Title: The Book of Dede Korkut (Kitab-i Dede Qorqud) Author: Anonymous / Traditional Creation Date: c. 14th–15th century (oral origins possibly 9th–11th century) Location: Anatolia / Azerbaijani region
Summary
The Book of Dede Korkut consists of a prose preface and twelve interconnected tales set among the Oghuz Turks on the frontier between the Islamic and Christian worlds. The stories follow warriors, princes, and women of the Oghuz confederation as they fight enemies, win brides, defend their honour, and navigate the codes of a nomadic warrior aristocracy. Dede Korkut himself — a bard, sage, and shaman figure — appears as narrator and counsellor, blessing heroes, naming boys who have earned their manhood, and composing songs at each story's conclusion. The tales are rich in set-piece battles, abduction and rescue, tests of courage, and moments of raucous humour. A young man must perform a heroic deed before he is allowed a name. A woman warrior fights alongside her husband. A merchant's son proves his worth among warriors. The prose is interspersed with passages of alliterative, rhythmic verse that preserve the cadences of oral performance.
Why This Book Matters
The Book of Dede Korkut is the foundational literary work of the Oghuz branch of the Turkic world and one of the great prose epics in any Turkic language. For the Turks, Azerbaijanis, and Turkmens, it holds a position analogous to the Iliad for the Greeks or the Nibelungenlied for the Germans: a text that gives memorable narrative form to a shared heroic inheritance. It preserves the worldview of the Oghuz Turks at a pivotal moment of cultural transition — from Central Asian nomadism to Anatolian settlement, from shamanism to Islam, from tribal confederation to imperial state. The values it celebrates — martial honour, generous hospitality, eloquent speech, loyalty to kin — would later feed into Ottoman and other Oghuz-Turkic political ideals.
Historical Context
The tales of Dede Korkut originated in the oral traditions of the Oghuz Turks, probably during the period of their migrations westward from Central Asia through the Caucasus and into Anatolia (9th–11th centuries). The stories were eventually written down, probably in the 14th or 15th century, in the eastern Anatolian or Azerbaijani region. The two surviving manuscripts — one in Dresden, one in the Vatican — date from the 16th century. The world of the tales is the frontier between the Islamic Oghuz confederation and the Christian Georgians and Byzantines, a zone of constant raiding, counter-raiding, and cultural exchange. The Islam of the stories is light and recent — it sits atop older shamanistic and animistic beliefs, and Dede Korkut himself has qualities of both Muslim saint and pre-Islamic shaman.
Literary Significance
The Book of Dede Korkut's distinctive quality is its fusion of prose narrative and oral verse in a rhythm that preserves the energy and spontaneity of live performance. The prose sections advance the plot with vivid economy, while the verse passages — highly formulaic, with parallel structures and alliterative runs — slow the narrative for moments of emotional intensity: boasts before battle, laments for the dead, declarations of love. The characterisation is surprisingly varied: women are often as fierce and capable as men, and humour is woven through even the most heroic episodes. The work stands at the intersection of oral and literate traditions, capturing in written form the aesthetic values of a performative culture.
Research Notes
The Book of Dede Korkut was selected to represent the Ottoman/Turkic literary tradition, as it is the foundational text of that tradition and one of the great oral epics of the world. Geoffrey Lewis's Penguin translation is the standard English version and is both readable and scholarly. A third manuscript was discovered in Turkmenistan in 2018, adding a thirteenth tale to the known corpus. The work is politically sensitive today, as Turkey, Azerbaijan, and Turkmenistan all claim it as part of their national heritage.
The Reading
In the days when the Oghuz Turks rode the frontier between the lands of Islam and the strongholds of the infidel, when every boy yearned for a name and every warrior lived for the feast that followed the fight, there was Dede Korkut. He was the eldest of the Oghuz, wise beyond counting, a bard whose cura sang with prophecy. He named the boys who proved themselves men. He blessed the marriages. He counselled the khans. And when each tale ended, it was Dede Korkut who came forward, struck his lute, composed his praise, and said: "Let this tale of the Oghuz be yours. Let those who tell it carry it forward. Let the dark mountains, when you must cross them, give you passage. Let your shadowy tree of life never be cut down."
The Preface: On the Customs of the Oghuz
Before the tales begin, there is the world they inhabit. The Oghuz are a people who reckon worth by deeds. A boy has no name until he has spilled blood or shown courage — he is simply "that boy" until the day he does something worthy, and then Dede Korkut names him, and the name sticks for life. Women are bold and sharp-tongued; they ride horses, loose arrows, and choose — or refuse — their husbands. The khan's tent is never closed to guests: hospitality is law, and the man who turns away a stranger brings shame on his lineage.
The God they worship is Allah, newly arrived among them but spoken of with conviction. Yet beneath the prayers are older currents — a reverence for sky and mountain, for the white-bearded shaman who walks between worlds. Dede Korkut himself is both Muslim saint and something far older, a figure who has seen the angel of death and bargained with him, who knows things no mortal should know, and who announces each tale as if drawing it from a well that has no bottom.
The Tale of Boghach Khan, Son of Dirse Khan
Dirse Khan has no son, and among the Oghuz, a man without a son sits at the base of the feast, is given the poorest cuts of meat, and is placed in the black tent — the tent of shame. His wife goads him: "Do not be angry with me. Be angry with God. Ask Him for a son." Dirse Khan prays, gives great feasts, and at last a boy is born.
The boy grows strong but unnamed. One day, a raging bull breaks loose and charges the children. The boy — still just a boy, with no name — stands his ground, strikes the bull between the eyes with his fist, and drives it back. The people witness this. Dede Korkut comes forward: "Let this boy's name be Boghach — Bull-man." The boy has earned his name.
