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PİR SULTAN ABDAL and me

~ A personal reflection on the great Alevi poet's lyric works and influence – mostly through translation

PİR SULTAN ABDAL and me

Tag Archives: Musa Eroğlu

Muhlis Akarsu ‘Gurbeti ben mi yarattım’

25 Friday Mar 2011

Posted by koerbin in Translations

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

Arif Sağ, gurbet, koşma, mahlas, Muhabbet, Muhlis Akarsu, Musa Eroğlu, semai

Galata bridge at sunset 1999

Galata Bridge, Istanbul, 1999

When Arif Sağ re-emerged as a recording artist in the early 1980s having given away his arabesk career in the mid-1970s and worked as a teacher at the İstanbul Devlet Türk Müziği Konservatuarı, he released a cassette album called Gurbeti ben mi yarattım. The title song was from the Kangal aşık Muhlis Akarsu. Sağ’s recording is intimate and almost reticent – very striking in a restrained way. Oddly the cover of the cassette that I obtained in Urfa in 1987 (which I believe is the original 1981 release) has a photograph of Sağ (see photo below) that harks back to his arabesk days, dressed in yellow zip up blazer, slicked down hair and pencil moustache – totally belying the intimate sound of voice and bağlama on the recording. This would be the recording that began Sağ’s stylistic hegemony over the performance of Alevi music in the 1980s and 1990s. The iconography was yet to catch up.

sag_gurbeti_ben

Sağ recorded the deyiş again for the second of the Muhabbet series of recordings two or three years later. Muhabbet 2 is arguably the finest of the series in terms of its thematic strength which centres around the concept of gurbet – absence from one’s native place or home. Gurbeti ben mi yarattım is the final song on that recording although only three of the four verses are sung (the second is ommited) with Sağ, Musa Eroğlu and Muhlis Akarsu taking turns on the verses – a quite unusual approach for the Muhabbet series. Akarsu of course recorded the song but sadly, although a number of his recordings have been issued on CD, that one has not. However a recording of Akarsu performing it live is available on YouTube.

Gurbet is obviously the theme of the deyiş and this is deepened to almost ‘starkly bleak’ – thanks Tom Rapp! – realms with the addition of the theme of yokluk – which refers to absence, even to the degree of non-existance (it also has a meaning of poverty). I don’t think I’ve captured the full sense of yokluk so that will require working on. Another word to mention is sıla in the mahlas line which I have rendered as ‘returning’ but it really means return to family, friends and one’s native place – the opposite really of gurbet. A good translation here for imkân also rather eludes me. Having tried ‘possibilities’ it sounded too lumpen and ‘practicalities’ would be even worse. For the moment ‘chances’ it is. The deyiş is in the short koşma form (semai) with only 8 syllables per line which gives it a simple directness; but it is constructed with typical economy and finesse.

Muhlis Akarsu: Gurbeti ben mi yarattım

Translation: Paul Koerbin


Destitution has compelled me

Was it I who created the exile?

It came and took my youth

Was it I who created the exile?

I received neither letter nor news

Parted from my country and home

I felt the loss of all that was mine

Was it I who created the exile?

Evening comes and the shadow settles

Winds blow against my hope

Absence constrains my chances

Was it I who created the exile?

Akarsu, don’t think about returning

Don’t believe this isolation has passed

How I fell upon helplessness

Was it I who created the exile?

————————————————————————————

Turkish text from Muhlis Akarsu: yaşamı, sanatı, şiirleri ve dünya görüşü by Süleyman Zaman, 2006.

