Taşlıcalı Yahya Bey, of Albanian origin from the Dukakin family, brought up in the janissary corps through the devşirme levy, was one of the great soldier poets of the sixteenth century, who carried the sword and the pen together. He is known for his divan and for his hamse (quintet) of five mesnevis; he died around 990 (1582) at an age of over ninety. His connection with Amasya comes from the elegy he wrote for Şehzade Mustafa (Prince Mustafa), sanjak governor (sanjak-bey) of Amasya from 1541 to 1553. This seven-stanza terkib-i bend, which passed from hand to hand within the army, is the best known of the nineteen elegies written after the prince's death, and it also changed the course of the poet's life.

It is not known that Yahya was ever in Amasya or entered Prince Mustafa's circle in Amasya. Recep Hasar notes that although the poet wrote an elegy for Prince Mehmed, he never presented a qasida to Mustafa. The elegy is therefore read less as the product of a relationship of patronage than as the voice of the mourning of the army that witnessed the prince's killing; this interpretation is our own.

Life

According to his entry in the TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi, Yahya came from the Dukakin family of Albanian origin; after his family he is called Dukakinzâde, and because the place he came from was a stony region, Taşlıcalı (the man from the stony land). Gelibolulu Âlî quotes him as describing himself in the Gülşen-i Envâr as "Arnavuduñ hâsları yegleri / Nesl-i kadîmüñ Dukakin begleri" (the choicest and best of the Albanians, the Dukakin lords of an ancient line). He was levied from northern Albania and brought to Istanbul, trained in the corps of novices (Acemi Oğlanları), and became a company officer (yayabaşı) and then a cavalryman (sipahi). While in the janissary corps his eagerness to learn and his talent drew the attention of the corps secretary Şehâbeddin Bey; in Âşık Çelebi's words, "regarding the training ground as a school", he attended the gatherings of scholars and poets such as Kemalpaşazâde and Fenârîzâde Muhyiddin Çelebi. He took part in Selim I's Çaldıran and Egyptian campaigns and in Süleyman's Baghdad campaign; during the Baghdad campaign he met Fuzûlî.

Although his fame in poetry grew, he could not attain the position he deserved because of the criticisms of his fellow countryman Hayâlî Bey. When Süleyman withheld from him the favour he showed Hayâlî Bey, Yahya entered the patronage of the grand vizier Rüstem Pasha and, as Âlî lists, served as trustee (mütevelli) of the Bolayır soup kitchen, of the endowments of Ebû Eyyûb-ı Ensârî at Eyüp and of the Mosque of Sultan Bayezid in Istanbul. The elegy he wrote after the death of Prince Mustafa brought this period of favour to an end. When Rüstem Pasha became grand vizier again, he dismissed Yahya from his trusteeship and sent him to the sanjak of Zvornik in Rumelia with a fief (zeamet); the value of the fief was twenty-seven thousand akçe according to Âşık Çelebi and thirty thousand according to Âlî. There Yahya joined the corps of Yahyalı raiders (akıncı) and never returned to Istanbul. He presented his last qasida to Süleyman during the Szigetvár campaign (1566), stating that he had reached the age of eighty and asking the sultan to protect his children. In his last years he became a follower of the Gülşenî sheikh Uryânî Mehmed Dede and turned to Sufism. The sources give different records of the date and place of his death; Âlî writes that he lived until 983 and was over eighty, while the TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi states that he is accepted to have died in 990 (1582) at over ninety. His grave is at Loznica near Zvornik.

The Elegy for Prince Mustafa

Yahya was with the army when Prince Mustafa was killed in his father's tent in the army camp near Konya Ereğlisi in October 1553. The source that tells most fully how the elegy was written and spread is Gelibolulu Mustafa Âlî. Âlî says that in 982 (1574) he conversed with Yahya and asked him why he had written this elegy and spread it so fearlessly. According to Yahya's answer, he had written the poem without a pen name, not intending to make it public but to have it read among the poets; a friend who came to his tent while he was asleep found the draft and copied it, and in a short time the poem was being read throughout the army. According to Âlî, when Rüstem Pasha became grand vizier again he summoned Yahya and rebuked him severely, reminding him that the sultan had killed his son for the order of the world (nizam-ı âlem) and that the muftis had issued a legal opinion for it. Yahya answered, "we killed together with those who killed, we wept together with those who wept", and to the charge of having slandered certain people he replied that he had meant to say that men of malice had slandered one whose origin was faultless.

