Ziya Pasha was a poet, writer and statesman counted, together with Şinâsi and Nâmık Kemal, among the founders of Turkish literature after the Tanzimat. His tie to Amasya rests on his administration rather than his poetry: as governor (mutasarrıf) of Amasya between 1863 and 1865 he launched a wide programme of building in the city, and was transferred to Canik after clashing with the local notables. No poem that he wrote in Amasya or that takes Amasya as its subject has so far been identified in the sources. This page deals with his poetry, his works and the points where his literary life intersects with his years in Amasya. His life and his governorship of Amasya are told in detail in Ziya Pasha's Amasya: Traces of a Poet-Governor.

Life

Ziya, whose real name was Abdülhamid Ziyâeddin, was born in 1825 in Kandilli, Istanbul. He studied at the Mekteb-i Ulûm-i Edebiyye and the Beyazıt Rüşdiye, and entered the Correspondence Office of the Grand Vizierate as a clerk at a young age. In 1856 he became a secretary in the Palace Chancery, where he learned French. The enmity that began with the grand vizier Âlî Pasha kept him away from Istanbul through governorships in Cyprus, Amasya and Canik. In 1867 he fled to Europe with Nâmık Kemal and published the newspaper Hürriyet in London. He returned after Âlî Pasha's death and held posts such as member of the Council of State, chief secretary of the Palace and member of the Constitutional Commission. After governorships in Syria, Konya and Adana he died in Adana on 17 May 1880 and was buried in the courtyard cemetery of the Great Mosque.

The Amasya Years and Literature

The two years Ziya Pasha spent in Amasya are remembered for his administrative work rather than for literary output. According to the TDV Encyclopedia of Islam he launched an unprecedented building programme there, having government houses, schools, a secondary school, clock towers, a prison and a covered market built in the centre and in five districts, and opening new roads. Hüseyin Hüsâmeddîn Yasar's History of Amasya records the traces of this work in the city one by one: in 1281 (1864-1865) the pasha had the Palace Gate of the citadel pulled down, wooden bridges built beside the Alçak Bridge and the Helkis Bridge, bought the mansion of Hâfız Ali Paşazâde Ahmed Mikdâd Pasha and put a government house in its place with a prison behind it, and had "an excellent, lofty Rüşdiye school" built on the site of the ruined Alaca Yahyâ Madrasa. This school trained the young men of the city for thirty years, until it burned in the fire of 1311 (1894).

This last building also shows an indirect link between Ziya Pasha and the literary life of Amasya. In the first volume of the History of Amasya, telling of his own youth, Hüsameddin writes that during his years at the rüşdiye he read Persian with Şirvânîzâde Ahmed Enver Efendi and studied, alongside the Divan of Hâfız, Attâr and Firdevsî, the "Harâbât-ı Ziyâ Paşa". Since Hüsameddin finished the rüşdiye in 1887, he most probably studied in the school Ziya Pasha had built; this is an inference. The anthology of poetry compiled by Ziya Pasha thus entered, in the hands of a young Amasyan who was a pupil at a school the pasha himself had founded, among the sources from which he began to write poetry under the pen name Asrî.

According to the TDV article, the illness that began in Cyprus recurred in Amasya, and in Canik health problems, administrative work and his struggles with his opponents kept him from literature. Halil İnalcık, assessing the documents on the Amasya governorship published by Kenan Akyüz, says that here Ziya saw at close quarters how hard it was to get things done in the provinces against local power-holders, and that traces of this experience can be found in what he wrote in Hürriyet in 1869 about provincial administration. In this respect the mark of the Amasya years is seen less in Ziya Pasha's poetry than in his political prose.

Another link with Amasya runs through the Amasyan grand vizier Şirvânîzâde Mehmed Rüşdü Pasha. Hüsameddin writes that when the pasha returned to Istanbul from exile in 1872, he won Midhat Pasha's affection through certain liberal actions and "had adopted the aim pursued by Ziyâ and Kemâl Beys." Rüşdü Pasha's poetry is discussed in Rüşdî (Şirvânîzâde Mehmed Rüşdü Pasha).

Works

Ziya Pasha's poems were published after his death by his son-in-law Hamdi Bey as a divan under the title Eş'âr-ı Ziyâ (1881). This small book, made up of prayers, eulogies of the Prophet, kasides, elegies, ghazals, kıtas, şarkıs, folk songs, terkib-i bends, terci-i bends, müseddes, tahmis and chronograms, is dominated by the atmosphere of classical poetry. Its incomplete and faulty parts were corrected by Süleyman Nazif, and the work was reprinted in 1924 as Külliyyât-ı Ziyâ Paşa. His two most famous poems, the "Tercî-i Bend" and the "Terkîb-i Bend", were printed separately first in 1872 and later many times in Arabic and Latin script.

