Nazires are defined as “poems written in the same meter and rhyme for a poetic work of a poet by another poet.” They were collected in nazire journals. Especially in the 16th century, great examples of such journals were given. One of examples is Mecmû’ai Nazâ’ir, which is included in the poetry journal registered with number Ms. Or. Oct. 3652, in the Berlin State Library (Staatsbibliothek Zu Berlin). The writing of the 328-leaf journal was completed in the year 1002 (1594 A.D.). The person who complied it remains unknown. It is possible to divide the journal into three sections according to how the poems in the journal are clustered. The first section (aka. “Mecmû’ai Nazâ’ir”) gives examples of zemin (ground), nazire, and model poems. The section includes 2.227 odes. The second section is comprised of divançes, and includes a total of 271 poems from Nev’î, Ulvî, Misâlî, Mânî, Hâtemî, Sâ’î, and Tîgî, respectively. The last section named as “Mixed Poems” consists of 13 poems. One encounters well-known poets such as Bâkî, Nev’î, Ulvî, Bağdatlı Rûhî, Gelibolulu Âlî, and Azmî-zâde Hâletî in the journal. However, there are also many poems, which would constitute a divançe, by poets such as Bezmî, Sâ’î, and Hâtemî, the divans of whom were not published. Unlike other nazire journals, the journal includes previously unpublished poems by many poets who have not been studied much or who remain unknown in our literary history, which is another characteristic making this journal valuable. This study first mentions the problems we encountered during publication of the journal. Afterwards, it illustrates various typos that are widespread throughout the journal and originate from its copyist/typesetter with examples. The repetitive poems in the journal are given in tables. Finally, all the poems in the journal were classified according to MESTAP (the project of systematic classification of journals).
Nazire journal, classical Turkish poetry, MESTAP.