*This post has vague, review-level spoilers for Netflix’s Shahmaran (2023) and TRT’s Barbaroslar: Akdeniz’in Kılıcı (2021) TV shows. However, the latter show is based on real historical pirates. Some facts from history that are mentioned here became major plot points in the TV show*
If you’ve paid attention to some recent posts you’ll notice the difficulty in judging the quality of a TV show based on its first episode. Take Netflix’s Shahmaran (2023), which looked really promising after episode one: there was enough history, mystery and snakes to have me eagerly looking forward to more.
My final review of Shahmaran season one (“unfortunately it’s not very good”) was buried in a footnote. The problem with this show was the pacing. The “correct” way to do a slow-burn mystery is to keep feeding the audience clues, so they feel like they are being so clever in figuring it all out. With Shahmaran there was almost no explanation of what was going on until half way through the final episode, when a major character spilled the beans in a two-minute, 300-word1 monologue. However, I didn’t get the explanations I wanted, like what was the deal with the roses. That may have to wait for season two.
If Shahmaran peaked too late, then Barbaroslar: Akdeniz’in Kılıcı peaked too early. Barbaroslar had an amazing amount of potential, which it pretty much exhausted in the first episode. It’s a fictional story about real historical pirates (led by Engin Altan Düzyatan straight out of his performance in the title role of Diriliş: Ertuğrul) with cannons and explosions and costumes and all. I think the following teaser was the first I ever saw for the show; I dare you to watch it and tell me you aren’t at least a little bit intrigued:
(I like how he shouts “Bekle!” (“Wait!”), which is actually an instruction to the audience, who are eagerly awaiting the show.)
There will be three basic parts to this review; the good, the bad, and the hilarious. The bad is easily summarised as “the budget for the first episode was much bigger than for later episodes”. This, however, means that the first episode is pretty fun, so I’ll celebrate some of the good stuff in today’s post, the culmination being a genuine Turkish Sea Shanty. “The hilarious” refers to the producers’ efforts to shore up the show’s flagging ratings. These efforts were only somewhat successful, but were entertaining (and spoilery) enough to warrant a full post of its own, which I will post separately as Part 2.
The Good
I. Historical Setting
Look, pirates are cool, right? At least the first two Pirates of the Caribbean movies were, I think; I’m not sure after that.
If you disregard fictional pirates like Captain Hook, Captain Jack Sparrow and the Dread Pirate Roberts, the most famous historical pirate that I can name is Edward Teach, who prowled the Caribbean Sea as Blackbeard in the “Golden Age of Piracy”.
The only other historical pirate that comes to mind is Redbeard, but before this show came along I didn’t know his real name.2 It turns out that he was a Turk, born on the island of Lesbos, and his name was Baba Oruç.
The folk etymology behind the “Redbeard” nickname is a fascinating one, and I desperately wish it to be true.3 In the Wikipedia version of the tale, Oruç earned the honorific “Baba” (“Father”) among the Morisco refugees from Spain when he helped resettle them in Africa. The name “Baba Oruç” spread through Europe via a number of different spellings such as “Baba Aruj” (Spanish) and “Baba ‘Aroûdj” (French),4 eventually undergoing homophonic translation into “Barbarroja” (Spanish), “Barbarossa” (Italian) or “Barberousse” (French), all of which mean “Redbeard”. Re-import those back into Turkish and you get “Barbaros”, as used in the title of the show. When Oruç died, his younger brother Hızır inherited the “Baba Oruç” name, in the very best “Dread Pirate Roberts” style. Hence, the title of the TV show becomes plural: “Barbaroslar”.
Or he could have just had a big red beard. But that would be boring.
