You do not currently have permission to view the full text for this document. Please sign in to an account with an active subscription or contact support.
This review will focus on a Turkish TV series called Yunus Emre: A Journey of Love (originally aired in 2015-16), about a 13th century Anatolian poet who is
very highly regarded in Turkey; and I am delighted that others from around the world may become more familiar with this remarkable cultural icon though the medium of an easily accessible film series. Very recently, and in the midst of a global pandemic, UNESCO felt it important to honour three wise men from Anatolia and therefore declared 2021 as the Year of Ahi Evran, Hacı Bektaşi Veli and Yunus Emre (Tüfekçi 2021). It is a time to celebrate and draw attention to their creative contributions in an international arena and I will spotlight Yunus Emre in the following essay.
Three decades ago, UNESCO declared 1991 as the International Year of Love honouring Yunus Emre since it marked the 750th anniversary of the poet's birth (Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yunus_Emre). Without a doubt, Yunus Emre (c. 1238-1328) is one of the most influential Anatolian Turkish Sufi folk poets. Unlike the internationally well-known contemporaneous Persian poet Rumi (1207-1273), who was born into a scholarly family, Yunus Emre's origins were far more humble, rooted in a poor and illiterate, peasant soil. Importantly, as an itinerant Sufi poet, Yunus Emre expanded the development and spread of Turkish language and Anatolian culture through his profound, creative and beneficial folk poems presented to everyday listeners in comprehensible forms. Continuing to this day, he is recognized for contributions to the literature on universal humanism, love and mysticism. Yunus Emre has even been described as the creator ‘of Turkish Sufi literature catering to the public's taste’ (Sartaş, cited in Özdemir 2020).
The TV series Yunus Emre: A Journey of