Folklore and love combined – a different look at medieval Anatolia

Few collections of folk tales and folk poetry from medieval Anatolia have been translated into English. Thanks to Professor Talat Halman, a new book has recently been published that provides examples of both. According to Halman, the material came from books, anthologies, and special publications, as well as story-telling sessions in rural areas
Illustration from Professor Talat S. Halman's “Popular Turkish Love Lyrics & Folk Legends.”

Illustration from Professor Talat S. Halman's “Popular Turkish Love Lyrics & Folk Legends.”

Turkish folklore has not been collected and studied for as long as othethe folk tales of other countries. Some studies have done nothing other than recount the stories, who told them, where they were collected and when.

The Vedas of India, or sacred texts, have been considered the origin of many folk tales, and some parts of them date back as far as 1500 B.C. Stories from Egypt come from approximately the same time, so one cannot be very sure of origins. The Greek fable-teller Aesop told some fabulous stories in the fifth century B.C., and there is reason to believe he did not make some up; rather, he may have retold stories he heard growing up. Scholars have even traced the origin of some of his fables back to Sumer and Akkad. Similar folk stories can be found in material from Australia, New Zealand and the Americas. This makes it unlikely, if not impossible, that these tales originated from a single source.

Another theory proposed in modern times was that the tales resulted of humans’ explanations of nature. They attributed life to everything in nature including stones, the earth and more. This is commonly found in cultures all over the world and suggests a common origin – even where one would think there could be no resemblance. Stories involving legal cases occurring in both early Athens and in modern times among natives of a Southeast Asian island, considered a javelin as the murderer rather than the person throwing it.

The javelin in both cases is given an animated nature, something we would never think of today in modern jurisprudence.

One could place the second theory even further back to the customs and practices of early humans worshipping animals and beliefs that they were descended from animals. Taboos or prohibitions may have occurred from the same source.

In the end, scholars decided that it was hopeless to attribute a common point of origin for folk tales as it is impossible to determine sources for any instances mentioned, and people are mostly stereotyped and can be found in a lot of places.

Folk tales in modern times

Although the Brothers Grimm wrote at the beginning of the 19th century and were not the first to collect folk tales in the modern era, they are usually pointed out as the forerunners of modern fairy tale collecting. Their fairytale work was followed by collecting folk music. During their lifetime, they gathered several hundred tales and adhered to the original stories as closely as possible. These were not stories they made up, so any attempts at psychological analysis of the Brothers Grimm is useless unless one wonders why they collected more of one type of story rather than another. It was only later when methods and standards for collecting and publishing fairy tales were decided.

Folk tales have been collected from almost everywhere around the globe, including Turkey. They were usually transmitted orally, and it remained to the older people to tell the younger ones. When modern communications were introduced and many people migrated in search of a better life, those traditional stories began to be lost. One of the earliest collectors of Turkish folk tales was Ignacz Kunos, a Hungarian scholar who traveled through Anatolia and collected stories from the people living there. Forty-four Turkish fairy and folk tales he collected were published in 1896 and are at present available free of charge online. P.N. Boratav who is better known for having collected Turkish folk music in Anatolia is also credited with having gathered folk tales as well.

Collecting folk tales in Turkey was supported by the feelings of nationalism arising after the proclamation of the Republic in 1923. Their study was even available in universities. Since then, a fair number of studies have been produced and collections, such as the one at Texas Technical University in Lubbock, Texas, have been made. A department of folklore was established at Indiana University under the chairmanship of Ilhan Basgoz. It includes ethnomusicology or the study of folk music.

The latest in Turkish folk tales/folk poetry

In November, a new book, written by the prolific author and translator Professor Talat S. Halman, joined the few books of Turkish folk tales available in English. The publisher, Syracuse University, said that it was the first time an illustrated book of Turkish lyric poetry and folk tales had been published in the United States.

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