STORIES FROM OTTOMAN MANUSCRIPTS
THE MEMORIES OF HUMANKIND EXHIBITION RELATES THE STORIES OF OTTOMAN MANUSCRIPTS AND OFFERS GLIMPSES INTO SCENES OF DAILY LIFE FROM THE ISTANBUL OF BYGONE DAYS.
Alternative approaches to history are becoming more popular. Historians are now pursuing documents other than the legal, administrative records kept in state archives. Personal documents conceal details that cannot be found elsewhere for researchers that want to grasp the spirit of the period. Manuscripts belonging to individuals, which have been handed down for generations in families, offer a great deal of information that assists in understanding factors regarding daily life and the social structure. These studies, which are not included in the mainstream perception of history, shed light on new, extremely interesting fields from within ordinary life. In these terms, the Istanbul Research Institute’s new exhibition Memories of Humankind: Stories from the Ottoman Manuscripts is worth visiting.
The exhibition reminds today’s readers, who are accustomed to books printed in thousands, each copy the same, and who believe that original manuscripts are untouchable, of totally different reading and writing practices. Before the printing press became widespread in the Ottoman Empire, every book was unique. Books were valuable, both materially and spiritually. A majority of the time, books reflect a person’s character. Sometimes books were written upon the order of a single person, and sometimes they were reproduced for someone else who wanted the book. Owning rare books and manuscripts was a great privilege. During this period,
when the copyright conception was non-existent, books were produced with a collective effort. In the manuscript era, the owner of a book wasn’t just its author. These were passed on to illuminators who worked on illumination, the artist known as cetvelkeş (ruler artist) who determined the borders of pages with straight lines, copyists who reproduced the copies -even reading and writing was a collective effort. Readers would engage in dialogue with the author or with those who previously read the manuscript with notes added to the margins. Sometimes readers corrected errors in the manuscript, and sometimes enriched the manuscript with their own ideas and observations.
The manuscripts in the exhibition Memories of Humankind present a selection from the Suna and Inan Kıraç Foundation Manuscript Collection, and depict Ottoman society from different perspectives. Possibly one of the exhibition’s most important aspects is the perspective it offers on the empire’s multilingual structure. Apart from the Turkish language, Arabic, Kurdish, Greek, Armenian, Ladino, and Syriac were spoken as lingua franca in old Istanbul. Occasionally, readers could come across notes scribbled in different languages on a single manuscript. Manuscripts not only reveal the richness created by the interconnectedness between languages and cultures but also recreate details of individual stories.
Manuscripts relate the stories of hundreds of authors and readers: Ibrahim Ağa, the guardian of the Van Citadel who found time to copy manuscripts while on duty; Zübeyde Hanım, whose divan was widely circulated; Yirmisekiz Çelebi Mehmed Efendi, the Ottoman ambassador to France who corrected his own manuscript; Rıfat from Kilis, who
intervened in the text by scribbling in the margin, “whoever wrote this is wrong”; Enderunlu Fâzıl, whose writings were criticized and censored but still made the rounds through word of mouth; the “Ya Kebikeç” prayer, written to protect the manuscript, and the bookworm that paid no attention to this prayer.
Stories in manuscripts also reveal how the diversity within society was reflected in the daily life of individuals. While manuscripts on medicine explain how cures were sought for illnesses, the books including recipes allow us to understand the tastes of the period. Although mainstream history explains the classification of time, manuscripts expose the meaning society ascribed to the passing of time. Notes regarding recorded compositions -even if very few were performed- give an idea of the music enjoyed in that period. Certain manuscripts which circulated among the public also enlighten us on how love was experienced and dreams were interpreted. The works on Sufism explain the meaning of life and how people organized their lives. Other works present the genre associated with attire, which claimed to be able to determine a person’s character from their appearance and shared similarities with the Western field of physiognomy.
A series of conferences titled “Memories of Humankind Seminars” accompany the exhibition. These seminars, attended by experts from different fields, focus on topics addressed in the manuscripts and aim at understanding the Istanbul of the past with an interdisciplinary approach. This month’s program in the “Memories of Humankind Seminars” is as follows: “‘Physicians Prescribe Five Hundred Medicines for a Malady’: Ottoman Manuscripts and Healing Culture in the premodern Period” (January 9), and “Mapping the Chief Gardener’s Registers” (January 16). The exhibition Memories of Humankind is curated by K. Mehmet Kentel and is open to visitors until July 25.