Amasya05 is a culture and arts magazine that tells the history, culture, literature and urban life of Amasya on the basis of documented sources. The number in its name is the city's licence-plate code, a reminder of the place the magazine belongs to and owes its work to. The magazine is published today as an online archive and is being prepared to appear each month as an issue in print-ready form.
The Aim of the Magazine
The past of Amasya lies scattered across hundreds of separate sources. The rock tombs of the Pontic kings and the Seljuk madrasas appear in works of archaeology and art history, the years the Ottoman princes spent in the province in studies of Ottoman history, the poems of its divan poets in critical editions, and the memory of its neighbourhoods and families in the pages of works such as Hüseyin Hüsâmeddîn Yasar's twelve-volume History of Amasya. Much of this heritage remains in the hands of specialists and is hard to reach even for the city's own people.
Amasya05 was founded to gather this scattered heritage under one roof and to pass it on to future generations in an orderly form, with its sources clearly shown. When a reader follows the story of a building, a historical figure, a neighbourhood or a poem in the magazine, the origin of that information is given alongside it in a bibliography.
History in Today's Language
Many of the most valuable texts on Amasya were written in Ottoman Turkish. Woven with Arabic and Persian constructions, that language stands like a curtain between young readers today and their history. One of the magazine's founding principles is to lift that curtain: the entries of the History of Amasya and the ghazals and kasides of the divan poets are rendered into modern Turkish, and into English, alongside their original texts, and are then explained in commentaries and research articles. The original text is preserved, and the reader grasps what it says in his or her own language.
Allowing young people to reach their history directly, to read a poem or a deed of endowment without depending on someone else's interpretation, is the aim the magazine values most.
Telling the World about the City of Princes
For about 182 years Amasya was the provincial seat where the Ottoman state trained its princes. Twelve princes served here as provincial governors, and six of them came to the throne. Mehmed II, who took Istanbul and so closed one age and opened another, also spent part of his childhood in Amasya. In this city the princes learned the business of government under the guidance of their tutors, attended the lessons of scholars, and grew up in the same circles as poets, calligraphers and physicians.
In telling the story of this city, Amasya05 aims to present in all its aspects the system of education that trained the rulers of an empire, the circle of learning and art that sustained it, and the culture on which that circle rested. To show readers in Türkiye and around the world, with sources, how an urban culture took shape through its madrasas, hospital, gatherings of calligraphers and poets and its pious foundations, and what kind of person it formed, is the magazine's reason for being. For this reason every article in the magazine is published in both Turkish and English.
Monthly Issues and Distribution
The work accumulated in the online archive is planned to be selected and edited each month into a periodical issue in PDF form. These issues are intended to reach the diplomatic missions of every country in the world. The aim is not limited to Türkiye's own missions abroad: embassies, consulates general and other missions of every country, wherever in the world they are located, such as the Embassy of Uzbekistan in Canada or the Embassy of Brazil in Japan, fall within the scope of this distribution. The issues are also planned to be sent to all faculties and academic staff of universities in Türkiye and abroad. In this way the history and culture of Amasya will be offered, beyond the promotion of a single city, as a reference publication to diplomatic circles, academic institutions and cultural institutions around the world.
Editorial Approach
The information in the magazine is based on sources; unverified traditions are reported as traditions, and contradictions between sources are stated as contradictions. The works used are listed in the bibliography at the end of each article. Articles are prepared by the Amasya05 Editorial Board; the editor is Mevlüt Erdem Öztürk. The choice of sources, the procedure for corrections and contact details are set out in detail on the Editorial Policy page.