Η πρώτη έντυπη Ελληνική μετάφραση από την Τουρκική λογοτεχνία (1800)

Abstract

According to an unpublished document written in Latin and signed by the
appointed Censor Regius of the Venitian censorship Ioannis Litinos (Archivio di
Stato di Venezia, Riformatori dello studio di Padova, f. 333, no 592, September
13, 1800), a positive answer was given to the request of an anonymous Greek
publisher in Venice (perhaps the Theodosiou publishing house) to print a Modern
Greek translation of the Ottoman Turkish book Eventus Rhephae et Michrae,
along with the Modern Greek translation of Marmontel’s pastorale La Bergère
des Alpes. Unfortunately, we have no further information regarding these two
editions of 1800 (or 1801).
A thorough investigation of the Greek literary environment of the time leads
the author to the supposition that Eventus Rhephae et Michrae should be a prose
romance, or even a prose narrative interwoven with lyric verses (songs), most
probably of the kind of hikâya/hikâye such as the short-story collections A
School of Sensitive Lovers by Rigas Velestinlis (Ferraios), 1790, and Results ot
Love by John Karatzas, 1792; the vivid interest in Ottoman poetry and prose
during the 18th c. is well witnessed.
The Ottoman model (Events regarding Refii/Retai/Refia/Rifai and Mihril)
was most probably a love story, or a collection of stories and anecdotes; although
an eventual identification of the genitive Rhephae with either the mystic poet of
the 14th-early 15th c. Refi‘i/Rifa‘i or the anacreontic poet of the 16th c. Rewanr/
Revani and others creates a lot of problems, one could possibly recognize behind
the genitive Michrae the famous lyric poetess of the beginning of the 16th c.
Mihri KhatOn/Hatun or Mihn Hamm.
Anyway, the unrepertoried Greek edition of Venice must be the first Greek 

printed translation of any Turkish literary text, and maybe the earliest printed
translation worldwide of material concerning Mihr'i Khätün.