Abstract:

Osman Nevres, who lived and produced his works in the 19th century, is one of the poets that pursued the classical poetry tradition. It is known that Nevres did not join “Encümen-i Şuara” which is one of the most important poem community of that era, and he is also known as “homeland poet”. Although he was born in Chios Island, he spent most of his life in Baghdad and wrote three lyric poems mentioning the concept of homeland with redif of “homeland (vatan)” in his Divan. On the other hand, the poet has other poems with the redif of “vatanın”, “hubb-ı vatan”, “vatan diyü”, “vatana”, “vatanperver”, and “vatan söyler ağlarım”. In dictionaries, homeland is defined as a place where a person was born and lived. However, unlike the meaning in dictionaries, in the Divan poem tradition, homeland is used as the place where the beloved lives. Poet/ lover sees the place that his beloved lives in as homeland, and he sees himself as in the foreign land away from that place. In this paper, it will be mentioned that how Osman Nevres handled “homeland” in his poems related to homeland, what he means by using this concept, and the differences with Divan poem tradition if there are. Thus, this paper aims to determine if there is a transformation in the understanding of homeland in Divan poem on the basis of Osman Nevres’ poems. Moreover, this paper seeks an answer for the question of how mentality change in the Ottoman Empire and society in the 19th century are reflected on the poem through the concept of homeland.

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