His other works are: Zafernâme (1867-1870), a satire on Âlî Pasha over the Cretan question; Rüyâ, a prose dream-narrative also aimed at Âlî Pasha; Arz-ı Hâl, presented to Sultan Abdülaziz; Harâbât (1874-1875), a three-volume anthology of Arabic, Persian and Turkish poetry; a letter on the succession question written in London; Endülüs Tarihi and Engizisyon Tarihi, translated from French; and Riyânın Encâmı, a verse translation of Molière's Tartuffe. The preface to his translation of Rousseau's Emile, a kind of memoir, was published after his death under the title "Defter-i A'mâl". According to TDV, his last surviving work is a chronogram he wrote for the government house at Yarpuz, the seat of the sanjak of Cebelibereket.

Literary Personality

In "Defter-i A'mâl" Ziya Pasha relates that as a child he secretly learned Persian at the urging of his tutor, that he began writing poetry before he was fifteen, and that among the first works he read were the Divan of Âşık Ömer and the poems of Gevherî. In those years he wrote poems in the minstrel (âşık) style and response poems (nazire) to pieces by these two poets. When he learned aruz and the craft of poetry from Fatîn Efendi in the Grand Vizier's office he turned to divan poetry, and through reading Hâfız of Shiraz took an interest in Persian literature. In 1861 he joined the meetings of the Encümen-i Şuarâ and wrote ghazals, kasides, şarkıs, response poems and satires in the classical manner. The "Tercî-i Bend" that brought him his first fame belongs to this period. According to TDV, this poem voices, in line with the Islamic idea of predestination, the utter helplessness of man and of all being before fate. Many lines of the "Terkîb-i Bend", written in Europe in 1870 and made up of twelve stanzas of ten couplets each, have become proverbs; Ahmet Hamdi Tanpınar considers it, for all its tavern mood, a polemical work.

Ziya Pasha's literary views are known for their contradictions. In his article "Şiir ve İnşâ", published in Hürriyet in 1868, he refused to count divan poetry as Turkish poetry and argued for the first time that the true Turkish poetry was folk poetry. In the introduction to Harâbât, written six years later, he praised Necâtî, Ahmed Paşa and Zâtî as those who laid the foundations of the Turkish language and belittled the works of the folk poets. For this he was long criticised by Nâmık Kemal and the advocates of the new literature. In TDV's assessment Ziya Pasha bears the characteristic face of Tanzimat literature, striving to be native on one side and new on the other; while departing from his predecessors in ideas, he made no attempt at innovation in form. The poems of his that have been read most in every age are those written in the old manner.

Poetry and Amasya

Ziya Pasha's poems have been published in many editions, above all Eş'âr-ı Ziyâ and Külliyyât-ı Ziyâ Paşa, and are easily accessible. Among them, however, no poem has yet been identified as written in Amasya or as taking Amasya as its subject. The TDV article on Ziya Pasha and his Amasya governorship, İnalcık's assessment of Akyüz's documents and the records in Hüsameddin's History of Amasya mention no poem from these years. Although Hüsameddin describes in detail the buildings the pasha had erected in the city, he quotes no inscription or chronogram by him. For this reason no poem connected with Amasya appears in this category. If a poem from the Amasya years is found, it will be added to this section as a separate page.

State of the Sources

The dates of Ziya Pasha's governorship of Amasya are not given consistently in the sources. TDV writes that he was sent to Amasya "about three years after" his appointment as Minister of Lawsuits in September 1863, yet the same article also says he was transferred to Canik in 1865. Kenan Akyüz's study based on archival documents and İnalcık's review of it give his term as 1863-1865. Hüsameddin's records agree with these dates: he dates the pasha's building works in Amasya to 1281 (1864-1865) and gives his dismissal as Receb 1282 (November-December 1865). The name of the mufti of Zile also differs in the sources: TDV says "Feyzullah Efendi", while the documents quoted by İnalcık say "Lûtfullah".

Chronology

1825: Born in Kandilli, Istanbul.

1856: Becomes a secretary in the Palace Chancery.

1861: Joins the meetings of the Encümen-i Şuarâ; the "Tercî-i Bend" is written in these years.

1862: Becomes governor of Cyprus.

1863-1865: Governor of Amasya; in 1281 (1864-1865) he begins building works in the city.

1865: Transferred to the governorship of Canik.

1867: Flees to Europe with Nâmık Kemal.

1868: Begins publishing the newspaper Hürriyet in London.

1870: Writes the "Terkîb-i Bend"; completes Zafernâme in Geneva.

1874-1875: Harâbât is published.

17 May 1880: Dies in Adana.

1881: His poems are published as Eş'âr-ı Ziyâ.

Bibliography

Primary sources

Academic studies

Online sources