Oğuz Tansel

Oğuz Tansel in front of the Hitit Kitabevi bookstore on Sakarya Street in Ankara, on the occasion of the 1979 child year .

Oğuz Tansel (* 1915 in Meyre / Bozkır / Konya in Central Anatolia ; † October 30, 1994 in Ankara ) is a Turkish fairy tale collector and poet .

Life

education

The Turkish fairy tale collector and poet was born in the high village of Meyre on the northern slopes of the Taurus Mountains . He attended elementary school in Bozkır / Konya and middle school in Istanbul . He completed the first grade of high school in Konya. There the folklorist Pertev Naili Boratav , who later became internationally known, was his teacher, who aroused his interest in folklore. The literary scholar and mystic Abdülbaki Gölpınarlı also taught him. Tansel then returned to Istanbul and finished his high school education in Pertevniyal Lisesi . Here he was a student of the writer Nurullah Ataç and the poet Sabahattin Eyüboğlu . His studies at the Philosophical Faculty of the University of Istanbul (1935-1939) gave him the opportunity to get to know important Turkologists such as Kilisli Rıfat , Reşit Rahmeti Arat , Ragıp Hulusi Özden , the German Helmuth Ritter and Ali Nihat Tarlan and to be trained by them.

Among his fellow students were the famous writers Behçet Necatigil , Cahit Külebi , Zeki Ömer Defne , Ahmet Ateş and Fikret Ateş . Kalbiye Tansel, his wife, was also his fellow student. She worked for a long time as a Turkish and literature teacher in Konya .

job

Tansel did his military service in 1941 in Orkof / Ağrı / Eastern Anatolia. Then he began his teaching profession in Çiftçiler Köy Enstitüsü ; later he was transferred to Amasya . Here he looked for storytellers in the villages. In the village of Ziyere he met the old woman Emine Nine ( Ziyereli Emine Nine = Emine Uyaroğlu ), who came to his home. He made tea in the samovar and created a narrative environment. Ziyereli Emine Nine smoked a lot while telling the story . Tansel recorded the stories in Arabic script . In addition to this “fairytale aunt ”, Tansel also met a fairytale uncle at the same place - Menşur Dülger , who played the Turkish folk instrument saz and knew how to tell numerous folk tales .

From Amasya , Tansel went to Konya , where he continued his teaching profession at a middle school. He was a very respected teacher and took part in Pertev Naili Boratav's collecting trips. In Konya he organized artistic events. At the same time, it was a difficult time in his life because he was politically undesirable because of his socialist worldview.

character

Tansel died in Ankara on October 30, 1994 . He was a cheerful, helpful person for everyone. He is aptly characterized by the following quote: “Many fish swam happily in the sea and played. Suddenly a fly pike flapped its wings beneath them and flew out of the water for fresh air. He'd been against living in water all his life. Deep in his heart he wanted to overcome his fate, gasp free and become a bird . Just for a moment, while he could take it. That was enough for him. This moment, which passed as quickly as a lightning bolt, was an infinity for him. ”( Nikos Kazantzakis : El Greco'ya Mektuplar [ An account before El Greco], 1975, p. 518f.) The poet and fairy tale collector Tansel also lived like a fish who flew out of the water to get some fresh air and try to push his limits.

plant

fairy tale

Tansel's records also include fairy tales he heard from his mother and local women in his childhood. He had a good memory and wrote down these fairy tales many years later. The collection of fairy tales took place under different conditions than today. In the 1940s Turkey did not have a tape recorder , so the fairy tales had to be written down immediately or remembered . But it was important to “loosen the tongue of the informants” and get them to tell. Tansel managed to win the unreserved trust of the informants, so that they told him their fairy tales without hesitation and without compromises. By telling fairy tales himself, he encouraged his informants to do so and thus prevented a great fairy tale treasure from being lost.

Fairy tale aunts and fairy tale uncles have good memories ; they tell the fairy tales they have heard from othersand tell, alwaysenrichingthem with new motifs . In this way they express their own wishes and problems - depending on the possibilities of their imagination. It is the fact that folk fairy tale tradition is based on a creative storytelling art .

style

Tansel's merit is to have reproduced the collected fairy tales according to his own sense of language and style. He used pure Turkish and worked the fairy tales in his mind and feeling. In this sense, he could be placed as a storyteller in the tradition of Hans Christian Andersen and the Brothers Grimm . Tansel published his first fairy tale book Altı Kardeşler (Eng. The Six Brothers) in 1959, followed by other books: 1962 Yedi Devler (Eng. The Seven Giants), 1963 Üç Kızlar (Eng. The Three Girls), 1966 Mavi Gelin (Eng . The blue bride), 1976 Al'lı ile Fırfırı ( Eng . The swindler and falcon) on. For Al'lı ile Fırfırı he received the Children's Literature Prize of the Turkish Language Association Türk Dil Kurumu (Çocuk Yazını Ödülü) in 1977. In 1985 he published his fairy tales in two volumes: Konuşan Balıkla Yalnız Kız ( Eng . The talking fish and the lonely girl) and Çobanla Bey Kızı ( Eng . The Shepherd and the Prince's Daughter ).

Tansel's first poems with folk motifs and stylistic figures appeared in the magazines Servet-i Fünun and Varlık in 1937 . His sensitivity was expressed in these lyrical poems, and in addition to social problems he also took up topics such as love , brotherhood , freedom , peace and equality . What moves his heart, he carried over into his poems with longing and anger. The simplicity of expression is decisive for his style .

Poems

Tansel's first volume of poems, Savrulmayı Bekleyen Harman (German: The grain that waits to be winnowed ) came out in 1953, the second Gözünü Sevdiğim (German: Let yourself be kissed!) In 1962. In 1960, Oğuz Tansel and Metin Eloğlu transcribed the Bektaschite jokes in poetry, which were published in 1970 under the title Bektaşi Dedikleri ( Eng . Who is called Bektaschi). Tansel's last poems, which he was still preparing for printing himself, were published five years after his death in 1999: Dağı Öpmeler ( Eng . Kissing the Mountain).

Publications (selection)

Tansel published numerous works.

fairy tale

• Altı Kardeşler, (Eng. The Six Brothers) , 1959
• Yedi Devler, (German: The Seven Giants) , 1962
• Üç Kızlar, (Eng. The Three Girls) , 1963
• Mavi Gelin, (Eng. The Blue Bride) , 1966
• Al'lı ile Fırfırı, ( Eng . The swindler and falcon) , 1976
• Konuşan Balıkla Yalnız Kız, ( Eng . The talking fish and the lonely girl) , 1985
• Çobanla Bey Kızı, ( Eng . The Shepherd and the Prince's Daughter ) , 1985

Poems

• Savrulmayı Bekleyen Harman, ( Eng . The grain that waits to be winnowed ) , 1953
• Gözünü Sevdiğim, ( Eng . Let yourself be kissed!) 1962
• Bektaşi Dedikleri, ( Eng . Who is called Bektaschi) , 1970 together with Metin Eloğlu
• Dağı Öpmeler, ( Eng: kissing the mountain) , 1999

literature

• Ali Osman Öztürk : Life and work of the Turkish fairy tale collector and poet Oğuz Tansel . DEMOS. International Ethnographic and Folkloric Information, Vol. 34, 2001, Issue 4, pp. 395–397.
• Metin Turan (ed.): Üç Kanatlı Masal Kuşu 'A fairytale bird with three wings', Ankara 1996, ISBN 975-7145-14-9

Web links

• CV and literature of Oğuz Tansel (Turkish)
• Literature by and about Oğuz Tansel in the catalog of the German National Library