Yokluk beni mecbur etti

Gurbeti ben mi yarattım

Gençliğimi aldı gitti

Gurbeti ben mi yarattım

Ne mektup ne haber aldım

Yurdumdan yuvamdan oldum

Her şeyime hasret kaldım

Gurbeti ben mi yarattım

Akşam olur gölge basar

Umuduma yeller eser

Yokluk imkânımı keser

Gurbeti ben mi yarattım

Akarsu sılayı anma

Bu ayrılık geçti sanma

Çaresizdim geldim amma

Gurbeti ben mi yarattım

Aşık İbreti ‘Gördümde geldim’ (İlme değer verdim)

20 Sunday Jun 2010

Posted by koerbin in Translations

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Tags

Adil Ali Atalay Vadidolu, Aşık İbreti, Musa Eroğlu

Walking in Cennet

Cennet Mağarası (grotto of heaven in near Narlıkuyu in Mersin Province)

This is probably Aşık İbreti’s most famous deyiş and the one that gives the title to collection of İbreti’s works prepared by Adil Ali Atalay (Vaktidolu) and published under the title İlme Değer Verdim by Can Yayınları in 1996. This title reflects the influence of the performed rather than the published version of the deyiş since the phrase  “ilme değer verdim” does not actually appear in the published text. The title given the lyric is ‘Gördümde geldim’ and the opening line is “ilme hizmet edip uykudan kalktım”. The popular version as recorded by Musa Eroğlu on his 1994 recording Yolver Dağlar sharpens the focus of the words reducing the verses from five to three (a common performance practice) singing only the first and last two verses. A number of changes are made to the words in Eroğlu’s performance. Besides the small change from hizmet to değer in the opening line most notable changes are in the second last verse with the change of softa to yobaz which gives it a stronger invective and the substantially changed last two lines. The performed version has a somewhat more straightforward and clarifying sentiment replacing the original metonymical lines with  “cahil cühalaya edemem minnet / bütün zincirleri kırdımda geldim”.

Aşık İbreti whose real name was Hıdır Gürel (1920-1976) was one of the finest mid-twentieth century Alevi ozans and his lyrics are sharp, passionate and with a great feeling for the central place of the  human. Musa Eroğlu’s recording is worth a listening too and may surprise those looking for the exotic in Turkish music. The arrangement using bağlama, guitar and bass guitar is wonderfully engaging, appropriate and sympathetic to the lyric.

Note: I revised this translation in February 2018. Mostly some subtleties and refinements; not changes of substantive meaning.

Aşık İbreti: Gördümde geldim (İlme değer verdim)

Translation: Paul Koerbin

I gave myself to knowledge and awoke from sleep

I let go of the turban and the prayer mat

I was tired of the daily preaching of sermons

I came and tossed Ramadan to the torrent

As long as I was angry inside my grief increased

Listen, the matter of the Hajj was another worry

The rich were just about the only ones who went

I came and saw while they were stoning Satan

I placed the Four Books in a suspended bag

I ceased my interest in the heavenly Houris

I fell mute thinking – don’t believe the conjuring Hodja

I came to the point of giving them no attention

I don’t entertain the distractions of the next world

I have consideration for the concerns of humanity

For the illusion of heaven’s private garden

I came and banished the mob of bigots

Ibreti – my desire is service to humankind

My wife is my Houri, my home is my heaven

There remains no obligation to the Hajji and the Hodja

I came and broke the rosary and cruet

———————————————————————————————————————

Original text from Aşık İbreti İlme Değer Verdim prepared by Adil Ali Atalay Vaktidolu (Can Yayınları, 1996)

İlme hizmet edip uykudan kalktım

Sarık, seccadeyi elden bıraktım

Vaizın her günkü vazından bıktım

Ramazanı sele verdim de geldim

Karnım acıktıkça kederim arttı

Hele hac kaygısı ayrı bir dertti

Paralılar hemen hac’ oldu gitti

Şeytanı taşlarken gördüm de geldim

Dört kitabı koyup torbaya astım

Cennet hurisinden ilgimi kestim

Muskacı hocaya sanmayın sustum

Ağzının payını verdim de geldim

Aklım ermez ahret eğlencesine

Saygım var insanın düşüncesine

Hayal cennetinin has bahçesine

Softa sürüsünü sürdüm de geldim

İbreti, emelim insana hizmet

Eşim bana huri, evim de cennet

Hacıya, hocaya kalmadı minnet

Irbığı, tesbihi kırdım da geldim

Aşık İbreti ‘Değiliz’

