Yunus Emre’s divan found in Vatican archives

ISTANBUL

A new divan of Yunus Emre, one of the most important figures of Turkish-Islamic folk thought, has come to light in the digital inscriptions shared by the Vatican Library over the internet.

Himmet Büke, an academic from Mehmet Akif Ersoy University, identified a new divan, which contains nearly 200 poems, among the digital collections of Turkish manuscripts shared by the Vatican Library.

Büke shared his findings at the meeting of the International Yunus Emre and World Language Turkish Information Festival.

He stressed that the divan has not surfaced and has not been examined before.

Noting that the inscription was copied about 400 years ago, the academic stated that there were nearly 200 poems in the work consisting of 196 leaves.

“While the poems are compatible with the Old Anatolian Turkish, they also contain archaic elements,” Büke noted.

There are two works of Emre, “Risâletü’n-Nushiyye,” written in 1307, and “Divan,” composed of his poems compiled by his lovers after his death.

The great Sufi thinker and folk poet is considered one of the spiritual architects of Anatolia.

The year 2021 was declared by UNESCO as “the Yunus Emre Year” to commemorate the 750th birth anniversary of the great Turkish Muslim mystic.