But Dirse Khan's own men, poisoned by jealousy, whisper lies to the khan: "Your son will overthrow you." Dirse Khan, in a fury of suspicion, takes the boy hunting and shoots him with an arrow. The boy falls. His mother, wild with grief, rides out and finds him lying in a pool of blood, watched over by the mountain spirits who have kept him alive. She nurses him back to health in secret. When Boghach recovers, he does not seek revenge against his father — he seeks the men who poisoned his father's mind. He hunts them down, kills them, and father and son are reconciled in a great feast of meat and wine. Dede Korkut comes, blesses them, and sings.
The Tale of Salur Kazan's House Being Pillaged
Salur Kazan, mightiest of the Oghuz warriors, rides out to hunt with his retainers. While he is gone, the infidel king Shokli swoops down with his army, pillages Kazan's camp, and carries off his wife Lady Burla, his son Uruz, and all his people into captivity. When Kazan returns and finds the cold ashes of his fires, the trampled felt of his tents, he weeps — the only time the great warrior weeps in all the tales. He weeps for his wife, "whose mouth I have kissed, whose face I have looked upon," and for his son, and for the shame of it.
Then the weeping stops and the fury begins. Kazan rides alone into the infidel lands. He disguises himself, slips into Shokli's fortress, and finds his wife. When she realises who he is, she tells him where the boy is held. Kazan fights his way to his son. Young Uruz, though a captive, has been fighting back with whatever he can lay hands on. Father and son together, with Kazan's war-cry shaking the walls, break free. The Oghuz warriors, alerted at last, ride to their aid. The infidel army is destroyed. The captives are liberated. The feasting lasts for days. Dede Korkut comes, strikes his lute, and sings.
The Tale of Bamsi Beyrek of the Grey Horse
This is the longest and most beloved of the tales, the one that echoes through every Turkic literature that follows. Bamsi Beyrek is betrothed in infancy to Banu Chichek, the daughter of another Oghuz lord. Before the wedding, Beyrek must prove himself: he must ride, fight, and bring honour to his name. He does so magnificently.
But on the eve of the wedding, the infidels capture Beyrek. He is thrown into a dungeon and chained for sixteen years. His betrothed Banu Chichek waits, refusing all suitors. His family mourns him as dead. A rival, Yaltajuk, tries to force Banu Chichek into marriage, claiming Beyrek will never return.
Then one day Beyrek escapes — through cunning, through sheer will. He rides home on his grey horse, arrives on the very day that Banu Chichek is to be wed to Yaltajuk. Disguised as a wandering minstrel, he enters the wedding feast, takes up a bow, and shoots an arrow through the ring that Banu Chichek is wearing — the same ring he gave her sixteen years ago. She recognises him. The treacherous Yaltajuk flees. Beyrek and Banu Chichek are married at last, and the feasting is the greatest the Oghuz have ever known. Dede Korkut comes forward and sings, and there is weeping and laughter together.
The Tale of Kan Turali, Son of Kanli Koja
Kan Turali wishes to marry, but no ordinary woman will do. His father sends him to seek the daughter of the Trebizond lord — a woman who is herself a warrior, who can draw a bow and ride as well as any man. When Kan Turali arrives, the Trebizond lord sets him three trials: he must defeat a wild bull, a lion, and a camel, each more ferocious than the last. Kan Turali triumphs in each, though barely, his blood flowing freely. He wins the bride, Seljan Khatun.
But on the ride home, the infidel lord changes his mind and sends an army to take his daughter back. Kan Turali and Seljan Khatun fight side by side — she on horseback with her bow, he with his sword. When Kan Turali falters, it is Seljan who rallies him with stinging words: "Is this how an Oghuz warrior fights? Shall I tell them your mother was a woman?" Stung to fury, Kan Turali destroys the enemy army. They ride home together, equals.
The World Between the Tales
What emerges from the twelve stories taken together is not just a collection of adventures but a complete picture of a world. The Oghuz live on horseback, between the mountains and the plain, between Islam and Christendom, between the old ways of the steppe and the new ways of the settled lands. Their women are not secluded; they ride, fight, and speak their minds. Their feasts are enormous, raucous affairs with whole sheep roasted and wine flowing. Their grief is as extravagant as their joy — when they weep, they tear their clothes, rip their hair, and their laments are formally composed, rhythmic, beautiful.
The frontier with the infidel is not merely a geographic border but a moral one — the place where Oghuz identity is tested and confirmed. The world of Dede Korkut is robust enough to contain contradictions.
The Voice of Dede Korkut
At the close of each tale, the old bard appears. He is the thread that stitches the stories together, the voice that gives them meaning. He does not moralise — he blesses. His closing formulas are among the most beautiful passages in Turkic literature:
"I shall pray for you, my khan: may your firm-rooted black mountains never be overthrown. May your great shady tree never be cut down. May your white-bearded father's place be paradise. May your white-haired mother's place be heaven. May God never leave you in the hands of the unworthy. At the last, may He not part you from the pure faith."
And then: "I have told a tale of the Oghuz. I have strung it on the lute-string of time. Let those who come after remember. Let those who hear it carry it forward."
The tales end, but the world they describe does not. The Oghuz ride on. The frontier shifts but never closes. Boys are born without names and earn them through blood and daring. Women speak, fight, love, and refuse to be silent. The feasts continue. And somewhere, always, Dede Korkut is singing.
This post is part of Civilisations, a 149-book chronological journey through world literature. See the full collection →
Geoffrey Lewis's Penguin Classics translation is the standard English version — both readable and scholarly, with an authoritative introduction to the tales' historical context.
Trans. Geoffrey Lewis. The standard English translation — clear, readable, and well-contextualised.
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