After a Century

We're on the phone. Her excitement makes her voice tremble. "How about we send the Medal of Independence and some photographs so they can be exhibited? Wouldn't it be nice?" she says. "Of course, but..." I say to my mother. At that moment, it occurs to me what I should do.

I apply to Ms. Feray Demir, a member of the board of directors of Türkiye İş Bankası. She says, “I will do what is necessary.” The next day, I reach Ms. Ayşe Özel, the director of the Türkiye İş Bankası Museum. I go to the museum during the same week.

Inside a bag that I carefully selected, there are many photographs, a dagger, the Medal of Independence certificate and the Medal of Independence. I arrive at Eminönü with excitement.

Battles of İnönü, Battles of Kütahya-Eskişehir, Battle of Sakarya, Great Offensive, Battle of the Commander-in-Chief and all other fronts of the War of Independence. A century has passed.

Families were in material and spiritual deprivation and exhaustion. Those fighting on the fronts were also tired, but there was one last thing to do. That last thing was on Commander-in-Chief Mustafa Kemal's mind. A commander-in-chief on the fronts, in the trenches. Taking every risk, he starts the Great Offensive from Kocatepe.

On the evening of May 14, 1919, a dinner is held at the mansion of Grand Vizier Damat Ferit in Nişantaşı. The guests of the dinner are Mustafa Kemal and the Chief of the General Staff Cevat Pasha. There are five days left until Mustafa Kemal sets off for Samsun as an inspector. However, Mustafa Kemal has a different plan in mind.

The meal is over. Mustafa Kemal and Cevat Pasha are walking towards Teşvikiye. Cevat Pasha senses something. The following dialogue takes place between him and Mustafa Kemal:

- Are you going to do something, Kemal?

- Yes, Pasha. I will do something.

- May God make it successful.

- We will definitely succeed.

Ali Ratip Tunca. My father's grandfather. He was born in Yanbolu in 1885. The war years that started in 1911 continued until 1922.

I arrive at the Türkiye İş Bankası Museum. I am hosted by the museum's deputy director, Ms. Ayşegül Okan Sağlam. Together with the archive manager, Ms. Fulya Kardeş Gülmez, and the assistant education activity manager, Ms. Hafize Aslan, we look at the photographs, the dagger, the certificate, and the Medal of Independence.

I am listening to the details of the news we read in the newspaper. The Türkiye İş Bankası Museum is calling on the families who inherited the Medal of Independence. They want them to present the witnesses of the war to the public in a different way. They wanted to show the Medals of Independence, the compasses, pistols and photographs of the soldiers who went from battle to battle with their commander-in-chief Mustafa Kemal to the public.

On October 28, 2021, an exhibition titled Facades, People and the Great Victory After a Century was opened.

I can never forget the hours I spent in the museum. Everything I have looked at for years, and delved into deeply, gains a different meaning in the hour I spend in the museum. Listening to the comments of people who look at history with an expert's eye makes me have an insatiable time.

Museums exhibit the past, but they are also the future. Museums are places where art, geography, literature, and different colors and understandings of social life are exhibited. Societies become civilized and protect their culture to the extent that they can archive their culture and pass it on to the younger generations. Museums are the future and most of all, they belong to children.

Photo: Tunca Family archive.

Medals and those exhibited in the museum are inherited by families but belong to the nation. Ali Ratip Tunca closed his eyes to this world in 1951. Everything that was left of him, everything, is now in the Türkiye İş Bankası Museum. Who knows, maybe his medal and photographs are side by side with a friend on the front. The heroes of the war met in the museum a century later. Ali Ratip, who was shot while crossing the Tigris River on his horse, who fought under Mustafa Kemal's command in Arıburnu, and all the heroes are in the same place.

Top row from left to right: Ayşe - Orhan - İrfan Tunca

Bottom row from left to right: Makbule - Ali Ratip Tunca

While looking at the photographs, we also found a photograph of Atatürk among the remains of Gazi Ali Ratip. The photograph was taken in the garden of the Uşakizade Mansion. Ali Ratip had written something with a red pencil and the old alphabet on the back of the photograph of his commander in Arıburnu: a keepsake. November 10, a keepsake for all of us.

With my thanks to Türkiye İş Bankası and Türkiye İş Bankası Museum.