Kerem ile Aslı
Kerem ile Aslı (az. Əsli və Kərəm ) is a tragic love story of Kerem and Aslı from the Turkish-Azerbaijani folk poetry of the 16th century. The story probably originated in Azerbaijan or Eastern Anatolia and is common throughout the Caucasus and Central Asia.
The history
Kerem ile Aslı will be performed by Aşık . These sing about and tell the love between Kerem, son of the Muslim Padischah of Isfahan , and Aslı, daughter of an Armenian Christian monk or priest. Sometimes the father is also described as the ruler's treasurer. Kerem falls in love with Aslı. However, her father refuses to consent to the wedding because of his religious affiliation. Fearing the Padischah, the father flees with his daughter, and Kerem and his friend Sofu set out to look for her. After a long journey they finally find Aslı, and at the behest of the Pasha of Aleppo , the couple are married. On the wedding night, the buttons of the enchanted robe that the monk put on his daughter cannot be undone. Kerem lets out such a deep sigh that it goes up in flames. Aslı tries to put out the fire and save Kerem, but to no avail. When Aslı bends over the heap of ashes that remained from her lover, her hair catches on fire and she burns too.
The story, passed down in numerous variants, describes in detail the adventures of Kerems and Sofus, who travel to Khoy , Tbilisi , Gəncə and Yerevan in search of them . Aşık Kerem, as he is also known, recites poems in caravanserais or coffee houses in which he conjures up the beauty of Aslı, which he conjures up with mountains such as the Nemrut Dağı and the Süphan Dağı as well as rivers such as the Murat and the Kızılırmak or with the beauty compares cranes and gazelles. Together with Sofu, he faces many dangers.
The story is often enriched with fateful coincidences and supernatural motifs: The two lovers were born at the same hour and grew up together. Sometimes sorcery was already in play when the two main characters were born or Hızır saves Kerem from dire need, rivers and mountains give way when Kerem starts a poem, and Kerem speaks with skulls on the Cudi Dağı , the place where Noah's Ark was found .
reception
The earliest known record is found in the Mecmûatü'l-Letâif Sandükatü'z-Zerâif from the 16th century. The story was published and processed many times in print form towards the end of the 19th century. Ahmed Fahri wrote a play in five acts on the subject in 1888. In the same year Leopold Grünfeld translated Kerem and Aslı into German (Anatolian folk songs from the Kaba Dil. Leipzig 1888). Other scholars who dealt with Kerem and Aslı included: a. Mehmet Fuat Köprülü , Pertev Naili Boratav and Cahit Öztelli . Üzeyir Hacıbəyov processed the material into an opera ("Əsli və Kərəm") in 1912, as did Ahmed Adnan Saygun ("Kerem") decades later. In folk music there is a separate form of song called "Kerem havaları".
Adolf Körner filmed the material in 1942 and Orhan Elmas in 1971. In 2002, a television series called "Aslı ile Kerem" was made as a contemporary adaptation.
Printouts
- Besim Atalay: Âşık Kerem . Istanbul 1930.
- Eflâtun Cem Güney: Kerem ile Aslı . 1959.
literature
- Şükrü Elçin: Kerem ile Aslı Hikayesi (Araştırma-İnceleme). Ankara 2000.
- Ali Duymaz: Kerem ile Aslı hikâyesi: Üzerinde Mukayeseli Bir Araştırma. Ankara 2001.
Web links
- Anatolian love songs (from: Anatolian folk songs from "Kaba dili" by Leopold Grünfeld, Leipzig 1888)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Alev Tekinay: The German and Turkish romance in the Middle Ages: A contribution to the comparative literary history. In: Journal of the Deutsche Morgenländische Gesellschaft, Vol. 131, No. 1, 1981, pp. 137–157, here p. 147