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Researchers following clues from a 1966 magazine interview have identified an unknown manuscript of Yunus Emre’s Divan containing nine poems missing from every other known copy.
The manuscript, identified by Professor M. Fatih Koksal and named the "Turk Yurdu Manuscript," contains 113 poems attributed to Yunus Emre, including the nine newly discovered works, alongside 12 poems by other poets.
According to a report by Cengiz Yalcinkaya for TRT Haber, the manuscript has been prepared for publication by professor Guler Dogan Averbek and her research team, with a book expected to come out soon.
The discovery grew out of an interview published in the Turkish cultural magazine Turk Yurdu, in 1996, featuring Raif Yelkenci, a prominent antiquarian bookseller specializing in rare and historical publications.
During the interview, Yelkenci discussed a scattered collection of Yunus Emre's poems, while the magazine also featured an image linked to the manuscript.
Averbek followed up on these clues while examining Yelkenci's papers as part of her research into Yunus Emre. Headings reading "Yunus Emre fermayed," an expression attributing the following verses to the poet, also helped researchers establish the manuscript's identity.
Although the collection had remained unidentified because of incomplete cataloging, Koksal formally introduced it to the academic community in a paper presented in 2025.
The newly identified manuscript contains 125 poems in total, including 113 attributed to Yunus Emre and another 12 by Asik Pasa, Said Emre and Kaygusuz Abdal.
Researchers determined that nine of Yunus Emre's poems were absent from all previously known manuscript copies, while the remaining 104 provide additional material for comparing different historical versions of his poetry.
Averbek explained that researchers studying Yunus Emre have traditionally regarded only a limited number of manuscripts as authentic or early sources. The discovery adds the Turk Yurdu Manuscript to a group that includes the Karaman, Fatih, Raif Yelkenci, Ritter and Vahid Pasa copies.
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Antiquarian bookseller Mevlut Ceylan was among those who helped bring the manuscript to the Suleymaniye Manuscript Library, a repository of historical handwritten works in Istanbul.
Koksal has also used the newly identified collection alongside seven other manuscripts in preparing a forthcoming critical edition of Yunus Emre's Divan, which compares historical texts to establish a scholarly version of the poetry.
With Koksal's support, Averbek and her doctoral students have completed preparations to publish the manuscript as a book, which is expected to be released in the near future.
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