During the Ottoman period, performers such as âşık, meddah, and hâyalî gained visibility in Diyâr-ı Rûm and performed in coffeehouses as narrative spaces. This article argues that these storytellers constructed a narrative ground nourished by collective culture and created a narrative economy by shaping their performances according to the expectations of their audiences. This article explores this economy, which was shaped by the involvement of coffeehouses, in the context of popular culture and discusses the tactics storytellers developed to navigate popular culture. It argues that unlike patronage, which was a common practice of text production in the Ottoman Empire, especially among the elite, storytellers operated in a market-like context.
