Evilya Çelebi (I)— Seyhatnâme: Balıklava
Description:
Derviş Mehmed Zilli (approx. 1611 – 1685) was best known by his pen name Evilya Çelebi, and originated from Constantine in the Ottoman Empire. He was an Ottoman Turkish explorer, renowned for his recording of over 40 years of exploration across the Black Sea region and beyond in his Seyahatnâme, or Book of Travels.
Excerpt:
Description of the walled town of Balıklava. While participating in so many campaigns, I had no free time to note the climate and monuments of the Crimea, including this walled town of Balıklava; so I dare not give a description of it.
In the month of (—) in the year (—), along with 350 other passengers, I boarded a şayka belonging to a certain Captain Ucalı Sefer. Sleeping on board that night I had some frightful dreams, and in the morning went ashore to give alms to the poor in order to ward off calamity. I reboarded and we weighed anchor. A small boat guided us out of the harbour. Because we gave no heed to whether the hour was auspicious – in accordance with the Koranic verses On a day of unremitting woe (54:19) and Over a few ill-omened days (41:16) – and made no prayers for saintly intercession, we hoisted sail with a north wind and, putting our trust in God, sailed for one day and one night with a favourable wind at our stern until we reached approximately the middle of the Black Sea. […]
The Anapa mountains to the north and the Suluyar mountains near Balıklava behind us were not visible, nor was there any sign of the Sinop and Amasra mountains in front of us. For another day and another night we were tossed about in a whirlpool of grief, the wind now before us, now behind us, not knowing in which direction we should go. In that inauspicious open sea, where neither road nor guide was evident and the sun rose in the sea and set in the sea, we sailed aimlessly, tossed about by the waves.
By God’s decree, black clouds appeared in the eastern sky. A whirlwind arose, squalls with thunder and lightning, and huge waves. All the mariners turned pale and began to rub their hands. They looked at the compass in the stern and at their mariners’ compasses, then looked at one another and began to think how to save their skins. One of them, an old salt named Dede Dayı, spoke up, ‘Avast, my hearties! What are you afeared of? God is generous. Look, a storm is brewing. Lower the topmast with the sail.’
They all jumped to and lowered the sheets and brought down the mainsail mast. But the tossing of the sea did not calm down, it only grew stronger. With the passengers assisting, the crew began to heave cargo overboard – sacks of wool, reed mats, barrels of pickled fish, ship’s timbers. The 200 captives who were aboard, young and old, were put in the hold, with the cover tightly shut. God be praised, the ship lightened a bit. Still the waves reached to the sky, the hurly-burly increased and the wind grew stronger, as in the verse:
If the boat of my heart, when we are apart,
Is tossed in a whirlpool of grief,
What can I do? The winds of time
Offer us no relief.
Explanation:
Ottoman traveler Evliya Çelebi’s Seyahatnâme (17th century) offers some of the earliest articulations of the Black Sea littoral space. His writing engages with the turbulent water as a framework for navigating encounters with the sublime and unknown, extensively contemplating the sea space as one of immense power, transformation, and risk. The littoral is a context, for Çelebi, that functions with profound conceptual force – that shapes and clarifies the space around it both spiritually and physically. It is a container of history, time, and the sublime, whilst totally refusing containment itself.