Seriously though, I find the folk etymology quite believable. Most Europeans at the time would have only ever heard the name “Oruç” second-hand, would have been unable to read it for themselves in Ottoman Turkish script, and would not have had the opportunity to ask the man himself how it was pronounced. The name “Barbarossa” already existed in Italian (it was the nickname of the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick I), and the gap between “Baba Aruj” and “Barbarroja” in particular seems like a really narrow one to me. Spanish Wikipedia seems to agree (Google Translated):
Aruj […], también conocido como Baba Aruj o Barbarroja por el color de su barba […]
(Aruj, also known as Baba Aruj or Barbarroja due to the color of his beard…)
Now my Spanish is even worse than my Turkish, but that reads to me as though the first nickname (Baba Aruj) is also being interpreted as due to the colour of his beard. We know that’s not correct in Turkish, where “Baba” means father, but it seems a more natural interpretation for Spanish speakers than trying to read it directly, since father in Spanish is “papá”, and “baba” apparently translates as “slime; drool”.
Back to the TV show. Barbaroslar: Akdeniz’in Kılıcı is the (fictionalised) story of Redbeard and the Barbary corsairs, who conquered much of the Mediterranean Sea in the name of the Ottoman Empire in the early 16th century.5 The opening voiceover of episode one (Youtube link),6 narrated in the lovely speaking voice of Bahadır Yenişehirlioğlu,7 sets the scene poetically:8
[…] Midilli'de fetholunan kalelerden idi cenge iştirak eden Sipahilerden biri oraya yerleşti.
(At one of the conquered castles in Lesbos, there settled a Sipahi veteran.)Dört de erkek evlat sahip oldu.
(In time he had four sons)Hakikati görmeyenler bin devleti yutan deryaya dört evlat ne yapsın derler.
(The unbelievers say “what could four children do to the sea that has swallowed a thousand states?”.)Siz demeyin.
(But they shouldn’t say that)Bela fırtınasına karşı yelken açan dört kardeş tufanlara gem, boranlara zincir, deryalara mühür vurdu.
(The four brothers, sailing against a storm of trouble, put a bridle on the floods, a chain on the storms, and a seal on the seas.)Herkese diz çöktüren sulara onlar baş eğdirdi.
(They subdued the waters that had made all others kneel.)Kanlarını akıttılar deryaya. Azgın denizlerle kan karındaşı oldular.
(Their blood spilled upon the ocean. They became blood brothers with the raging seas.)Deryaya ilk açılanın namına Baba Oruç denildi.
(The name Baba Oruç was given to the first person who opened the seas.)Seneler sonra iki kardeş de o adla bilindi Barbaroslar.
(Years later, two of the brothers were known by that name: Barbaroslar.)
So the line-up is Barbary corsairs supported by the Ottoman Sultan, vs. European privateers supported by the Knights Hospitaller and others. Historically, this went badly for the Knights; the Ottomans took control of much of northern Africa and the Mediterranean, and Oruç himself captured Algiers from the Spanish and declared himself Sultan there.
There are some really nice scraps of history that pop up in this show. The Mamluks are one group I’d never heard of before, and the show prompted me to take a look. It’s always good to see the Janissaries in their silly hats (see picture).
One major character perhaps deserves to be more widely known outside the Turkish/Arabic-speaking world; his full name in Turkish is Hacı Ahmet Muhittin Pîrî Bey, but he is better known as Piri Reis.
Piri Reis was a sailor and cartographer, known for his maps of the world.9 His first map pictured above is the second-oldest surviving map that includes the Americas; it’s a composite of a number of earlier maps including those made by Columbus. The thing I like most about this map is the pictures of various wildlife, such as the elephant and ostrich in Africa. Importantly, the depiction of various parrot species in the West Indies demonstrates that such birds were definitely available for pirate use at the time. While episode one of Barbaroslar features an extra with a macaw on his shoulder (Youtube link), he was obviously too expensive for continued employment, and doesn’t appear in subsequent episodes.
II. Pirate Culture in Turkish
Even though the Barbary corsairs apparently raided as far north as the United Kingdom, that famous “Yarrrr!” that pirates say in English was sadly not imported from Turkish. Instead, it was mostly popularised by actor Robert Newton, who played Long John Silver in the Disney movies (for an excellent Newton “yarrr”, see the first few seconds of this video).
