Meddah

Meddah, an Arabic word which means "encomiast, eulogist, panegyrist". At first it was used in that sense in the Arabic and Turkish languages. Later it began to be used in a more general sense to mean a story-teller who used mimicry, without any special idea of eulogy.

It is quite probable that in the old times the Meddah's themes were the stories of saints taken from the holy history of the Moslems. According to the legends, a holy man, Sahib Rumi by name, a native of Sivas (in Asia Minor), was patron of the Turkish Meddahs; he was also himself the first Meddah. Later, when the Mohammedan clergy forbade any reference to the saints in the plays, the Meddahs went over to secular themes; at first, to be sure, these themes were of panegyric character. It was only very gradually that the Meddahs developed into story-tellers pure and simple. They are story-tellers par excellence, masters of speech by birth. They present chiefly comic situations from the life of the lowest strata of the people. Possessed of remarkable powers of observation, they transcribe vividly scenes from life, characterized by plenty of humor and caricature. In the form of dialogue, they successfully imitate the voices and, above all, the dialects of the characters involved.

We know that the Ottoman-Turkish language, i.e. the language of the Turks of the late Ottoman Empire, is flooded with Arabic and Persian words. So largely has it borrowed from these languages and so firmly have these borrowed words embedded themselves through the centuries, that modern reformers will hardly succeed in "cleaning" their tongue. The cause of this borrowing is to be found in the fact that the Turks in the course of their history were subjected to the religious-cultural influence of the Arabs and to the purely cultural influence of the Persians. This influence is apparent not in the language alone. It may be observed in every aspect of Turkish life throughout every century of her existence. Like everything else, the Meddahs, too, came under this influence.

We have certain data which suggest that the Turks borrowed the art of the Meddahs from the Arabs. There lived at the end of the 9th century of our era (i.e. long before the appearance of the Ottomans on the historic stage) a celebrated Arabian story-teller, Ibn al-Magazili, who was already introducing into his tales national types and comic effects. In the 13th century the Meddahs organized at Bagdad a guild headed by a sheih or chief (literally "an elder").

Although we can find the roots of Meddah among the Arabs, the question of its origin and influences is not so simple. As in the Orta oyunu the traces of the antique mime, which apparently entered by way of Byzantium, are perceptible. Besides, it is known to us that story-tellers played an important role in the life of Eastern Asia. Therefore, before detecting in the Meddahs the offspring of the Arabian and classic worlds, we must study the story-teller of China, of whom nothing is known beyond the fact of his existence. We find traces of India too in the creative art of the Turkish Meddah. In more recent times, that is to say, in the second half of the 19th century, the Meddah did not escape European influence, particularly that of the French, which swept like a wave over Turkish literature.

The Meddahs, as story-tellers, were already popular at the dawn of Turkey's history; they are mentioned in the reign of the Sultan Bayazid Yildirim or the Thunderbolt, 1389-1402. Turkish historians tell us how the Meddahs flourished at the courts of the Sultans Mustapha I, 1617-1623, and Murad IV, 1623-1640. Not only have the names of the most famous of these story-tellers reached us, but information as to their repertoires as well. From one source we learn of their linguistic capacity, of their skilled reproduction of scenes of court life and other every-day episodes, of the nocturnal adventures of their heroes, and so forth.

In the 18th century the Meddahs enjoyed the special favour of the Sultan Ahmed III. The end of that century saw the first attempt of European travellers to collect the material of the Meddahs and to note down their stories. At the beginning of the 19th century, at the time of the reforms of Mahmud II, the Meddahs played an important political rôle and championed the conservative party. At that period they were the owners of those coffee-houses in which they acted as artists. Because of this, their income, as well as their success, was increased.

Usually the Meddah began his performance by the recitation of a proverb or a passage from a religious text; he drew therefrom a moral precept, on the basis of which he went on to construct his parable.