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Document Details :

Title: Kurdistan in the 16th and 17th Centuries
Subtitle: as reflected in Ecliya Celebi's Seyahatname
Author(s): VAN BRUINESSEN, Martin
Journal: Journal of Kurdish Studies
Volume: 3    Date: 1998-2000   
Pages: 1-11
DOI: 10.2143/JKS.3.0.519238

Abstract :
Some sicty years after Sharaf Khan Bidlisi completed his Sharafname, the celebrated Turkish traveller Evliya Çelebi travelled extensively in Kurdistan. The ten thick volumes of his Book of Travels (Seyahatname) constitute a unique work almost unparalleled in the travel literature. The account of his travels in Kurdistan is unfortunately not yet completely available in print. At the time when the Ottoman printed edition of these volumes appeared, the archetype (the manuscript from wwhich all later manuscripts appear to be copies, and which either was written in Evliya's own hand or dictated to a scribe) was not available to the editors, Neceib Asim Bey and the great historian Ahmed Cevdet. Sultan Abdulhamid II's censors (or the editor's frar of the censors) moreover caused some alterations in the text as it was published. Only parts of Evliya's memoirs on Kurdistan have so far been published in a more satisfactory edition. One important part has in fact never been published at all and is awaiting a critical edition.

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