If Turkish pirates don’t say “yarrr”, what do they say instead? Well, let’s start with the basics (scroll down to the next section if you just want to skip to the Sea Shanty):
The Turkish word for “pirate” is “korsan”, which obviously has the same Latin origin as “corsair” and the many similar words in other European languages.
Although modern Turkish does use the word “kaptan” for the master of a ship, in Ottoman times Oruç’s naval rank was “Reis”. The phrases equivalent to “aye aye, captain” used in the Barbaroslar TV show are almost identical to those used in land-based Turkish historical dramas but with the honorific changed; instead of “Eyvallah Bey”, we get “Eyvallah Reis”, or “Emrin olur Reis” (“as you order, captain”)
Baba Oruç refers to his sailors as “Leventler”, which is the old Ottoman naval word. Etymological origin for this word is apparently Persian لوند (lavand), which has several meanings at that link. It can mean “flirtatious” or “harlot”, neither of which seem correct here. The third definition is “idler”, which I suppose could be referring to those old times when if you hung around the docks doing nothing for long enough, someone would press-gang you into the navy.
The obscure nautical word “alesta” (“ready”) gets a lot of use in Barbaroslar. This is a 5th-century loanword from Latin, and only the Greek version appears in Wiktionary. An example of use is “Toplar alesta!” (“Man the cannons!”). Note that a second translation of that phrase could be “cannonballs ready”; “top” is also a general Turkish word for anything ball-shaped.
Another obscure naval word is “alabanda”, used in the phrases “Sancak alabanda!” (Hard a’ starboard!”) and “İskele alabanda!” (“Hard a’ port!”). “İskele” translates directly to “port; gangway” so these two are easily matched. However, while the “starboard” side means the steering-side (“stēorbord”), the “sancak” side is the one with the banner or flag attached.
The English noun “fire”, referring to the burny stuff, translates to “ateş” in Turkish. The English verb “to fire” can be the order to shoot the cannons; and the same thing works in Turkish (“Bismillah ateş!”). Be careful here not to get confused with the similar word “atış”, which is a noun meaning “shot; gunshot; (heart) beat”. “Ateş” apparently comes from Persian ش (âtaš); but “atış” comes from the Turkic root “at-”, to do with throwing.
If you want to see a bunch of these nautical terms in action, here is the Youtube link to the full “Bekle!” naval battle. I’m sure this scene used up a large fraction of the show’s budget.
III. The Sea Shanty
The other things pirates are mostly known for here in the West are drinking grog and singing pirate songs. Of course, the Muslim corsairs on TV don’t drink, but I am very pleased to report that the opening scene of Barbaroslar features a genuine historical Turkish Sea Shanty. You can watch it here (Youtube link), where it’s being used for strange echo-location purposes by Baba Oruç, who is being all inscrutable sea captain:
The lyrics of the sea shanty feature the ancient phrasing “heyamol … helesa yalesa”. These words are so old that noone seems to remember the original meaning any more, or even the Turkish spelling; it’s also written as “hele sağya le sa”. Most often associated with the Sinop Province along the Turkish Black Sea coast, which still holds some fading traditions around singing “helesa” house-to-house at Ramadan, the words could originate from some wider Black Sea language or culture. Based on number of Youtube hits (here are some nice examples), the Laz language still spoken in Türkiye and Georgia could be a reasonable contender, but since Laz lacks a written standard it’s not easy for me to figure out how to Google it.
