Today in 1920s Turkey: 6 October 1926 (Which City Houses the First Atatürk Statue?)

(Photographs and article, Cumhuriyet or “Republic,” 6 October 1926, no. 866, page 1.)

English
Does the First Statue Belong to Izmir?

A letter and some photographs we received from Izmir: three and a half months ago the first statue of Gazi Pasha was erected on the grounds of an Izmir area agricultural school.

The Istanbul municipality made great efforts to be the first the erect a statue of the honorable Gazi Pasha and was even successful in erecting one before Konya. But according to what we have been told, this is not the first statue. A statue of the Gazi was mounted in Izmir three and a half months ago. In a letter on the matter, Mr. Abidin, the principle of the Izmir area agricultural school provided this explanation:

It is being announced that the honor of planting the first statue of the Gazi is Istanbul’s.

Whereas the Gazi’s first statue was erected three and a half months ago in Izmir, in our school’s garden. Because Gazi Pasha honored Izmir [with his presence] its official opening was held at a “Garden Party” thrown in his honor and from evening until dawn the sculpture was illuminated with electricity and colored projectors being passionately applauded many times by all [who were] present. Gazi Pasha was at the ceremony in person and he was quite pleased and touched.

Thus, I am presenting you with enclosed photographs of the statue to inform all of Turkey that the honor of having erected the first statue of the Gazi belongs to our Izmir and so that our Izmir can take pride in this [fact].

Indeed, it is not as enormous as the one in Sarayburnu. Its [هیقت] combined is five meters high and it is only a half-statue, about 100 kilos in weight. It was made by Krippel. Along with its small stature it is placed upon a marble pedestal that is quite skillfully made.

Caption: Gazi Pasha’s statue and the epigraph on its pedestal in the garden of Izmir’s School of Agriculture.

Türkçe
İlk Heykel Rekzi İzmir’e mi Aittir?

İzmir’den aldığımız bir mektup ve resimler: İzmir mıntıka ziraat mektebinin bahçesinde üç buçuk ay evvel Gazi Paşa’nın ilk heykeli rekz edilmiştir.

İstanbul şehremaneti Gazi Paşa hazretlerinin heykellerini ilk olarak rekz etmek için azmi faaliyette bulunmuş ve hatta Konya’dan evvel rekze muvaffak olmuştı. Fakat bize bildirildiğine göre bu heykel ilk değildir. İzmir’de bundan üç buçuk ay evvel Gazi’nin heykeli rekz edilmiştir. İzmir mıntıka ziraat mektebi müdürü Abidin Bey bu hususta bize yazdığı mektupta şu izahatı vermektedir:

Gazi’nin ilk heykelini dikmek şerefi İstanbul’a nasip olduğu bildiriliyor.

Halbuki Gazi Paşa hazretlerinin ilk heykeli bundan üç buçuk ay evvel İzmir’de, mektebimizin bahçesinde rekz edilmiş, Gazi Paşa hazretlerinin İzmir’i teşşerüfünden mektebimiz bahçesinde şereflerine verilen “Garden Party’de” resm-i güşadı icra olunmuş ve o gece sabaha kadar heykel elektrikler ve renkli projektörlerle tanvir edilerek bütün huzzar tarafından müteaddid defalar hararetle alkışlanmıştır. Bu merasimde bizzat Gazi Paşa hazretleri de bulunmuşlar ve pek memnun ve mütehassis olmuşlardır.

Onun için büyük Gazi’nin ilk heykelini dikmek şerefi İzmir’imize ait olduğunu bütün Türkiye’nin bilmesi ve İzmir’imizin de bununla iftihar etmesi için size heykelin fotoğraflarını leffen takdim ediyorum.

Vakıa Sarayburnu’ndaki gibi muazzam değildir. [هیقت] mecmuası beş metre irtifaındadır ve yarım heykel olup yüz kilo sıkletindedir. Krippel tarafından imal edilmiştir. Küçüklüğü ile beraber pek musanna mermer bir kaide üzerinde mevzudur.

Altyazı: Gazi Paşa’nın İzmir Ziraat Mektebi bahçesindeki heykeli ve üzerindeki kitabe.

