(1938 Kırşehir, 25 September 2012 İzmir / Türkiye)
The Turkish folk poet, also known as the “Plectrum of the Steppe,” is the last great representative of Turkmen / Dervish culture and music tradition.
He was born in 1938 in the Kırtıllar village of Çiçekdağı district (today known as Akpınar) of Kırşehir. His father, Muharrem Ertaş, is the most outstanding representative of the Turkmen/Dervish music, especially the bozlak (kind of a folk song) tradition, and his mother, Döne Ertaş, is from the Hacıaliobası village of Keskin district of Kırıkkale. His first step into the profession was to play the cymbal and darbuka at the village weddings he attended with his father from a young age. At eight, he and his family moved from Kırtıllar and settled in İbikli village. His mother, Döne, passed away when he was 12 years old. He lived a nomadic life for a while with his father and siblings. His father married a woman named “Arzu” from the Kırıksoku village of Yozgat and lived there for a time. Later, they settled in the Yerköy district of Yozgat. They resided in Kırşehir, Çiçekdağı, Yozgat, Yerköy, and then in Kırıkkale for two years, respectively. Neşet Ertaş, who was never able to get an education, learned to play first the violin, then the metal mandolin and baglama by himself. He played and sang folk songs with mandolin and violin at the local weddings he attended with his father. He said that his father’s art influenced him the most: “I owe ninety percent of my art to my father. My father and I are people of the same spirit.”
In the early 1950s, Neşet Ertaş’s name was heard throughout the country after he played and sang the song “I did not laugh since I came into this world” on the “Yurttan Sesler” program directed by Muzaffer Sarısözen and broadcasted live on TRT Ankara Radio. Until the mid-1970s, he was called to Ankara Radio as a “guest local artist” every fortnight and made solo bands of fifteen minutes each. He went to Istanbul in 1957, and his first record was her father’s folk song. The first gramophone record, “Why Do You Strangely Sing, Nightingale,” was followed by other records and public concerts. After working in Istanbul for two years, he continued performing in Ankara. She traveled to almost all cities and counties of Turkey, first with concert tours together with different genre musicians and actors and then with solo concerts.
Neşet Ertaş, who did his military service in the Narlıdere district of İzmir in 1962, first became a partner in an instrument shop and then transferred the shop entirely to the famous instrument master Hüseyin Koluman, known by the nickname “Tavşancı,” whom he met in Ankara after his military service. After that, he met a cleaning lady, Leyla Ertaş, who came to the shop by chance to buy his record and married. Ertaş had three children from this marriage, Döne, Hüseyin, and Canan.
The artist, whose fingers were paralyzed while performing at the end of the 1970s, could not get better after two years of physical therapy and became unemployed. With the support of his older brother Necati Ertaş, he went to Germany to be treated. Shortly after, he brought his children to Germany as well. He settled first in Berlin and then in Bergheim, near Cologne. He gave concerts and went to weddings in almost all cities where Turkish workers lived. During his years in Germany, he released around 20 cassettes. He mostly sang folk songs, bozlaks, and his own folk poems, as well as Anatolian folk dance and traditional dance tunes of the Central Anatolian region.
He returned to Turkey in 2003 and settled in Izmir. He stated that he could not accept the title of “state artist” given to him by saying, “I am the artist of the people.” In 2006 he was chosen for the Turkish Parliamentary Outstanding Service Award. In addition, Ertaş was included in Türkiye National List as part of the Unesco Preservation of the Intangible Cultural Heritage agreement, accepted as the Living Human Treasure, and awarded the “Honorary Doctor” title by the ITU Council on April 25, 2011. His baglama playing style and technique, the way he uses his voice and his singing style, the literary and aesthetic value of his poems, and his repertoire, as well as his poet/ashik identity, are widely became the subject of lectures and thesises in universities and conservatories.
Neşet Ertaş passed away on September 25, 2012 in Izmir. Upon his will, he was buried at the foot of his father’s grave in the Bağbaşı Cemetery in Kırşehir. His family wrote the following lines on his tombstone: “Be careful, human beings / Do not hurt a soul, do not hurt / Every soul is a heart, attached to God / Do not hurt a soul, do not hurt.”
The name of Neşet Ertaş, whose life and art became subject to many documentary films and various broadcasts, was given to streets, schools, parks, and cultural centers in many cities, especially in Kırşehir and Ankara. In addition, there is a monument/statue of him and his father together in Kırşehir, which was built by the sculptor Tankut Öktem at the request of the Ministry of Culture, General Directorate of Fine Arts. The Android statue made by Adil Çelik is also located in Kırşehir Neşet Ertaş Gönül Sultanları Culture House.
The legacy of Neşet Ertaş, the representative of a significant tradition whose roots go back thousands of years, is being preserved and passed onto future generations by his family and loved ones…