14 Sunday Jun 2009

Posted by koerbin in Translations

≈ 7 Comments

Tags

Adil Ali Atalay Vadidolu, Aşık İbreti, Dertli Divani, Kızılbaş, Musa Eroğlu

img395Aşık İbreti is someone I would like to have met. His no nonsense plain speaking is so engaging – and, one thinks, quite courageous.  His language is simple and his is message clear. İbreti’s real name was Hıdır Gürel and he was born in 1920 in the Sarız region of Kayseri. In 1967 we was caught up in attacks against Alevis in Elbistan.  A working man, maker and seller of musical instruments and miner, he died in 1976. Musa Eroğlu, the great singer and bağlama player from Mut – often called the modern Karacaoğlan – is something of a champion of İbreti’s lyrics. He recorded the genuinely magnificent İlme değer verdim (Gördümde geldim) on his recording Yolver Dağlar and recently contributed İbreti’s Aşkın kabesi (İnsanlığa hizmet ibadetimdir) to the remarkable recording initiative by Kalan Music called Kızılbaş. Dertli Divani has also recorded the work of İbreti including Hakikat denildi erkânımıza on his 2000 masterwork Serçeşme. İbreti’s poems were published in 1996 in the book titled İlmer Değer Verdim by Adil Ali Atalay (Vaktidolu) whose publishing house, Can Yayınları, has contributed so much to the dissemination of Alevi culture.

The translation is fairly straightforward and I have tried to keep the language as ‘natural’ as possible. In the second verse he refers to Hızır (not to be confused with the despised Hızır Paşa, Pir Sultan’s nemesis) who obtained immortality by drinking the water of life – this is the concept I have tried to achieve in the translation. The other problematic word is gılman, which is sort of the male equivalent of ‘houries’. I have tried to render this with some taste – though I think there is a touch of the invective in the original. I repeat, İbreti is someone I would love to have met.

The picture is a photo of the notorious Madımak Otel (Hotel) in Sivas, which I took in 1996, three years after the fanatics set fire to the building because of the secular expressions of the artists and writers staying there who were attending the Pir Sultan Abdal Festival, killing 35 inside.

Postscript: I have made a couple of changes to the last two verses after reader Sürmeli pointed out a couple of errors. Many thanks.

Aşık İbreti: Değiliz

Translation: Paul Koerbin


Don’t climb up the minaret and cry out to us

We know this stuff, we’re not deaf

Think about yourself, don’t worry about us

We have no mind to quarrel with you

We know God is present everywhere

We know the mature human is immortal

We know anything other than this is nothing

Your estimation is wrong, we are not blind

If  there is humanity then your resolve is true

Improve you own self if you have the strength

We have no necessity for your heaven

We are not slaves to your houries and pageboys

We feel no compulsion for Arabic prayers

Consider us Muslim or infidel as you wish

To belittle the human is your biggest blasphemy

We are not unbelievers, we believe in this

Ibreti, humankind grieves for this situation

These words will anger crude fanatics

The one who is unaware of his true self will take offence

We feel no compulsion to delude of amuse them

——————————————————————————————-

Original text from Aşık İbreti İlme Değer Verdim (Can Yayınları, 1996)


Minareye çıkıp bize bağırma

Haberimiz vardır, sağır değiliz

Sen kendini düşün bizi kayırma

Sizlere kavgaya uğur değiliz

Her yerde biz Hakk’ı hazır biliriz

Olgun insanları Hızır biliriz

Bundan başkasını sıfır biliriz

Tahmininiz yanlış, biz kör değiliz

Eğer insanlıksa doğru niyetin

Nefsini ıslah et varsa kudretin

Bize lazım değil senin cennetin

Huriye gılmana esir değiliz

Arapça duaya değiliz mecbur

İster müslüman bil, istersen gavur

İnsan hor görmek en büyük küfür

Buna inanmışız, münkir değiliz

İbreti, bu hâle insan acınır

Ham sofular bu sözlerden gücenir

Aslına ermeyen elbet gocunur

Onu avutmaya mecbur değiliz

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