Nasreddin Hodja anecdote cycle
About the work
Imported from the workbook's Full reassessment sheet, revised 7 October 2026 (record ID 88). The assessment below is the workbook's comparative judgment under its stated criteria; source links and limits are retained.
Workbook assessment: Plausible
Date or witness: Earliest cited written stories c.1480; alleged historical figure usually placed in 13th century
Region: Anatolia and subsequently much of Eurasia
Workbook date-sort bounds: 1480 CE to 1500 CE; these bounds are not automatically invention or disappearance dates.
Description
The clever fool exposes pretensions through literal-minded answers, reversals and practical jokes; a long-lived character to whom fresh jokes were continually attached.
Evidence of adoption or transmission
Nasreddin has community-specific names and story variants; UNESCO documents ordinary conversational use at family gatherings, weddings and cafes and oral transmission across generations.
What remains uncertain
That is strong evidence of a grassroots mechanism today, but it does not date its full geographical/class reach to 1480 or the legendary thirteenth-century life. Pre-1500 evidence remains comparatively thin.
Candidate-index family 29: Nasreddin Hodja anecdote cycle
The workbook groups records 88 here and rates the family Plausible. This is a research shortlist, not proof of an independently established meme family.
Dated evidence: Earliest cited written stories c.1480; alleged historical figure usually placed in 13th century
Region: Anatolia and subsequently much of Eurasia
Shortlist uncertainty: That is strong evidence of a grassroots mechanism today, but it does not date its full geographical/class reach to 1480 or the legendary thirteenth-century life. Pre-1500 evidence remains comparatively thin.
Workbook revision note: Reassessed using grassroots criteria