If noone remembers the exact translation, the meaning of “heyamol” is well understood. The traditional use translates as “Yo ho, heave ho!” or any of those similar chants used by sailors to coordinate pulling ropes in unison.10
The best example of the Turkish version of the chant is probably that collected by Mehmet Ruhi Su during his wanderings in Anatolia, and arranged for his amazing bass baritone with accompaniment on the Saz (Youtube link). His lyrics seem to match the ones from Barbaroslar. Reprinted, copied from below the Youtube video, as follows:
Haa, heyamol
Ya mol heyamol
Mola heyamol
Ya mol heyamol
Bismillahla başlayalım, hele sağya le sa
Biz bu işi işleyelim, hele ya sağya le sa
Bu yıl burda kışlayalım, hele sağ ya le saHeyamola ye sağ ye sağ
Hey, ya mol heyamol mola heyamol
Ya mol heyamol heya heyamol
Ye sağ sallim ye sağ ye sağ sallim ye sağBir gemim var boyda bosta, hele sağ ya le sa
Dip ambara kurduk posta, hele sağ ya le sa
Selam söylen eşe dosta, hele sağ ya le saHeyamola ye sağ ye sağ
Hey, ya mol heyamol mola heyamol
Ya mol heyamol heya heyamol
Ye sağ sallim ye sağ ye sağ sallim ye sağ
These words and themes pop up in all sorts of modern pop culture now. For example, here is a surprisingly catchy kid’s sea shanty (Youtube link).
Epilogue: Eurovision 1983
The final story I want to tell is about the time that Sezen Aksu, Coşkun Demir and Ali Kocatepe (as the group “Mavi Yolcular”) decided to share “Heyamola” with the world, at the 1983 Eurovision Song Contest. Unfortunately, they came in second place at the qualifying stage, and ultimately the honour of representing their country at Eurovision that year fell to “Çetin Alp and the Short Waves”, with their song “Opera”.
“Opera” was not a hit with the Eurovision judges, and Türkiye scored the dreaded “nul points” that year. Commenters online suggest that if “Heyamola” had been the entry that year, the results would have been better. I don’t think “Opera” is that bad actually; just a bit weird. Its certainly not as bad as this 2003 effort from the UK, where for technical reasons only the backing singers can hear themselves, and hence the main singers are out of tune:
You can watch Barbaroslar: Akdeniz’in Kılıcı for free on the official Youtube channel. There are no official subtitles, so you will need a browser addon like Substital in order to use fan-made (or machine-generated) subtitles. Any problems with subtitles, see my guide here:
No seriously, I put the subtitles into Excel and counted the words. It’s 300-odd words in English, mostly monologued depending on where you decide to start and stop, but more like 250 words in Turkish. What happened to “show, don’t tell”?
I remembered there was also a fictional pirate called “Yellowbeard” to add to the colour palette. Not enough for a full Pride flag yet, but we could at least do the flags of Germany and Aboriginal Australia.
Wikipedia uses the words “folk etymology” where I think they actually mean homophonic translation, but they also don’t give a citation for the story. The Turkish Encyclopedia of Islam states that Oruç had a red beard and was named “Barbaros” for it, and I can’t find a source who confidently disagrees about his beard colour.
The source for both French versions of the name is the title of this article: A. Graulle, “La mort et le tombeau de Baba ‘Aroûdj (Barberousse)”, Revue du monde musulman, 24 (1913), 246-259. I haven’]t read this but the TDV cite it.
Hence the subtitle of the show: Akdeniz’in Kılıcı means “sword of the Mediterranean”.
Barbaroslar: Akdeniz’in Kılıcı 1. Bölüm; timestamp 03:27
That excellent surname Yenişehirlioğlu, which would be such a nightmare to spell out over the phone here in the West, has the rough meaning “son of the guy from the new city”. Names that end in “-oğlu” are therefore the Turkish equivalent of “-ovich” or “Mac-” in other cultures.
Turkish transcription by Whisper (OpenAI), lightly modified by me; English translation by Google Translate, heavily modified by me.
Coincidentally, while writing this post I saw the Piri Reis map mentioned elsewhere. There, the discussion is mostly focused on the interesting question of whether the coastline at the bottom of the map is intended to represent Antarctica, and whether anyone at the time actually had the required technology to get there and map it.
The old Turkish word for this type of cooperative group work, e.g. where the whole village gets together to lift up something really heavy, is “imece”. I’m just leaving this definition here, since its a word that Google Translate doesn’t know, but sozluk.gov.tr does.