Author(s): Levent Ali CANAKLI
Ahmet Metin and ?irzat is one of the most voluminous and contentful novels of Ahmet Mithat Efendi. In his novel, he tells the story of a rich Ottoman young man who makes a journey with the aim of re-experiencing the adventurous sea voyage made by the Seljuk Prince named ?irzat told in an Italian novel and seeing the places which he visited. Because of both Ahmet Mithat’s effort to inform the reader and the subject taken in hand, it is possible to find details about many scientific fields such as Ancient Greek, Seljuks and the Middle Asia Turkish history, shipping and navigation, etymology and psychology in the novel. Moreover, this journey makes the reader meet with a wide and detailed Mediterranean geography together with Ahmet Mithat Efendi’s rich accumulation. During the journey of 30 days which Ahmet Metin made together with his attendants by setting out from Izmit and arriving in Sicily and then coming back, the visited places in the south and west coasts of Greece, the Southern Italy and Sicily are usually described at great length via their land forms, important structures, histories and mythologies. One of the most important difficulties which appeared in the publication of the text was related to the determination of the place names whose number was over 250. The differences between the original names of the places and their Ottoman Turkish equivalents, local sites not shown on maps, typographical errors or the possibility of the author's misremembering some names were the main difficulties. In the article, the mentioned problems will be exemplified and the information will be given about the map work and the other searches made with the aim of determining these place names correctly and completely.
The Journal of International Social Research received 7760 citations as per Google Scholar report
