Nesimi Çimen

Nesimi Çimen — Biography

Nesimi Çimen was a folk bard (halk ozanı) known for performing Alevi deyiş and nefes songs on the cura rather than the bağlama, and for writing deyişes of his own. His shanty home in Zeytinburnu was a meeting place for writers and artists; he died on 2 July 1993 in the attack in which the Madımak Hotel in Sivas was set on fire. His son Mazlum Çimen carries on his music.

Born in Saimbeyli, Çimen settled with his family in Sarız, Kayseri, worked as a farmhand for a village landowner and took up an instrument at twelve. He fell in love with the landowner's daughter Dilber, eloped with her to the village of Sevdili near Kahramanmaraş, and later moved to Istanbul. Meeting Yaşar Kemal got him a factory job; when he led striking workers he was dismissed and turned to singing as a bard to support his family. In 1967 he took part in a Pir Sultan Abdal play in Tunceli and sang deyişes in it. Yaşar Kemal, Atıf Yılmaz, İlhan Selçuk and Yılmaz Güney were among the guests at his home in Zeytinburnu, and at Atıf Yılmaz's request he took a small part in the film Murad'ın Türküsü.

He began collecting folk songs while young and contributed what he gathered to the radio archives. He sang the nefes of masters such as Shah Ismail Hatayi and Pir Sultan Abdal, and left songs whose words and music were his own, among them "Barış Güvercini" and "Tan Yıldızı". He had gone to the Pir Sultan Abdal festival in Sivas with his wife Makbule Çimen, who survived severely injured and died in December 2024. His grandchild is a pianist.