IMPORTANCE OF POETICAL FETİHNAcirc;MES AS HISTORICAL SOURCES

Abstract

Fetihn & acirc;mes in the form of books, focus on the military expeditions and conquests of the Ottoman Empire. They are considered as individual histories in Ottoman historiography, and are counted among literary genres in the tradition of classical Turkish literature. Constituting a significant part of the fetihn & acirc;me genre and being concentrated at the 16th century, most of the independent poetic fetihn & acirc;mes were written to describe the events in the expeditions in question rather than being pieces of art. However, among them, there are examples of having literary aspects exceeding their narrational values or drawing attention to their literary and historical elements simultaneously. This study aims to reveal the degree of practicality of the poetic fetihn & acirc;mes for conveying historical information. For this purpose, it draws attention to some special features of poetic fetihn & acirc;mes and aspects contributing to the studies on classical age of Ottoman history. It tries to determine their importance as a historical source by comparing them with historical sources and researches.