Abstract
From The Traditional Actor Of The Neighborhood To The Folkloric Image In Classical Poetry: “The Watchmann”
The traditional Ottoman neighborhood, which covers all aspects of everyday life and expresses a highly meaningful and rich integrity, is the smallest administrative unit of the empire and forms the nucleus of the social life of the Ottoman Empire. The protection of this structure, which was very important with its settlement as a small-scale reflection of the social life of that period, was possible only by ensuring peace, security and public order there, and the watchman played an active role as a complementary element of the traditional neighborhood setting. In addition to providing public order in the neighborhood, announcing the fires in the city, making public the beginning of the month of Ramadan with his drum, and inviting the people of the neighborhood to the sahur (meal eaten before starting fasting in Ramadan) were also among the duties of the watchman. While this characters, representing a unique culture with their clothing, hand lanterns, drums, strong voice echoing in the neighborhood and the staff they carry, appear in poetry texts of the Ottoman period that contain almost every element regarding the social life, the attitude developed by the neighborhood people towards the watchman and the perception of the watchman's mission in the neighborhood and the trust that is an attachment of his title, are rendered in the focus of various visions and parables in these verse texts.
Keywords
Ottoman social life, neighborhood, classical Turkish poetry, type, watchmann.