. Ba'dehû İstanbul'a gidip Amcazâde Mehmed Paşa'ya kâtib olduysa da müşârün-ileyhin i'dâmında avdet ve 1131'de dâr-ı bekâya rihlet etdi. Şâir, huyu güzel olduğu Şeyh Alizâde es-Seyyid Ahmed Rüşdi Efendi'nin kaydından anlaşıldı. Şiirinde "şerîf" tahallus etmişdir.

Its meaning is this: an Amasya man, whose father Yeniçerioğlu Serdar Hüseyin Ağa was himself a son of Hasan Ağa. He learned calligraphy and the scribal craft in Amasya and became clerk of the cizye, then divan efendi of the sanjak of Amasya. Afterwards he went to Istanbul and became secretary to Amcazâde Mehmed Paşa, but returned home when the pasha was executed, and died in 1131. That he was a poet of good character is known from what Şeyh Alizâde Seyyid Ahmed Rüşdi Efendi wrote. In his poetry he took the pen name "Şerîf".

Life

Hasan Efendi's training set him apart from the military tradition of his family. Having learned calligraphy and the scribal craft, he began work in the office of the cizye, recording the poll tax paid by non-Muslims. He then became divan efendi of the sanjak of Amasya, the head of the secretaries who handled the correspondence of the governor's or deputy governor's council. Another poet of the family, Berkî Hasan Çelebi, a pupil of Abdî Efendi, had risen to the same post a generation earlier. The branch of the Yeniçerioğulları that chose the pen seems to have made the sanjak divan something of a family calling.

After his service in Amasya he went to Istanbul and became secretary to a statesman called "Amcazâde Mehmed Paşa". When the pasha was executed, Hasan Efendi lost his post, returned home and died in 1131. Who this pasha was could not be determined. In Ottoman history the epithet Amcazâde belongs above all to Amcazâde Hüseyin Paşa of the Köprülü family. Hüseyin Paşa, however, was never executed; he resigned the grand vizierate in 1702 and died of an illness at his farm in Kumburgaz. The man Hüsameddin calls "Mehmed Paşa" may be someone else, or the name or epithet may have been miswritten in the entry. For this reason Hasan Efendi's years in Istanbul cannot be dated; only the year of his death is known.

The Yeniçerioğulları

Several generations of the family can be traced through Hüsameddin's other entries. At the head of the line stands Hüseyin Ağa, commander (serdar) of Amasya, known by the nickname "Paşa". His son Hasan Ağa became serdar of Amasya in 1042 (1632-33), won fame in the campaigns of Iraq and Revan, and, as sword-bearer to Çolak Hüseyin Paşa, was executed together with him in Rebiülâhir 1058 (May 1648). Hüsameddin names Osmân Bey and Halîl Bey as this Hasan Ağa's sons. Osmân Bey's son Hasan Efendi became teacher at the Hızır Paşa Madrasa in 1115 and died in 1122; his own son Remzî Ahmed Efendi took the path of the judiciary and died in 1149.

Şerîf's father, "Serdar Hüseyin Ağa bin Hasan Ağa", does not fit neatly into this picture. His name and title suggest a third son of the executed Hasan Ağa, one Hüsameddin does not list, who bore his grandfather's name. This is an inference. In Berkî Hasan Çelebi's entry, Berkî's father Osmân Bey appears as "son of Paşa Hüseyin Ağa"; the repetition of the names Hüseyin and Hasan from generation to generation has produced small confusions within the source itself. Whichever reading is right, Şerîf Hasan Efendi was a man of the pen raised in the third or fourth generation of this Janissary family.

His Poetry

Şerîf Hasan Efendi's poems have not been found. Hüsameddin does not say that he had a divan or notebook of his verse; he learned of his poetry from the continuation that Rüşdü Ahmed Efendi added to the tezkire of his grandfather Abdî Efendi. Since Rüşdü Ahmed Efendi died in 1159 (1746), he must have known Şerîf as a contemporary and fellow townsman. What passed from the continuation to Hüsameddin amounts to two words: poet, and good-natured. The pen name, by contrast, is valuable because it reaches us directly; should a poem signed "Şerîf" turn up in an anthology, his is one of the first names to consider. Yet Şerîf was not the pen name of one man alone in Ottoman poetry; to assign such a poem to Hasan Efendi, the text would have to carry some pointer to Amasya, or the compiler a note.

Chronology

1042 (1632-33): Hasan Ağa, apparently his grandfather, becomes serdar of Amasya.

Rebiülâhir 1058 (May 1648): Hasan Ağa is executed together with Çolak Hüseyin Paşa.

1131 (1718-19): Şerîf Hasan Efendi dies after returning from Istanbul to Amasya.

Bibliography

Primary sources

Academic studies

Online sources