The Center for Evliya Çelebi Studies, in collaboration with Ketebe, will produce a scientific edition of the Seyahatname, which transforms Evliya Çelebi’s decades-long journeys into a grand historical narrative.
Since 1896, the Seyahatname has appeared in various publications, simplified versions, and summaries. However, a universally accepted scholarly edition has not yet been produced. This project aims to present the work with all names, words, suffixes, and transcription marks reflecting the period’s language, creating a scientific edition that will be accepted by all. Many scholars in Turkey and abroad who study Evliya Çelebi will contribute to the project.
The approximately four-year project will result in a ten-volume new edition, a modern Turkish version, and a digital edition.
By “scientific edition,” it is meant to produce a fully transcribed and critically edited text of the Seyahatname, one of the most important sources for the Turkish language, in accordance with philological and scholarly criteria.
Previous editions of the Seyahatname did not aim for a text that met scientific standards; they included reading differences, omissions, and used simplified transcription systems. Reading errors, skipped words, and pronunciations rendered according to modern usage rather than as recorded in the text have made a new edition necessary, a need expressed by most experts who have worked on the Seyahatname for many years. This issue has also been repeatedly discussed in the Evliya Çelebi Talks Series, organized by the Center over the past two years.
The results of numerous studies and analyses on the Seyahatname will also be taken into account in the new edition. The Seyahatname serves as a source text not only for standard Turkish and dialects but also for many other languages spoken in the regions Evliya Çelebi visited. He marked these linguistic examples to reflect their original pronunciation. To ensure the work can serve as a source in studies of language, history, architecture, literature, and other fields, these special usages and marks must be fully transferred to new characters. In many respects, the work is a unique resource for understanding the phonetic development of Turkish, as an etymological source, as dictionary material, and for dialect studies.
A modern Turkish edition intended for a wider audience can only be properly prepared after a complete scholarly publication. Therefore, the project will first produce the scientific edition, followed by the modern Turkish edition.
Another important outcome of the project will be the preparation of different dictionaries based on the words and concepts found in the Seyahatname.
Project Advisory and Publication Board:
Prof. Dr. Robert Dankoff
Prof. Dr. Nuran Tezcan
Prof. Dr. Musa Duman
Prof. Dr. Hayati Develi
Prof. Dr. Zekeriya Kurşun
Sabri Koz
Assoc. Prof. Dr. İlhami Danış
Assoc. Prof. Dr. Yunus Uğur
Assoc. Prof. Marta Andrić
Prof. Dr. Slobodan Illić
Prof. Dr. Gerald MacLean
Prof. Dr. Hanifi Vural
Prof. Dr. Nurettin Gemici
Prof. Dr. Donna Landry