Hıdırellez

The subject of the article is Khidr and Elijah traditions in Semitic religions. Judaism, Christianity and Islam refer to the semitic religions, namely the religions born in the Sami tradition. The study examined Khidr and Elijah traditions within Judaism, Christianity and Islam. The main aim of the study is to reveal both Khidr and Elijah traditions in these three religions within their own integrity and independence. Because these three religions, although they belong to Sami tradition, have formed their own traditions of Khidr and Elijah. It is seen in the study that Khidr and his story do not take part in Jewish main texts, but the Jews have produced a story at a very late period by placing Elijah instead of Khidr in the 11th century.  It is understood that in Christian tradition there are saint cults which have similarities with some of the practices related to Khidr among the Muslim folk beliefs but which changes from church to church. Therefore, it is determined that from all sources of sacred texts to the folk beliefs there is only a tradition of Khidr belongs to Muslim. Elijah expresses the same personality in the sacred texts of these three religions, but these religious traditions possess unique Elijah figures with their own beliefs and practices. Another belief shaping especially Muslim folk beliefs is the coming together of Khidr and Elijah. It is believed that the two come together on May 6, Hıdırellez Day. The belief in Khidr and Elijah’s immortality has been an important factor in the formation of Hıdırellez and many other beliefs. The figure of immortality has been an impressive and decisive belief in all Semitic traditions.

Burdur’da Hıdırellez Kutlamaları
Osmanlı Devleti döneminde ve Cumhuriyet’in ilk
yıllarında Hıdırellez kutlamaları “İslam Kırı” veya “Çarşamba”
olarak isimlendirilen yerde kutlanırdı. Burası
günümüzde “Hızırilyas Mahallesi”, “Hıdırellez Çeşmesi”
ve “Hıdırlık (Dört Ayetli – Dört Ayaklı) Türbesi”nin bulunduğu
yerlerdir. Geçmişte buralarda bağ, bahçe ve gülistanlar
bulunmakta idi.

This article discusses conceptualizations of the role tombs and trees play in rituals of saint veneration among Arab Alawites and Orthodox Christians during the Hıdırellez spring festivals in Hatay, the southernmost region of Turkey. As tomb and tree veneration is known throughout the Eastern Mediterranean, the objective is to establish an analytical framework that better accounts for their role in religious practice. It is not by the belief of religious actors that saint veneration rituals are rendered efficacious, but rather by the dynamics of ritual networks the devotees are part of during visits to pilgrimage sites or celebrations of religious festivals. This argument is presented in three steps. After a critical assessment of past research on tomb and tree veneration in the Eastern Mediterranean, Bruno Latour’s Actor-Network Theory is proposed to better analyze the human ritual interactions with tombs and trees. With a refined analytical framework, the efficacy of material objects and non-human beings in saint veneration rituals in Hatay is presented, as mediated through ritual interactions with tombs and trees. Based on the Actor-Network Theory, the Hıdırellez is discussed as a case study to exemplify the spatial and temporal dynamics of ritual interactions with non-human agents. By accounting for those times and places where visible and invisible realms intersect, the Actor-Network Theory helps analyze how devotees aesthetically perceive and experience stones and trees as indexes of the saint’s agency.

The aim of this research is to analyse the celebration of ancient festivals through narrations. The study is a qualitative research in which narrative research was employed. The study was carried out in Kütahya. The participants were selected using the snowball sampling technique which is a part of purposeful sampling. In the study, the data were collected through unstructured interviews, which are commonly used in narrative research. According to the results of the analysis, the festivals were examined as three themes: religious festivals, national festivals, and seasonal festivals. Preparations before the religious festivals include cleaning, shopping, and preparing meals. In the morning of the first festival day, fathers go to prayer with their sons. Then they visit cemetery. Women do not join these visits. In festival visits, guests are given socks and handkerchief. Preparations of national festivals begin long before. Streets are decorated with flags which signal the preparations. Celebrations mostly take place in stadiums. Reports showed that the celebrations of Nowruz are rare in Kütahya. Reports indicated that in Kütahya, Hıdırellez is much more frequently celebrated in contrast to Nowruz. Painting and clinking eggs are also seen in the celebration of Hıdırellez.

