Abstract
WOMEN IN OTTOMAN EMPIRE IN THE CONTEXT OF TOKATLI NURI’S “DİLBERLER DESTANI”
Minstrel literature was composed in Ottoman domain and also produced its most productive works at the same place. Minstrels, who compose this literature, expressed the feelings and thoughts of people and thus articulated their feelings. These poets, who have strong observation skills, successfully expressed the customs, rituals, entertainment culture, education and economic life, clothes, believes, architecture, food culture, administrators, and some certain characters of the society in which they live in their poets. Tokatlı Nuri who lived in 19th Century, mention typical characteristics of women with different social backgrounds and nations in Ottoman Empire in his epic consist of fifteen quatrains. These characteristics of women should be regarded as an image which shaped through long ages and based on experiments. This epic, which mention Arabs, Greeks, Armenian, Albanian, Bosnian, Jewish, Tatarian, Kurd, Cherkes, Georgian and Turkish nations, represents ottoman society. it is possible to see the coalescence of different nations in Ottoman Empire by way of this poet.
Keywords
Ottoman Empire, women, epic, Tokatlı Nuri.