Abstract
DIFFERENT SITUATIONS OF LIFE OR ORAL CULTURE ENVIRONMENT IN SAFAHAT
Mehmet Âkif Ersoy, who is born in 1873 in İstanbul and died in 27 December 1936, is a figure who is found a way to solve the problem of his period. Âkif thinks that when we have to emulate foreign conturies, we should just transfer their science (ilim) not culture by using our own spiritual essence. Poems in Safahat whose first book published in 1911; last book in 1933 has witnessed many facts as of the period that is written like 1908 the proclamation of the Second Constitutional Monarchy; the Balkan Wars; First World War; the War of Independence; the proclamation of the Republic and its first years since 1904. Whereas a state has been disintegrated, a new state has been established in this period. Thereby this period is a process that has been happened rapidly change and transformation. Âkif who cares about life and various aspects of life writes works on social issues. He conducts principle of realist sense of art; on the other side he records rich cultural side of life within that period. We face in Safahat visits of patients and elderly, cemetery visits, Eid visits and celebrations, going to the mosque for prayer and sermon, wedding dinner, mortal remain, mawlid, the kids going to school, streets, square, houses, shops, coffeehouse and taproom at the beginning of the 19th and 20th İstanbul. In this study, Safahat is approached as a production of written oral culture. Customs and traditions regarding turning points in life; amines procession regarding childhood, wedding and death; wedding ceremony; funeral ceremony; mawlid; feasts and kandil regarding feasts, ceremonies and celebrations have been determined in Safahat. In addition to, it can be faced with spaces such as taproom, coffeehouse, house, mansion, room, mosque, recreation area as the place of oral cultural medium. As a result of these determinations, we can say that poet has recorded social memory in Safahat and he has registered oral culture through written material.
Keywords
Mehmet Âkif, Safahat, oral culture, cultural memory, transition periods, feasts, place of oral cultu