Home Intangible Cultural Heritage Intangible Cultural Heritage in Turkey Arts of the Meddah, Public Storytellers
  • Arts of the Meddah, Public Storytellers

  • Arts of the Meddah, Public Storytellers

    The art of maddah or storytelling is a Turkish theatrical form performed by a single storyteller called maddah and is practiced throughout Turkey and the Turkic-speaking countries. This art dates to the Ottoman era, when performances were performed in caravanserais, markets, cafes, mosques, and churches.
    Meddah selects songs and comic tales from a range of popular romance stories, legends and epics and adapts his material according to the specific place and audience. The quality of the performance depends largely on the atmosphere created between the storyteller and the spectators, as well as the as well as the meddah’s ability to incorporate imitation, jokes and often improvisation in relating to contemporary events.
    Although some storytellers still perform at several religious and secular celebrations and appear on television shows, this genre of art has lost much of its original educational and social function due to the development of mass media and the proliferation of television sets in coffeehouses.
    Arts of the Meddah, Public Storytellers was inscribed in 2008 on the UNESCO Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in Turkey.
    Intangible Heritage
    by unknown author, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
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    Arts of the Meddah, Public Storytellers

    Date of Inscription

    2008