Google doodle marks Turkish minstrel’s 123rd birthday

ISTANBUL

Google marked the 123rd birthday of one of Turkey’s most prominent early 20th century folk poets and singers on Oct. 25.

The search engine’s Turkish home page showed a cartoon of Aşık Veysel playing his bağlama, a local stringed instrument, with

Turkish carpet motives in the background. Veysel was born in Şarkışla, a town in the central province of Sivas, on Oct. 25, 1894.

He was blinded during childhood and was given a bağlama by his father and began learning to play and sing.

In the 1930s, he began attracting attention across Turkey after meeting poet Ahmet Kutsi Tecer at a folk poets’ night in Sivas and beginning to play around the country.

His music and poems, often tinged with both happiness and sadness, inspired a new generation of folk artists in Turkey and covered by numbers of musicians.

Veysel died of lung cancer on March 21, 1973.