Yolyanı, east of Ezinepazar, is a village of the central district that appears in the documents for centuries under the name Heniske. This old name first meets us as "the village of Hânske" in an endowment deed written in Arabic in 1423: three noblewomen of Amasya used this document to place under endowment a fountain they had built at the spot called Emîrtaş near the village. At the end of 2025 the village had 289 registered inhabitants; an old village record containing data up to 2012 places Yolyanı 42 kilometres from the provincial centre.

The Name Heniske

In Bekir Başalan's table of renamed settlements in the central district of Amasya, the former name of Yolyanı is given as Heniske. Başalan counts this change among the cases in which the old name was replaced not by an equivalent of similar meaning but by an entirely different name; Doğantepe and Zara, Gözlek and Yıldız belong to the same group. The meaning of the name Heniske and the date of the change are not given in the source.

Tayfun Soydal, in his thesis on the Ezinepazar sub-district according to the temettuat registers of 1845, writes that Heniske lay to the east of the village of Ezinepazar, Ebecik (today İbecik) to its south, Uygur to its west and Eskikızılca to its north. This is the clearest record fixing the village's present location. Among the registers of the twenty-six villages Soydal examined, no register for Heniske appears; whether the village was recorded within another administrative unit in 1845 or whether its register was lost cannot be learned from the thesis.

An older record is found in the Karaman and Rûm accounts register of 1530. Its index lists a village called "Haniski" in the Yavaş sub-district, on page 376. The same sub-district contains villages of the Ezinepazar area still known today, such as Efte (today Sarımeşe), Karsan, Olkuz (Uygur), Kirap, Zigala, Saru-alan, Halîfelü and Keçilü. That the name Haniski is so close to Heniske and that it stands in the same sub-district as its neighbours strongly suggests that the entry belongs to present-day Yolyanı; but the register contains no separate information that settles the identification.

The Emîrtaş Fountain and the Endowment of 1423

The oldest document in which the village's name appears is an endowment deed that Hüseyin Hüsâmeddîn Yasar copied from the archive of the Sublime Porte and reproduced in full in his Amasya Tarihi. According to Yasar, the daughters of Hacı Bayram Beyzâde Melik İsmâil Gâzi Bey, who was tutor (lala) of Murad II while governor of Amasya and died in 822 (1419), namely Hüsnî Paşa and Şahrûz Hatun, together with their mother Paşa Hatun, daughter of Hacı Osman Paşa, built three fountains: one in Amasya in the Savakça quarter near Süveydâ (Savâdiye), one in the town of Lâdik beside the lodge of Şeyh Ahmed-i Kebîr, and one at the Emîrtaş spot of the village of Heniske. For the upkeep of the fountains they endowed their properties in the month of Şaban 826 (July 1423), leaving the trusteeship to their mother during her lifetime, after her to their sister İhsân Paşa Hatun and then to her descendants.

The Arabic text of the deed adds several details to this short summary. The deed was declared on the women's behalf by their proxy Hacı Ali bin Hacı Osman Paşa, Paşa Hatun's brother. The endowed property was three shares of the village of Akpınar near Lâdik; one sixth of its income was assigned to the trustee, and the rest was set aside for the repair of the fountains, going to the trustee as well if no repairs were needed. The site of the third fountain is described in the text in the words "at the place known as Emîr Taş near the village of Hânske, of the dependencies of the city of Amasya". The deed bears the date 11 Şaban 826 (July 1423); it carries the attestations of the kadı of Amasya Muhammed bin Abdurrahman el-Muslihî and, dated 19 Safer 832 (November 1428), of the kadı of Tokat Hasan bin Emîr. No record could be found on whether the name Emîrtaş survives today as a locality in the village or whether any trace of the fountain has been found.

A Village Endowed and a Halveti Shaykh

An endowment record from a few years later shows Heniske this time as a whole as the income of a foundation. According to Yasar, Mehmed Bey, son of Bîçâroğlu Nureddîn Hacı Hamza Bey, moved from Amasya to Geyve and in the month of Şevval 832 (July 1429) endowed to the lodge and imaret he had built there a caravanserai in Amasya inherited from his father, eleven shops, the villages of Heniske and Menkire, two vineyards and the Sûhlar farm. No further record could be reached showing whether the village's income went to this foundation in Geyve over the centuries.

Describing the Öz sub-district, which covers the south of Amasya and has Ezinepazar as its centre, Yasar also lists the well-known shaykhs buried in the area: Şeyh Bâyezîd Çelebi, a descendant of Baba İlyâs-ı Horasânî, in the village of Efte; Şeyh Musliheddîn Efendi, one of the well-known Halvetis, in İnepazar (Ezinepazar); and Şeyh Ahmed Efendi, another of the great Halvetis, in the village of Heniske. Who Şeyh Ahmed Efendi was and when he lived are not stated in this short record.

A Benefactor from the Notables of Heniske

At the beginning of the twentieth century the village's name appears in the history of a madrasa in the city. According to Yasar, the building beside the fountain east of the Burmalı Minare Mosque was formerly the court; when the court moved to another house in 1115 (1703-04), the chief architect Hüseyin Beyzâde Hacı Hâfız Hasan Efendi of Amasya bought the building and made it a primary school, and in 1117 (1705-06) endowed several shops in Bakkallar İçi to the school. When the school in time fell into ruin and its endowments were lost, Hatîbzâde Hacı Mehmed Emîn Efendi, one of the notables of Heniske, built a fine madrasa in its place in 1327 (1909), because the scholar Muharrem Efendi was teacher there, and gave the post of müderris to Muharrem Efendi.

From the Yearbooks to the Present

In Sabit Genç's administrative table of the sanjak of Amasya, based on the yearbooks, the name Heniske appears among the sub-districts of the Amasya kaza in the yearbooks of the province of Sivas for 1884-1889. Because the number of sub-districts rose sharply in this period, other village names such as Tuzsuz, Gerne and Boğa also appear in the list as sub-districts; it appears that Heniske was counted as the centre of a sub-district for this short period, but which villages were attached to it is not stated.

According to the old village record, Yolyanı had 862 inhabitants in 1985, 685 in 1990 and 602 in 2000; the same record states that the village had a functioning primary school, a water network and a sewerage system, but no health post or post office. In the address-based records the village reached its largest figure in 2008 with 528 people and then declined a little almost every year, falling to 318 in 2016 and 289 in 2025. The latest record shows 139 men and 150 women.

The village drinking-water inventory in the provincial environment report for 2023 describes Yolyanı's network as a system built in 2008 and fed from a spring. An average of 12,326 cubic metres of water is drawn for the village each year and the supply is regarded as sufficient; the remarks column of the inventory notes work carried out in 2018. The inventory gives the village's population as 307.

Chronology

826 (1423): An endowment deed is drawn up for the Emîrtaş fountain near Heniske.

832 (1429): Bîçâroğlu Mehmed Bey endows the villages of Heniske and Menkire to his lodge in Geyve.

1530: The village of Haniski is entered in the register in the Yavaş sub-district.

1884-1889: The yearbooks name Heniske among the sub-districts of the Amasya kaza.

1327 (1909): Hatîbzâde Hacı Mehmed Emîn Efendi of the notables of Heniske builds a madrasa in the city.

2008: The village's drinking-water network is built; the population reaches its highest figure of 528.

Bibliography

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