ÖZ
Hıdırellez, bahar ve bolluk bayramı olarak gerek Türk dünyasında gerekse Türkiye’nin birçok bölgesinde varlığını sürdüren mevsimsel ritüelistik kutlamalardandır. Çoğunlukla 5-6 Mayıs tarihlerinde kutlanan bu bayramın ismi, Hızır ve İlyas kelimelerinin halk ağzında birlikte söylenmesiyle oluşturulmuştur. İnanışa göre Hızır ve İlyas adında doğaüstü niteliklere sahip iki peygamber, evlere gelerek bolluk ve bereket getirmekte ve zaman zaman insanların yardımına koşmaktadır. Hızır bu görevi karada, İlyas ise denizde yapmaktadır. Hızır ve İlyas senede bir gün, 6 Mayıs tarihinde bir araya gelmekte ve bu birliktelikten kaynaklı olarak da Hıdırellez kutlamaları yapılmaktadır. Tarihi İslamiyet’ten önceki dönemlere uzanan Hıdırellez’in, son zamanlarda özellikle belediyeler tarafından yeniden canlandırılarak şehir merkezlerinde festival havası içerisinde kutlandığı görülmektedir. Çalışmada, bu kutlamalardan biri olan Ankara Somut Olmayan Kültürel Miras Müzesi ve Altındağ Belediyesi tarafından organize edilen Hamamönü Hıdırellez Şenlikleri; fakelore, geleneğin icadı ve uygulamalı halk bilimi kavramları çerçevesinde ele alınmıştır. 2019 yılında dokuzuncusu düzenlenen şenlik, Ankara Hacı Bayram Veli Üniversitesi Türk Halk Bilimi Bölümü akademik personeli ile öğrencilerinin katkıları ve belediyenin desteğiyle Hamamönü’nde bulunan bir parkta 5 Mayıs tarihlerinde gerçekleştirilmiştir. Şenlik esnasında ateşten atlama, tuz ekmek hakkı, âşık çadırı, masal çadırı, orta oyunu, çocuk oyunları, nisan tası gibi birçok uygulamaya yer verilmektedir. İçerisinde, yukarıda bahsedilen ritüelleri barındıran bu tür kutlamalar, kimi zaman beraberinde fakelore tartışmalarını da getirmektedir. Fakelore, İngilizce “fake / sahte” ve “lore / bilgi” kelimelerinden oluşturulan ve sahte folkloru tanımlamak için kullanılan bir kavramdır. Çalışmada Hamamönü Hıdırellez Şenlikleri, fakelore, geleneğin icadı ve uygulamalı halk bilimi bağlamında; geleneğin kutlanma zamanı, mekânı, ritüelistik özellikleri, işlevi ve katılımcıları açısından incelenmiştir. Şenliğin gelenek temelli olması ve herhangi bir maddi kaygı gözetmemesi, fakelore kavramından ziyade, çağdaş kente uyarlanmış bir uygulamalı halk bilimi örneği olarak ele alınması gerektiği sonucunu ortaya koymuştur.

ABSTRACT
Hıdırellez is one of the seasonal ritualistic celebrations that exist as a spring and abundance festival in many regions of Turkey and the Turkic world. The name of this festival which is mostly celebrated on May 5-
6, has been created by the words Hızır and İlyas together in colloquial speech. According to the belief, the two prophets who have supernatural qualities called Hızır and İlyas bring abundance and fertility coming to the houses and running to help people from time to time. Hızır does this task on land and İlyas on the sea. Hızır and İlyas meet on May 6 once a year. They are made of Hıdırellez celebration due to this meeting. It is seen that Hıdırellez, whose history goes back to the periods before Islam, is celebrated in the festival atmosphere in the city centres, recently revived especially by municipalities. In this study, one of these celebrations, Hamamönü Hıdırellez Festival organized by Ankara Intangible Cultural Heritage Museum and Altındağ Municipality, has
been examined within the framework of fakelore, the invention of tradition and applied folklore. The festival, which was held for the ninth time in 2019, was held on May 5 at a park in Hamamönü, with the contributions of the academic staff and the students of Ankara Hacı Bayram Veli University, Department of Turkish Folklore and with the support of the Municipality. During the festival, there are many rituals such as jump from fire, tuz ekmek hakkı (salt and bread distribution), the poet tent, tent of tale, theatre in the round, children's games, nisan tası. Such celebrations, which include the above-mentioned rituals, sometimes bring fakelore discussions with it. Fakelore is a concept created from the words “fake / fake” and “lore / information” in English and is used to describe fake folklore. In the study, Hamamönü Hıdırellez festivals have been studied in terms of the time of celebration of tradition, place, ritualistic features, function and participants in the context of fakelore, tradition of invention and applied folklore. The fact that the festival is tradition-based and does not have any financial concerns has revealed the conclusion that it should be considered as an example of applied folklore adapted to the modern city rather than the concept of fakelore.

