Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-dk4vv Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-23T00:55:18.396Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

The Dede Korkut Ethic

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 January 2009

Michael E. Meeker
Affiliation:
Michael E. Meeker teaches anthropology at, the University of California at San Diego, 9500 Gilman Drive, La Jolla, Calif. 92093, U.S.A.

Abstract

The Book of Dede Korkut is an early record of oral Turkic folktales in Anatolia, and as such, one of the mythic charters of Turkish nationalist ideology. The oldest versions of the Book of Dede Korkut consist of two manuscripts copied sometime during the 16th century. The twelve stories that are recorded in these manuscripts are believed to be derived from a cycle of stories and songs circulating among Turkic peoples living in northeastern Anatolia and northwestern Azerbaijan. According to Lewis (1974), an older substratum of these oral traditions dates to conflicts between the ancient Oghuz and their Turkish rivals in Central Asia (the Pecheneks and the Kipchaks), but this substratum has been clothed in references to the 14th-century campaigns of the Akkoyunlu Confederation of Turkic tribes against the Georgians, the Abkhaz, and the Greeks in Trebizond. Such stories and songs would have emerged no earlier than the beginning of the 13th century, andthe written versions that have reached us would have been composed no later than the beginning of the 15th century. By this time, the Turkic peoples in question had been in touch with Islamic civilization for seeral centuries, had come to call themselves "Turcoman" rather than "Oghuz," had close associations with sedentary and urbanized societies, and were participating in Islamized regimes that included nomads, farmers, and townsmen. Some had abandoned their nomadic way of life altogether.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1992

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Beidelman, T. O. 1989. Homeric Agonistic Exchange: Reciprocity and the Heritage of Simmel and Mauss. Cultural Anthropology, 4(3):227–59.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Başgöz, , İhan, . 1976. The Structure of the Turkish Romances. In Folklore Today: A Festschrift for Richard M. Dorson, edited by Linda, Degh, Henry, Glassie, and Felix, J. Oinas. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Başgöz, , İhan, . 1978. Epithet in Prose Epic: The Book of my Grandfather Korkut. In Studies in Turkish Folklore: In Honor of Pertev N. Boratav, edited by İhan, Başgöz and Mark, Glazer. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Boratav, Pertev N. 1983a. Dede Korkut Hikāyeleri Hakkinda. In Folklore ve Edebiyat (1982). 2 vols., 2:88108. Ankara: Adam Yayincihk.Google Scholar
Boratav, Pertev N. 1983b. Dede Korkut kitabindaki tarihi olaylar ye kitabin telifi tarihi. In Folklore ve Edebiyat (1982). 2 vols., 2:109–40. Ankara: Adam Yayincilik.Google Scholar
Brendemoen, Bernt. 1989. “Trabzon çepni Ağzi ve Tepegöz Hikāyesinin bir Çepni Variyanti.” In Trabzon Kültür-Sanat Yilliği 88–89, edited by Kayaoğlu, İ. GündağMustafa, Duman, and Şatiroğlu, M. Savaş. Istanbul: Trabzon Kültür ve Yardimlaşma Derneği.Google Scholar
Bryer, Anthony. 1975. Greeks and Türkmens: The Pontic Exception. Dumbarton Oaks Papers 29:113–48.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Diez, H. F. von 1815. Denkwürdigkeiren von Asien, Vol. 2. Berlin und Halle.Google Scholar
Ergin, Muharrem. 1964. Dede Korkut Kitabi: Metin—Sözlük. Ankara: Ankara Universitesi Basimevi.Google Scholar
Fleischer, Cornell H. 1986. Bureaucrat and Intellectual in the Ottoman Empire. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gökyay, Orhan şaik. 1973. Dedem Korkudun Kitabi. Istanbul: Millī Eğitim Basimevi.Google Scholar
Hackman, , Oskar, . 1904. Die Polyphemsage in der Volksüberlieferung. Helsingfors, Finland: Frenckellska tryckeri-aktiebolaget.Google Scholar
Herzfeld, , Michael, . 1982. Ours Once More: Folklore, Ideology, and the Making of Modern Greece. Austin: University of Texas Press.Google Scholar
Lewis, Geoffrey. 1974. The Book of Dede Korkut. Harmondsworth, Eng.: Penguin Books.Google Scholar
Meeker, . Michael, E. 1979. Literature and Violence in North Arabia. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Meeker, . Michael, E. 1980. The Twilight of a South Asian Heroic Age: A Rereading of Barth's Study of Swat. Man, n.s. 15:682701.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Meeker, . Michael, E. 1988. Heroic Poems and Anti-Heroic Stories in North Arabia: Literary Genres and the Relationship of Center and Periphery in the Near East. Edebiyat 1: 140.Google Scholar
Meeker, . Michael, E. 1989. The Pastoral Son and the Spirit of Patriarchy: Religion, Society, and Person among East African Stock Keepers. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.Google Scholar
Meeker, Michael E., Kathy, Barlow, and David, Lipset. 1986. Culture, Exchange, and Gender: Lessons from the Murik. Cultural Anthropology 1:673.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mundy, C. S. 1956. Polyphemus and Tepegöz. Journal of the British Society for Oriental and African Studies 18:279302.Google Scholar
Page, , Denys, . 1955. The Homeric Odyssey. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Planhol, Xavier de. 1966. “La signification géographique du livre de Dede Korkut,” Journal Asiatique 254:225–44.Google Scholar
Sümer, , Faruk, , and Ahmet, E. Uysal. 1972. The Book of Dede Korkut: A Turkish Epic, translated by Warren, S. Walker. Austin: University of Texas Press.Google Scholar
Woods, John E. 1976. The Aqquyunlu: Clan, Confederation, Empire: A Study in 15th-Century Turko-Iranian Politics. Chicago: Biblioteca Islamica.Google Scholar
Yüce, , Nuni, . 1970. Eine Variante der Tepegöz-Erzählung aus dem Taurus-Gebirge vom Keşli-Stamm. Turcica 2:3139.Google Scholar