ÇALIKKAVAK BALKANINDA "GÂRÎB" TEMÂŞÂ

Abstract

Evliyâ Celebi, in his work Seyahatnâme (Book of Travels), presents the astonishing stories of witches as the extraordinary aspects of his travels in a manner suitable to the tradition of travel narrative. Analyzing these stories with close reading method shows that Evliya’s point of view as narrator and one of the characters affecting the plot changes in parallel with the “cultural context” of the stories. His viewpoint establishes the viewpoint of the text and he channels the reader or the listener in that direction. In this study, the story about a witch -taking place in a Bulgarian village-, in the third volume of the Seyahatnâme will be analyzed in aspect of the relation between myth and fiction considering the other witch stories of the Book. Evliya Celebi’s narratives about talismans, spells, magic or witchcraft, which present the extraordinary aspects of his travels, are generally based on folk beliefs that are alive in oral culture. As Evliya puts into practice the way of generating new texts found in oral tradition, he places these beliefs in a dramatic narration in a new fiction. However, as a storyteller, he is attentive to the ideals and beliefs of that particular cultural context. Considering the episteme of 17th-century Ottoman society, all supernatural-creatures stories, especially witch stories, are not merely entertaining stories originating from folklore. These stories have a quite important role on people’s daily social lives, reflecting the ideals and beliefs of their sociocultural context.