I have to write a short paragraph about Turkish culture. Can you help me?
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The culture of Turkey combines a heavily diverse and heterogeneous set of elements that have been derived from the various cultures of the Eastern Mediterranean (West Asian) and Central Asian region and to a lesser degree, Eastern European, and Caucasian traditions.
Things Turkey is Famous for
3 CommentsLeave a comment. Urshlla Kaul says:
Pamukkale. Another natural fairy-tale like location, Pamukkale, meaning 'cotton castle' is famous for is 17 hot springs and travertines. ...
Antalya. ...
Turkish Soap Operas. ...
Cappadocia. ...
Whirling Dervishes of Koyna. ...
Turkish Food. ...
Troy. ...
sandhayasinha:
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A long, long time ago, when the sieve was inside the straw, when the donkey was the town crier and the camel was the barber. . . Once there was; once there wasn't. God's creatures were as plentiful as grains and talking too much was a sin. . . A great many traditional Turkish tales were, and still are, introduced with this tekerleme (a formulaic jingle with numerous variants). In these lilting overtures, one finds the spirit and some of the essential features of the story: The vivid imagination, irreconcilable paradoxes, rhythmic structure (with built-in syllabic meters and internal rhymes), a comic sense bordering on the absurd, a sense of the mutability of the world, the aesthetic urge to avoid loquaciousness, the continuing presence of the past, and the predilection of the narrative to maintain freedom from time and place.
Turkish tales are nothing if they are not fanciful. Most of them include leaps of the imagination into the realm of phantasmagoria. Even in realistic and moralistic stories, there is usually an element of whimsy. Bizarre transformations abound. There are abrupt turns of events, inexplicable changes of identity. Even the anecdotes of Nasreddin Hoca, the thirteenth-century wit who came to embody much of popular Turkish humor, have a way of forcing the boundaries of logic. It would not be incorrect to say, "The heart of the Turkish tale is fantasy."
The tales so ably collected in this volume by Dr. Barbara K. Walker come from the time-honored typology of Turkish oral narratives - wisdom stories, fables, heroic and historical narratives, love stories, legends, accounts of miraculous occurrences, humorous and satirical anecdotes.
The tradition goes back to the dawn of Turkish history in Central Asia more than fifteen centuries ago. In the early epochs of sedentary as well as nomadic culture, the "weightless genres" became paramount - poetry, music, dance, and the oral narrative. In later centuries, with the Turks migrating into Asia Minor and then holding sway in far-flung territories, a great synthesis of oral literature evolved (much of it was to be transcribed later). The synthesis comprised the autochthonous legacy of the Turks and the rich material they amassed from the Asian (mainly Chinese and Indian) tradition, from the Islamic lore, from the Middle East, Byzantium, the Balkans, and the rest of Europe.
That is why the Turkish repertoire is so vast and the diversity of tales so encompassing. Their shamans had, from the outset, relied on mesmerizing verses and instructive tales in shaping the spiritual life of the tribes. Tales were then talismans and thaumaturgical potions. During the process of conversion to Islam, missionaries and proselytizers used the legends and the historical accounts of the new faith to their advantage. Tales became tantalizing evangelical tools. Seljuk Anatolia and the Ottoman Empire nurtured storytelling as a prevalent form of entertainment and enlightenment: Professional storytellers, preachers, teachers and comedians kept the tradition alive, developed new versions, and contributed fresh material. Mothers not only sang lullabies, but they also recounted familiar and unfamiliar bedtime stories. Everyday conversation was peppered with anecdotes, funny or instructive, religious or profane.
In a society where the rate of literacy remained below ten percent until the mid-1920s, oral narratives played a major role in cultural transmission. Hence the vast corpus of narrative material and the preponderance and success of the short story genre in recent decades. The study of traditional Turkish culture will have to rely heavily on an analysis of oral literature to determine communal values and aspirations, to deal with aesthetic preferences, and to establish sui generis characteristics. It is, of course, only one of the major components that will figure in a comprehensive survey. Oral literature, however, offers some significant prospects in the richness of its imaginative resources, its metaphorical systems, and its ethical precepts. It has also contributed in an important way to keeping folk culture alive and to preserving many aspects of pre-Islamic Turkic values during the the more Islamic and Arabo-Persian influenced Ottoman centuries.
Turkish tales are nothing if they are not fanciful. Most of them include leaps of the imagination into the realm of phantasmagoria. Even in realistic and moralistic stories, there is usually an element of whimsy. Bizarre transformations abound. There are abrupt turns of events, inexplicable changes of identity. Even the anecdotes of Nasreddin Hoca, the thirteenth-century wit who came to embody much of popular Turkish humor, have a way of forcing the boundaries of logic. It would not be incorrect to say, "The heart of the Turkish tale is fantasy."
The tales so ably collected in this volume by Dr. Barbara K. Walker come from the time-honored typology of Turkish oral narratives - wisdom stories, fables, heroic and historical narratives, love stories, legends, accounts of miraculous occurrences, humorous and satirical anecdotes.
The tradition goes back to the dawn of Turkish history in Central Asia more than fifteen centuries ago. In the early epochs of sedentary as well as nomadic culture, the "weightless genres" became paramount - poetry, music, dance, and the oral narrative. In later centuries, with the Turks migrating into Asia Minor and then holding sway in far-flung territories, a great synthesis of oral literature evolved (much of it was to be transcribed later). The synthesis comprised the autochthonous legacy of the Turks and the rich material they amassed from the Asian (mainly Chinese and Indian) tradition, from the Islamic lore, from the Middle East, Byzantium, the Balkans, and the rest of Europe.
That is why the Turkish repertoire is so vast and the diversity of tales so encompassing. Their shamans had, from the outset, relied on mesmerizing verses and instructive tales in shaping the spiritual life of the tribes. Tales were then talismans and thaumaturgical potions. During the process of conversion to Islam, missionaries and proselytizers used the legends and the historical accounts of the new faith to their advantage. Tales became tantalizing evangelical tools. Seljuk Anatolia and the Ottoman Empire nurtured storytelling as a prevalent form of entertainment and enlightenment: Professional storytellers, preachers, teachers and comedians kept the tradition alive, developed new versions, and contributed fresh material. Mothers not only sang lullabies, but they also recounted familiar and unfamiliar bedtime stories. Everyday conversation was peppered with anecdotes, funny or instructive, religious or profane.
In a society where the rate of literacy remained below ten percent until the mid-1920s, oral narratives played a major role in cultural transmission. Hence the vast corpus of narrative material and the preponderance and success of the short story genre in recent decades. The study of traditional Turkish culture will have to rely heavily on an analysis of oral literature to determine communal values and aspirations, to deal with aesthetic preferences, and to establish sui generis characteristics. It is, of course, only one of the major components that will figure in a comprehensive survey. Oral literature, however, offers some significant prospects in the richness of its imaginative resources, its metaphorical systems, and its ethical precepts. It has also contributed in an important way to keeping folk culture alive and to preserving many aspects of pre-Islamic Turkic values during the the more Islamic and Arabo-Persian influenced Ottoman centuries.
Thanks for your reply. But your answer is too long, but I'm grateful.
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