Yazın gelişini müjdeleyen, güneşin ve taze bahar havasının güzelliğini hissettiren Mayıs ayı aynı zamanda Anneler Günü, 19 Mayıs Atatürk’ü Anma Gençlik ve Spor Bayramı, Ramazan Bayramı gibi önemli günlere de ev sahipliği yapıyor. Yeni başlangıçların, iyimser duyguların ve umutların yeşermesinin zamanı olan Hıdırellez, işçi ve emekçilerin önemli bayramı 1
Mayıs, bu ayın ilk günlerini benzersiz kılıyor. Mayıs ayı özel günlerini yaratıcı ve düşünceli kampanyalar oluşturmak için kullanabilir, bahara
özel renk ve görsellerle zenginleştirerek rakipleriniz arasından sıyrılabilirsiniz.

Sizler için bu özel günleri dijital pazarlama kampanyalarında kullanmanın ipuçlarını topladık ve bir rehber hazırladık. Keyifli okumalar ve başarılı kampanyalar diliyoruz!

This article examines visits to local pilgrimage sites in Hatay, Turkey for the purpose of understanding forms of saint veneration in a context of interreligious culture. Visits to pilgrimage sites are shared by different religions and they extend and challenge the margins of religious traditions held by site visitors or administrators. Therefore, it is important to study the dynamics of interreligious exchange and encounter from the local perspective of religious practitioners. The aim of this article is to study these visits as an exchange of indexes of agency, which means that the visits to these sites can transform the way that visitors interact. These exchanges of indexes of agencies are analyzed in terms of seduction, the act of being led astray. This will create a better understanding for why members of differing religious traditions are drawn to visit these sites. In order to address the practitioner’s experience of the interaction with the saint, the term indexicality is employed to emphasize the unique spatial and temporal dimensions of these visits. In conjunction, the concepts of seduction and indexicality are utilized to explicate the dynamics in the transformation of agency established by ritual acts. Analyzing these dynamics as a ‘ritual transformation of agency’ further helps to facilitate conceptualizing of the impact that ritual acts of worship have on visitors’ experiences of these sites. A cross-examination of saints such Hızır and Mar Corcus will be conducted to explain the seductive nature of ritual saint veneration for practitioners at local pilgrimage sites. It will also indicate the ritual transformation of agency that occurs within and between religious groups to contextualize the culture of interreligious coexistence in Hatay.

ÖZET
Firuze Engin, son dönemin önemli yazarlarından biridir. Özellikle tiyatro hususunda çalışmaları olan yazar, Hıdırellez ve Cambazın Cenazesi oyunlarıyla dikkatleri çeker. Hıdrellez, 2013-2015 yılları arasında İstanbul Büyükşehir Belediyesi Şehir Tiyatroları‟nda; Cambazın Cenazesi adlı oyun ise 2014-2016 yılları arasında İkinci Kat Tiyatro‟da sahnelenir. Bu oyunla 2015 Afife Tiyatro Ödülleri‟nde Cevat Fehmi Başkut Özel Ödülü‟nü kazanan Engin, tiyatro yazarlığı dışında, yönetmenlik ve oyunculuk gibi görevler de üstlenir.
Hıdrellez‟in konusu yazarın doğduğu şehir Edirne‟de geçer. Meriç Nehri kıyısında yaşayan Çingenelerin hayatlarından kesitler sunan oyun, bir aşk öyküsü etrafında cereyan eder. Kargakapı Mahallesi‟nde geçen oyunda yaşam, Çingeneler için yoksulluk ve çaresizliğin etrafında şekillenir. Bir gün mahalleye sığınma amaçlı gelen Ender‟le Seyyal arasında başlayan yakınlaşma iki farklı kültür arasındaki bir çatışmayı da ortaya çıkarır.
Biz bu çalışmada, yazarın Hıdrellez oyununu yapısal olarak inceledikten sonra Çingenelerin yaşamından bazı izler aktaracağız.
Anahtar Kelimeler: Hıdırellez, Firuze Engin, Türk Tiyatrosu, Gelenek, Çingeneler, Edirne.