Ankara Mehmet Akif Ersoy House

The house where Mehmet Akif Ersoy, the author of the National Anthem of the Republic of Turkey, lived for a period in the Sıhhiye District, where there are many historical buildings in Ankara, is a very important tourist attraction that welcomes visitors from all over the world and all ages. The National Anthem is the official national anthem of the state of the Republic of Turkey. The author of this anthem, which has been heard at least once by the world and whose intensity of emotion in its words is quite high, is Mehmet Akif Ersoy. This anthem, consisting of 10 stikes, was written after such difficult processes in the period in and made the author pray that “God never let this nation write the national anthem again!" The house where this anthem was penned and where its author lived was first converted into a museum in 1949. After a while, the house became idle and was restored and opened to visitors in 1984. In the museum, it is possible to find personal items belonging to Mehmet Akif Ersoy bearing traces of the difficulties of those days plain as day such as photographs of that period, other poems of the poet and sections of his life. We have added The National Anthem to our article for those who do not know or have not had the opportunity to reach the whole of it before... We commemorate all the martyrs of the War of Independence, The Great Leader Ghazi Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, his comrades and Mehmet Akif Ersoy, the most valuable poet in Turkish literature, with infinite gratitude.Rest in peace. İstiklal Marşı Fear not! For the red flag that proudly ripples in this glorious twilight, shall never fade, Before the last fiery hearth that is ablaze within my nation is extinguished. For That is the star of my nation, and it will forever shine; It is mine; and solely belongs to my valiant nation. Frown not, I beseech you, oh thou coy crescent, But smile upon my heroic race! Why the anger, why the rage? ¹ Our blood which we shed for you will not be blessed otherwise; For freedom is the absolute right of my God-worshiping nation. I have been free since the beginning and forever will be so. What madman shall put me in chains! I defy the very idea! I’m like the roaring flood; powerful and independent, I’ll tear apart mountains, exceed the heavens and still gush out! The lands of the West may be armored with walls of steel, But I have borders guarded by the mighty chest of a believer. Recognize your innate strength, my friend! And think: how can this fiery faith ever be killed, By that battered, single-fanged monster you call “civilization”? My friend! Leave not my homeland to the hands of villainous men! Render your chest as armor and your body as trench! Stop this disgraceful rush! For soon shall come the joyous days of divine promise… Who knows? Perhaps tomorrow? Perhaps even sooner! View not the soil you tread on as mere earth, recognize it! And think about the shroudless thousands who lie so nobly beneath you. You’re the noble son of a martyr, take shame, hurt not your ancestor! Unhand not, even when you’re promised worlds, this paradise of a homeland. What man would not die for this heavenly piece of land? Martyrs would gush out were one to just squeeze the soil! Martyrs! May God take all my loved ones and possessions from me if He will, But may He not deprive me of my one true homeland for the world. Oh glorious God, the sole wish of my pain-stricken heart is that, No heathen’s hand should ever touch the bosom of my sacred Temples. These adhans, whose shahadahs are the foundations of my religion, And may their noble sound last loud and wide over my eternal homeland. For only then, shall my fatigued tombstone, if there is one, prostrate a thousand times in ecstasy, And tears of fiery blood shall flow out of my every wound, And my lifeless body shall gush out from the earth like an eternal spirit, Perhaps only then, shall I peacefully ascend and at long last reach the heavens. So flap and wave like the bright dawning sky, oh thou glorious crescent, So that our every last drop of blood may finally be worthy! Neither you nor my race shall ever be extinguished! For freedom is the absolute right of my ever-free flag; For freedom is the absolute right of my God-worshiping nation! Mehmet Akif Ersoy