ISTANBUL, March 26 (Bernama) — Internet search engine Google has shown a special logo on its homepage to celebrate the 400th birthday of 17th century Turkish traveler and writer Evliya Celebi, reported Turkey’s Anadolu News Agency.
The logo on google.com.tr depicts Evliya Celebi riding a horse. Internet users are able to get special search results about Evliya Celebi by clicking on the icon.
Last year, UNESCO included the 400th anniversary of Ottoman traveler’s birth to its timetable for celebration of anniversaries. Commemoration events for Evliya Celebi (1611-1682) will take place throughout the year in 2011.
Evliya Celebi was born in Istanbul. He began his travels in Istanbul, taking notes on buildings, markets, customs and culture; in 1640, he started his first journey outside the city. His collection of notes from all of his travels formed a ten-volume work called the Seyahatname (Book of Travels).
Although many of the descriptions in this book were written in an exaggerated manner or were plainly inventive fiction or 3rd-source misinterpretation, his notes are widely accepted as a useful guide to the cultural aspects and lifestyle of 17th-century Ottoman Empire.
The first volume deals exclusively with Istanbul, the final volume with Egypt. Despite being characterized as unreliable, the work is valued as both a study of Turkish culture and the lands he reports on.
Currently, there is no English translation of the entire work. There are translations of various parts of the Seyahatname, but not the whole. The longest single English translation was published in 1834 by Ritter Joseph von Hammer-Purgstall, an Austrian Orientalist; it may be found under the name “Evliya Efendi.” Von Hammer’s work covers the first two volumes: Istanbul and Anatolia.
The translation is by now quite antiquated, but other sections have been translated, such as Erich Prokosch’s nearly complete German translations of the tenth volume.
An introduction to the work entitled The World of Evliya Celebi: An Ottoman Mentality was published in 2004 written by University of Chicago professor Robert Dankoff.
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