The following article is from The Great Soviet Encyclopedia (1979). It might be outdated or ideologically biased.

Pir Sultan Abdal

(pen name of Haydar). Years of birth and death unknown. Turkish 16th-century poet; representative of ashik (ashug) poetry.

Pir Sultan Abdal was from the village of Banaz in the vilayet of Sivas. He was the leader of the antifeudal uprising of the Kizilbash, which flared up at that time in various regions of Anatolia. He was seized, jailed, and hanged in Sivas. With sword and song, Pir Sultan Abdal had opposed social oppression and tyranny and had striven for equality and justice. His poetry is a chronicle of the national movement and peasant revolts. He became a symbol of the struggle for the people’s freedom and independence, and his name is associated with many legends and songs of lament. A play about Pir Sultan Abdal by E. Toy is performed on the Turkish stage.

WORKS

Bütün şiirleri. Istanbul, 1971.

REFERENCES

Borolina, I. V. “Turetskaia literatura.” In Literatura Vostoka v srednie veka, part 2. Moscow, 1970.
Gölpinarh, A., and P. N. Boratav. Pir Sultan Abdal. Ankara, 1943.
Kudret Cevdet. Pir Sultan Abdal. Istanbul, 1965.

KH. A. CHOREKCHIAN

References in periodicals archive

They had gathered to commemorate Pir Sultan Abdal, a 16th-century bard hanged for preaching rebellion against Sunni Muslim Ottoman government when the rivalry of their ancestors was crushed by Sultan Selim I.

TURKEY - Mar 6 - Turkish PM Assures Safety Of Religious Minority

On July 2, 1993, a group of fundamentalists surrounded the Madimak Hotel in which many intellectuals were staying for the Pir Sultan Abdal Festival in Sivas.

(GEN) TURKEY TO EXPROPRIATE HOTEL WHERE 37 PEOPLE WERE BURNT TO DEATH

Ancak merkezi Ankara'da olan Pir Sultan Abdal Dernegi cok daha farkh bir yapi arz etmekdir.

The relation of religious identity to politics: the case of Alevi identity/Dinsel kimligin siyaset ile iliskisi: Alevi kimligi ornegi

A soul where Shamanism and Islam converged to create Mevlana Celaleddin Rumi, Yunus Emre, Haci Bektas Veli, Pir Sultan Abdal and many other Sufis?

Turkey asks, 'why not?' As Turkey, straddling Europe and Asia, seeks to join the European Union, Cigdem Leblebici reflects on the momentum for change in her country

At the start of July, Nesin and a number of other intellectuals sallied forth to Sivas, a provincial capital in central Turkey and hometown of a renowned fifteenth-century poet named Pir Sultan Abdal, a member of the Alawite sect hanged for preaching rebellion against the Ottman sultan.

Beat the devil

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