Turkey is an earthquake-prone country. Therefore, many earthquakes have occured in different periods of time and consequently lots of lives and properties have been lost. Minstrels, in other words public speakers, were touched by lots of disasters such as earthquakes, floods, droughts, epidemics, fires that hit the Turkish society hard. Earthquakes, which caused numerous loss of lives and left debris behind, took the first place among natural disasters as regards to minstrel poetry. This is the result of earthquakes happening in the geography we live in. Earthquakes and consequential griefs were voiced and shared with the folk through epics and requiems. Leaf epics appeared in a new period that is important for our oral history and that started with the use of lithography and their discussing current issues made them newsworthy. It is quite obvious that epic poet-minstrels lost their significance along with the transition from oral culture atmosphere to written culture atmosphere and then to electronic environment. Leaf epic poets that were representatives of folk poetry produced, sang and sold epics especially until the 1980s. Earthquakes, mentioned in leaf epics, presented plenty of details to the reader. Minstrels, who experienced earthquakes, witnessed their consequences, heard of them and felt the pain deep in their hearts discussed what happened and all the sufferings in detail during and after the incidents. Leaf epic poets put down earthquakes of Varto, Erzincan, Gediz, Çanakkale, Adapazarı, Mürefte, etc on paper and shared them with the folk. Leaf epic poets both conveyed what happened to a vast majority of public and significantly formed public opinion. Leaf epics attracted attention and were complimented greatly. These epics were accepted as people’s newspaper on account of the fact that they supplied information to society about various issues.

Keywords
fire, epic poet, earthquake, oral, minstrel, damage