(Photographs and article, Cumhuriyet or “Republic,” 6 October 1926, no. 866, page 1.)

Comments:
Ninety-two years ago today the daily gazette Cumhuriyet published a short article regarding a claim that the first statue of the nation’s war hero, founding father, and first president, Gazi Mustafa Kemal Pasha (“Atatürk” as of 1934) was erected earlier that year in the major Agean port city of Izmir (formerly Smyrna). This claim is made by the principle of the school in which the statue was located. His letter to the editor is included in its entirety in this article. He was compelled to write about his city’s significant statue because the “honor” of being the country’s first statue of its hero was mistakingly being bestowed upon a newly erected statue in Istanbul by the media. The opening ceremony of Istanbul’s Sarayburnu Monument took place just days earlier on 3 October and this event was widely publicized, including in this very newspaper. A brief video of the “unveiling” of the Istanbul monument can be found here.

A harmless Istanbul-Izmir rivalry is channeled through early statues of the leader, commonly referred to only by his titles “Gazi” or “Gazi Paşa.” Izmir, in fact, had a lot to be proud of. Since the conclusion of the War of Independence (1919-1922), the Gazi had made time to visit Izmir at least once every year, whereas he had yet to visit Istanbul, the country’s largest city and the former Ottoman capital since he left for Anatolia in 1919. To add insult to injury, the school principle points out that whereas the Gazi was not present at the recent opening ceremonies for the Istanbul statue, he was, in fact, personally in attendance at the “Garden Party” at the agricultural school in Izmir where his bust debuted in June.

Surprisingly, Principal Abidin’s “correction” never really received the traction it deserved. To this day the Sarayburnu monument continues to be considered the first public monument of Ataturk. Scholarly accounts of Ataturk monuments consistently neglect to at least mention the Izmir bust. Some examples are:

Elibal, Gültekin. Atatürk ve Resim-Heykel. Istanbul: Türkiye İş Bankası Kültür Yayınları, 1973. See page 197.

Osma, Kıvanç. Cumhuriyet Dönemi Anıt Heykelleri (1923-1946). Ankara: Reklamevi Basın Yayın Offset Matbaacılık, 2003. See page 190.

Tekiner, Aylin. Atatürk Heykelleri: Kült, Estetik, Siyaset. Istanbul: Iletişim Yayınları, 2010. See pages 69-70.

This omission is not entirely the fault of the authors as the Izmir statue is not in as central a location as the Istanbul monument. Furthermore, the Izmir statue’s candidacy for being the “first” could be rejected on the grounds that, as Principal Abidin also mentioned, it is only a bust and not a full-body representation. Finally, it is possible that we are seeing the cumulative effects of better publicity for the Sarayburnu statue, which the Istanbul-based press is more inclined to report on and remember. Either way, the Izmir bust clearly fell victim to being forgotten for a few decades.

Recently, however, the Izmir bust has enjoyed some coverage from the local press including the below articles uncovering its glorious claim to fame as the first public monument dedicated to Ataturk. (You may also want to visit these articles to view more recent photographs of the monument than the ones provided in the Cumhuriyet article, although the bust in these photographs is a replica as the original has been moved to a safer location.)

http://www.egebook.ege.edu.tr/files/egeden8.sayi/files/assets/basic-html/page6.html

https://www.evrensel.net/haber/281790/izmir-heykelleri

Contemporary local efforts to garner interest in this statue only echo the same location biases that played out in a press preoccupied with the country’s largest city. Like the school principle who reached out to the national paper to make a case for his city’s treasure in 1926, so have the contributors at these websites made the case for “remembering” the same forgotten gem decades later. The principle’s efforts to reach out to the national gazette is also an excellent example of citizen journalism (and a certain unsung commitment to setting the record straight). Not only did Principal Abidin state his case to the newspaper in a letter that he painstakingly mailed to the newspaper’s offices (with money from his own pocket) but he included indisputable photographic proof of the object; and most importantly, the newspaper actually published both his letter and pictures. So his efforts, in the short term at least, were not in vein.

This article has been updated and modified from its first iteration published right here on Steemit on 6 October 2016. For the original version see:
24. Today in 1920s Turkey: 6 October 1926 (Which City Houses the First Atatürk Statue?)