The elegy is a terkib-i bend of seven stanzas in the metre "mefâ’ilün fe’ilâtün mefâ’ilün fe’ilün". The poem says openly that the prince fell victim to an intrigue and that the sultan believed one or two forged letters; in the line "Vücûdına sitem-i Rüstem ile irdi ziyân" in the fourth stanza, the name of Rüstem, hero of the Shahnameh, points, as Âlî also notes, to the grand vizier Rüstem Pasha. Âlî further relates that when Rüstem Pasha died, Yahya wrote a satirical elegy for him. Bayram Ali Kaya counts Yahya among the soldier poets worthy of the title "sâhib-i seyf ü kalem" (master of sword and pen), and notes that he was bold and fearless enough to write a poem such as the elegy for Prince Mustafa, which required courage to compose. The full text of Yahya's elegy for Prince Mustafa, its stanza-by-stanza English rendering and a detailed commentary are published on our site in the article Taşlıcalı Yahya's Elegy for Prince Mustafa.

Works and Literary Personality

The critical edition of Yahya's divan was prepared by Mehmed Çavuşoğlu (1977). According to Çavuşoğlu, the poet arranged his divan three times; the last arrangement contains thirty-four qasidas, various terkib-i bends and terci-i bends, stanzaic poems, two şehrengiz, 515 ghazals and twenty kıt'as. His chief importance is that he is among the pioneers of the poets who wrote a hamse in Turkish literature, with mesnevis written in local colours and plain language without being bound to Persian models. His hamse consists of Şâh u Gedâ, Gencîne-i Râz, Yûsuf u Zelîhâ, Kitâb-ı Usûl and Gülşen-i Envâr; of these, the story of Şâh u Gedâ is set in Istanbul. He also wrote the Şehrengîz-i Edirne and the Şehrengîz-i İstanbul. According to Kaya, his qasidas carry the fervent excitement of an Ottoman warrior in a flowing style and a resonant voice; influenced by his being among all kinds of people on campaign and on the frontiers, he used a language close to popular speech, rich in proverbs and idioms, and contributed to the simplification of the language of poetry. The poet's poems other than the elegy for Prince Mustafa have been left outside the scope of this work, as they are not related to Amasya. The other elegies are described in our article Elegies for Prince Mustafa, and the prince's life in the biography Şehzade Mustafa.

Chronology

960 (1553): Wrote his elegy on the killing of Prince Mustafa; the poem spread through the army.

962 (1555): Rüstem Pasha became grand vizier again; some time later Yahya was dismissed from his trusteeship and sent to Zvornik.

974 (1566): Presented his last qasida to Süleyman during the Szigetvár campaign.

982 (1574): Conversed with Gelibolulu Âlî about how the elegy was written.

990 (1582): The accepted date of his death; his grave is at Loznica near Zvornik.

Bibliography

Primary sources

  • Gelibolulu Mustafa Âlî, Künhü'l-Ahbâr'ın Tezkire Kısmı, ed. Mustafa İsen, Ankara: T.C. Kültür ve Turizm Bakanlığı (e-book), pp. 224-227, entry "Yahyâ Beg".
  • Âşık Çelebi, Meşâirü'ş-şuarâ, ed. Filiz Kılıç, Ankara: T.C. Kültür ve Turizm Bakanlığı, 2018 (e-book), pp. 287-288, entry "Yahyâ".
  • Mehmed Çavuşoğlu (ed.), Yahya Bey, Dîvân (Tenkitli Basım), Istanbul: İstanbul Üniversitesi Edebiyat Fakültesi Yayınları, 1977 (as cited in the TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi). islamansiklopedisi.org.tr

Academic studies