Karacaoğlan

17th century " Karacaoğlan"

Turkish folk poet. He has been a leading folk poet in Turkish folk poetry with his universe established with effective language and emotions It is thought that he was born in 1606, died in 1679 or 1689. There exists no certain knowledge about his life. According to the studies and researches made so far he lived in 17th century. Various suggestions have been made on the city where he was from. Some claim that he was born in Varsak (Farsak) village of Bahçe, a District near Kozan mountain. While Barak Turkmens of Gaziantep claim that he lived with their clan, the Çavuşlu Turkmens living in Kilis, Musabeyli town, claim that he lived with their clan. Karakeçili clan living in Western Anatolia assumes that the poet was from their clan. According to another rumour, he was from Gökçe village of Feke District. In villages of Silifke, Mut,Gülnar people claim that he was from their villages. According to another rumour he was from Belgrade. What is elicited from those rumours and claims is that he was born in Çukurova and lived with the Turkmen clans in the same region.

In some resources his name is pronounced as Simayil while in some of his poems it appears as Halil and Hasan. According to memories of Hoca Hamdi Efendi from Aşepir, Karacaoğlan was orphan. As a result of fear being forced to marry an ugly girl, being recruited to military and problems with Kazanoğulları, the feudal chieftain of the region, he left his home town at the very early age. Some of his poems indicate that he took his two sisters with himself and went to Bursa and even Istanbul. According to those poems, he married in Bursa and lost his son and therefore experienced the pain of losing a son. It is also believed that he visited several provinces in Anatolia and also Rumeli (Trachea), and went to Egypt and Tripoli. He spent most of his life in Çukurova, Maraş, Antep region.

Similarly to his birth place, his death place is not known either. From his poems it is understood that he lived a long life. According to memories of Hoca Hamdi Efendi, he died in Cezel Plateau in Maraş at the age of ninety-six. According to the latest findings, his tomb is thought to be in Karacaoğlan hill in Çukur village of Mut District in İçel.

Karacaoğlan lived in an era of economical crises and civil conflicts of Ottoman State. The source of his poems is the customs of the nomad society he was born to and lived in and the nature where he lived and assumed as his homeland. The way of life, perception and thinking way of Turkmen clans living in South-east Anatolia, Çukurova, Toros and Gavurdağı regions were combined with his personality and thus brought a completely new way to poetry literature. His poems do not contain the pains, poverty, problems, desperation of nomad life, experienced by Anatolian people during 17th century.

The theme, which is clear in the core of his poems about the man, is nature and love. The other themes seen in the integrity of his poems are of leave, living away from homeland, missing the homeland and death. He reflects his emotions in a realistic way. He reveals his thoughts in a clear, understandable style. This feature is also seen in his poems focusing on suffering, separation and death themes He relies on reality rather than imaginary world. The revealing point is the experience. According to him, man should gain whatever he can from the life as long as he lives and have fun in life as he wishes. The source of pleasure of life is his love and passion towards beauty, lover and nature. He boasts the beauties, the heroes and addresses to the mountains that he assumes as friend sharing his pains and problems. The essences of his lyrics contain the perception and thinking way of the people.

Being inevitable part of nomadic way of life, Nature, is one of the main themes of his poems. He describes the fascinating nature of the places he lived in and visited, in his poems. Seeing it as friend, brother, lover and sharing everything with it, he thinks that the nature is something more than just a setting. Another theme emphasised in his poem, love is granted more beauty with the simile of the nature. The joy of love and the suffering caused thereby is shared with the nature. The lover is integral part of nature in his poems.

In some of his poems, feelings of missing the homeland and death themes are also sometimes seen. He tells the feeling of missing his lover, homeland and people. Death is the theme that he takes the same as leaving and poverty.

In addition to the theme of nature, love/lover concepts being the main focus point of his poems are dealt with in a style different from poetic tradition forms. To him, the lover is not a thing imagined, and created with thousands of imagination and to whom turku (songs) is composed with the feeling of desperation to reach, but is the thing lying within nature and human relations. He expresses her without isolating her from life and those relations.

It is the first time that we see the names of lovers are pronounced: Elif, Anşa, Zeynep, Hürü, Döndü, Döne, Esma, Emine, Hatice… Karacaoğlan fell in love with them while some of them were filling their buckets, while some were carrying something on their shoulders, while khe others were on their way to the fountain, and while some were making ayran or weaving carpet. He is the type that his heart cannot be satisfied with only one beautiful lover, he falls in love with another when he sees. Debauchery is the clearest feature of his emotional world that is reflected in his poems. Erotism is reflected as concepts of loving and making love. Real lover portrait becomes clearer with sexual motives, and is contained impressively in his poems. His point of view for love and woman brings novelty to poet tradition and gains an impressive feature within this tradition. Although God and religious concepts are not heavily dealt in his poems, he also brought a different approach to his poetic traditions in this field as well and thus has influenced and oriented the next generations.

Contrary to saz poets lived during his times, Karacaoğlan was away from the influence of Divan literature in terms of language and measure. He used daily language of Southeastern Anatolian people then in his poems In his poems he rarely used Arabic and Persian words.. However, he intensively used regional local words. He established a universe unique to himself by use of phrases and similes, which contributes a different colour to his poetry. He used most of those words in the living form of them in people's daily language through deforming their pronunciation or changing their meaning.
Karacaoğlan used traditional half rhyme and sometimes repeated words tradition of the folk poetry. His poems are in 11 (6+5) and 8(4+4) syllabic metre. In some of his poems it is seen that he applied to syllable reductions in order to ensure syllabic metre. Some of the other factors that make his literature impressive are his frequently applying to metaphors and implications.

Another important feature of his poems is that they are similar to mani, which is a type of folk poetry. Koşma, semai, varsağı and turku have considerable importance in his poems. He established unity in a clear, understandable form.

He was influenced by Pir Sultan Abdal, Âşık Garip, Köroğlu, Öksüz Dede, Kul Mehmet etkilenmiş, and influenced his contemprary poets such as Âşık Ömer, Âşık Hasan, Âşık İsmail, Katibî, Kuloğlu, Gevheri as well as Dadaloğlu, Gündeşlioğlu, Beyoğlu, Deliboran, the poets of 18th century, and Bayburtlu Zihni, Dertli, Seyranî, Zileli Talibî, Ruhsatî, Şem'î ve Yeşilabdal of 19th century poets. He also influenced the poets of constitutional period, Republic Period, benefiting from folk poetry, such as R.T. Bölükbaşı, F.N. Çamlıbel, K.B. Çağlar, A.K. Tecer and C. Külebi.

His poems have been researched and compiled since 1920 and over five hundred poems of him have been recorded to written resources

Upon long lasting journey, arrived to that black rock
You made me miss my people, brothers
The reasons for blood tear in the eye
One's separation, one's poverty, one's death
Caused several sultans lose their thrones
Changed healthy face of many into pale
Make them start no return journeys
One's separation, one's poverty one's death
Karacaoğlan says once settled no way to leave
Death is better, can't be drunk
Have three problems all the same
One's separation, one's poverty one's death.
(Karacaoğlan)
I was born nude and will die nude
Do I have no ferman not to die
Azreal has come and demand my soul
Do I have power to give my soul
They come upon resuscitation
gather for the last Judgement
creates fear that Brigand comes
Do I have caravans carrying silk cargo
If you're man prove it before heroes
Almighty may help me repair my deficit
They want me to carry cargo of sorrows
Do I have power to carry cargo.
Karac'oğlan says they boast my name
All sweets we eat change into poison
They say that I love Beautiful girls
Do I have lovers other than God.

(Karacaoğlan)