Evliya Çelebi's First Journey

Evliyâ Çelebi is a great Turkish traveler who lived in 17th century Turkey, painted the miniature of the Empire, and fit the entire geography into his notebook. We can say that when my dear Evliyâ set foot in Bursa, he considered himself a “traveler”. Because, while he was walking around the streets of Istanbul before setting out on a long walk that would build his “career”; the question “How can I escape the grief of father and mother, master and brother and become a world traveler?” was constantly on his mind.

He made the decision to make the road and journey a life occupation after he went to the throne of the ancients. The moment he first stepped into the capital was a great moment for both himself and humanity. From now on, he would measure and evaluate the cities he would write about with the Bursa draft, and he would tell his own story between the sentences “those towns” are either like Bursa or they do not even exist in Bursa. Whichever city he goes to, whichever mountain, plain, bazaar, bridge, mosque, inn, bath he sees, he will cover the shawl of the simile with the ancient capital.

You will read the preface of the Seyahatname, which compiles the last days of the old world and makes a notch in the times when mythology, tale and narration intertwined, in Evliya Çelebi’s First Travel. Then, let the following words of Tanpınar, who sees our traveler as a “mirror of the homeland”, be your guide: “How much can we believe the dreams of Evliya Çelebi, who started his travels with a dream so pleasant and humorous that its truthfulness is questionable? I don’t really know. Besides, I read Evliya Çelebi not to criticize him, but to believe in him. And for this reason, I always profit.”