Sürûrî is a poet of unknown identity whose name appears only in the Merzifon Cönkü. A single koşma in syllabic metre under the pen name Sürûrî is recorded in this manuscript poetry notebook introduced by Metin Hakverdioğlu in 2019; the article gives only the first quatrain of the koşma. Nothing is known of the poet's name, home, period or occupation.

His link with Amasya consists in his poem having entered a cönk compiled in Merzifon. This page has been opened on the principle that poets whose identity cannot be established are not to be passed over; below, what the sources say and do not say is shown separately.

Record in the Merzifon Cönkü

The Merzifon Cönkü is a manuscript poetry notebook that Metin Hakverdioğlu obtained from Merzifon for his own library and introduced in the journal idil in 2019. The cönk, in the long narrow "calf's tongue" format and written in ta'lik script, has 112 pages and contains 161 poems by 32 poets. Hakverdioğlu estimates that it is about a hundred years old and thinks that it was compiled by a Merzifon poet from the literary circle of Eyüp Sabrî, most probably Fethî. According to the article, the cönk contains, beside well-known poets, local poets whose names are entirely unknown, and the authors of its poems in aruz are mostly folk poets. This poet's poem is on page 45 of the cönk.

Poetry

According to Hakverdioğlu's count, Sürûrî has one koşma in syllabic metre in the cönk. The koşma opens with the line "Yeter cevr eyledin ey ruh-ı mâhım"; the lover complains that his sighs have not moved the beloved in the least and have passed over the mountains. The original text of the poem, an English rendering and a commentary are published as a separate article in this category.

State of the Sources

The pen name Sürûrî was used by many poets, and one of them is directly connected with Amasya. Gelibolulu Sürûrî, tutor of Prince Mustafa in Amasya in the sixteenth century, is presented in a separate category on our site. He was a divan poet and commentator who died in 1562; a koşma in syllabic metre would not be expected to be his. The Sürûrî of the cönk should not be confused with him.

There are also natives of Amasya with the pen name Sürûrî in Hüseyin Hüsâmeddîn's Amasya Tarihi: Hânedânzâde Hâfız Sürûrî Osman Efendi was a judge who died in Amasya in 1152 (1739-40), and Mukayyidzâde es-Seyyid Sürûrî Ali Efendi a madrasa teacher, deputy judge and calligrapher who died in 1161 (1748); Hüsâmeddîn names both as poets. Since these men came from the world of the madrasa and the judiciary, there is no record suggesting that a koşma in syllabic metre belongs to them.

Silleli Sürûrî, one of the minstrels of the nineteenth century, is a saz poet known for his koşmas; the 2026 study by Haktan Kaplan and Batuhan Aydın deals with nineteen of his koşmas published by Sadettin Nüzhet. The koşma in the cönk does not appear among the poems examined in that article, and we found no source showing that it belongs to Silleli Sürûrî. Although his is a name that comes to mind in terms of period and form, this identification is only a possibility and is ours.

Bibliography

Primary sources

Academic studies

Online sources