24. Today in 1920s Turkey: 6 October 1926 (Which City Houses the First Atatürk Statue?)
(The first statue, Cumhuriyet or “Republic,” 6 October 1926, no. 866, page 1.)
Comments:
Ninety years ago today the newspaper Cumhuriyet published a short article about a claim that the first statue of the nation’s hero, 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 nation’s first statue of its hero was mistakingly being bestowed by the media upon a newly erected statue in Istanbul. The opening ceremony of Istanbul’s Sarayburnu Monument took place just days earlier on 3 October and this event was widely publicized in this very newspaper.
We are obviously witnessing a bit of an Istanbul-Izmir rivalry playing out through early statues of the country’s hero (and first president) referred to only as “Gazi” and “Gazi Paşa.” Izmir, in fact, had a lot to be proud of. Whereas the Gazi had yet to visit Istanbul, the country’s largest city and the former Ottoman capital, since the conclusion of the War of Independence (1919-1922), he had made time to visit Izmir at least once every year since 1922. And whereas the Gazi was not present at the recent opening ceremonies for the Istanbul statue, as the principal points out, he was personally in attendance at the “Garden Party” thrown in his honor back in June at the agricultural school in Izmir.
Burn.
Surprisingly, Principal Abidin’s “correction” never really received the traction it deserved. To this day the Sarayburnu monument continues to widely be considered the first statue of Ataturk. Scholarly accounts of Ataturk monuments consistently neglect to mention the Izmir statue. 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 page 70.
This omission isn’t entirely the fault of the researchers as the Izmir statue is not in as central a location as the Istanbul Sarayburnu monument. Furthermore, the Izmir statue’s candidacy for being the “first” may have been 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 press is more inclined to report on and remember.
Recently the Izmir statue has enjoyed some coverage from the local press including the below articles uncovering its glorious claim to fame as the first Ataturk statue and correcting the record. (You may also want to visit these articles to behold more recent photographs of the monument than the ones provided in the Cumhuriyet article.)
http://www.egebook.ege.edu.tr/files/egeden8.sayi/files/assets/basic-html/page6.html
https://www.evrensel.net/haber/281790/izmir-heykelleri
Still, other online sources are slower to adapt or simply repeat existing lists drawn from (incomplete) accounts. This includes the usually quite reliable Hürriyet Daily News. Here we can see how the incorrect information from one source is repeated and publicized to an even wider audience in another source and thus the viral life of the flawed information is perpetuated.
Enough chit chat. Here are your translations... fresh out the oven...
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 [افاً] presenting you with 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 [ءقلتندهدر]. It was made by Krippel. Along with its small stature it is placed upon quite a [masnaa] marble pedestal.
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 [افاً] takdim ediyorum.
Vakıa Sarayburnu’ndaki gibi muazzam değildir. [هیقت] mecmuası beş metre irtifaındadır ve yarım heykel olup yüz kilo [ءقلتندهدر]. Krippel tarafından imal edilmiştir. Küçüklüğü ile beraber pek masnaa mermer bir kaide üzerinde mevzudur.
Altyazı: Gazi Paşa’nın İzmir Ziraat Mektebi bahçesindeki heykeli ve üzerindeki kitabe.
This post has been modified, updated, and re-posted on 6 October 2018. Access the new edition here.