Introduction to Mecmūa (Compendium), Ali Emre Özyıldırım (10.21.2022)

 FSM Center for Manuscript Studies  started its 22-week "Mecmūa"-themed workshop in the 2022-2023 Academic Year on Friday, October 21, 2022 with the Opening Lecture delivered by Ali Emre Özyıldırım from Yıldız Technical University.  The conference, which was open to the participation of all relevant researchers as well as workshop participants, was titled "Introduction to Compendium". Ali Emre Özyıldırım started his speech by addressing the difficulties of talking about the compendium and making a general introduction to the subject. Stating that he will draw the conceptual framework of the subject, Özyıldırım said that he will explain the subject with the titles "From Mecmūa to Book" and "Mecmūas in Everyday Life" and show the participants the use of the concepts of compendium and terms meaning compendium in texts.

Özyıldırım stated that compendiums, which have a great variety in terms of thematic and stylistic diversity, cannot be understood in such a short meeting, and emphasized that it would be very useful to examine the concept and types of compendiums in detail in the compendium workshop to be organized throughout the year. At this point, as an academic who has been interested in manuscripts for years, he stated that he would emphasize a few points in his speech as an introduction to the issue.

Sharing his own opinions and determinations with the participants, Özyıldırım pointed out that what he said throughout the speech would not be possible to cover all compendium and added that he would explain the subject by focusing on compendiums of poetry and literature, which is his field of interest.

Emphasizing that we should first talk about the origin of the word compendium, he stated that the words defter [notebook] and kitab [book] are guiding words for this. While he was introducing the meaning of the word through the fact that many dictionaries refer to "notebook" as a compendium [compendium] of sewn paper, Özyıldırım said that the word compendium means "things gathered together", it has nothing special to do with the book, and that the words “compendium” and “mecmū” can be used for anything and emphasized the origin of the relationship between compendium, defter, and kitab.  

Subsequently, he brought to the attention of researchers concepts such as "jönk, sefīne, beyaż, tomar, jüzdan, jerīde, diwan, güldeste, müntekhab, keshkül" which are related to compendium in Ottoman culture. Among these concepts, he stated that jönk and sefīne are compendiums opened lengthwise and many Turkish and Persian dictionaries define sefīne -which has the same meaning- as jönk, and that the word beyaż [literally means white] is used for compendium . He also stated that tomar [literally bundle], which is used for a collection of unsewn papers, is a notebook or compendium if it is sewn, and that the words jüzdan [literally wallet] and jerīde [literally newspaper or notebook] are sometimes used for compendium. In addition, he pointed out that diwans can also be seen as compendiums since the poets in diwans choose and collect their poems. He also said that the words güldeste and müntekhab [literally selection] are also used as the equivalent of today's anthology, and the word keshkül is a popular word with the same meaning, especially in the Iranian field. Özyıldırım drew attention to the transitivity between these basic concepts that can be mentioned about compendiums and gave examples of the use of each concept in poems. 

After explaining the concepts, Özyıldırım focused on the types of compendiums and stated that recently there have been satisfying articles on the classification of compendiums and that those have been classified by scholars working in different fields. Stating that compendiums can be classified independently of their subjects, Özyıldırım emphasized that accordingly, they can be classified in three ways: "the ones as personal notebooks", "the ones prepared as a selection" and "the ones formed by pasting / binding". He also explained how and on the basis of which examples he justified these three types of classification.

He pointed out that these three types of compendiums are only referred to as compendium in catalogs and libraries, but they contain many works, and that it is also possible to talk about the sub-branches of each group in this classification. Özyıldırım, who showed both the examples he shared on the screen and the solid compendiums he actually brought to the researchers, ensured that the concept of compendium became permanent in the minds of the researchers with the examples he gave.   

Drawing the conceptual framework of the issue, Özyıldırım emphasized that the use of the concept of compendium in poems says a lot about the mindset and drew attention to the use of the word in poems by giving examples from poems in the introductions of compendiums.  First, he shared examples of the universe being thought of as a compendium and its overlapping with it, which is a book. 

Then, he talked about the process of the formation of a book by referring to compendiums, which are books themselves. He said that the following perception has settled: A book -which emerges as a result of a flow of like jam’  [compilation], tasnif [classification], ta’lif [authoring], tadwin [collection], and tajlid [vincture]-  is something that is composed. At this point, after mentioning the relationship between the Qur'an and the compendium, he talked about the connection of it with the book.

Giving examples from Ḥayretī, Nefʿī, Sheykh Gālib, Āshık Chalabi, Sahī Bey, Latīfī, Gelibolulu Ālī, Ewliya Çelebi, Özyıldırım explained how the authors used the word compendium and words with the same meaning in their couplets with examples from the 16th-17th-18th centuries. Based on this, Özyıldırım emphasized that the poets of the 15th century and before rarely used the word compendium, and that the use of the word became widespread from the 16th century onwards, and emphasized that we should not forget that the conceptualization of these words has changed and transformed in the historical process. 

Finally, Özyıldırım examined the meaning of the compendium in daily life under this heading and explained that the compendium was carried on the waist and bosom. He added that the compendium was used as an element of prestige and, so to speak, that it was a means of showing off. He subsequently stated that the compendium was given as a gift and it appeared as a place where calligraphy samples were collected and that it could be prepared in illustrated form with examples from the couplets of many poets.

Özyıldırım ended his speech by talking about the different features of the compendium such as the papers used in the compendium, the indices of the compendium and the use of the compendium for having a good time, and concluded his speech with the wish of "let no harm come to our compendium".

In the speech, which was finalized with the contributions and comments of the participants, attention was drawn to the works on the compendium by Hatice Aynur and some researchers . Some participants also stated that they would like to see the classification of compendium shared by Ali Emre Özyıldırım in this speech as an article.

 

 

Author: Gülsüm Gülsev Şanver