Abstract
A Poetic History Adorned With Miniatures: Şeh-name-i Nadiri
Poetic histories are literary works giving information
about history. Even though according to their contents
they were named differently such as fetih-nâme, zafernâme,
gazâ-nâme, gazavât-nâme, those names were mostly
used interchangeably. The main purpose in most of these
works is to do historiography; however, the attempts to
present a literary work can also be seen in few of them.
Şeh-nâmes are one of the poetic works which are written
to state the historical events. Şeh-nâmeci is the name given
to the historians of the palace in the Ottoman Empire.
Mostly in verse format and adorned with miniatures,
şeh-nâmes mention the Ottoman literature history.
However, sometimes it is seen that they put the wars of a
specific sultan into words. The Şeh-nâme of Ganî-zâde
Nâdirî living in the seventeenth century is such a poetic
history. Consisted of approximately 2000 verses, the work
is a masnavi written in the Şeh-nâme prosody. The topic
formed around the Iran wars during the period of Sultan
Osman II and in particular his campaigns to Poland. This
work can be named as gazavât-nâme due to its content.
Ganî-zâde Nâdirî remarked that he wrote Şeh-nâme not to
originate a historical work, but to write a masnavi.
However, in spite of its exeggerated and partial style, this
work is a significant picture which depicts that period and
it is also important in that it is the last example of the
pictorial poetic histories of Ottoman dynasty.
The copy of The Şeh-nâme of Ganîzâde Nâdirî with
miniatures is in Topkapı Palace Library. Some of the
events told in masnavi were portrayed; in this way, it was
attempted to reveal the history in a harmony formed by the
two important art: poetry and painting.
In this paper, while the difference of Şeh-nâme from the
other historical sources was presented, the period of Sultan
Osman II was tried to be heard in the prosody of Ganîzâde
Nâdiri’s poem, and to be imagined in the colour of
miniatures.
Keywords
Poetic History, Şeh-nâme, Ganî-zâde Nâdirî, Miniatures.