Ibrahim Gunduz
“Sultan Othman” and “Rashadiya” are two ships that we ordered from England 109 years ago, during the reign of Sultan Muhammad Rashad V, for which we collected the price and paid for them to the last penny through an exciting campaign that lasted for months in their country, but they never became our country and were usurped…
While the winds of World War I were blowing, the day came for the handover of the two battleships called “Sultan Osman” and “Rushdiye”, which the Ottoman Empire had paid in advance to resist Russian attacks. Mr. Raouf and the thousands of sailors who went with him to England had trained for two months in England and were prepared to receive the warships. The ships were launched and the day of delivery was set. On that day, an hour before the ships were to be delivered, the British government announced that it had seized the armored ships, under the pretext that World War I had begun and that the Ottoman Empire was closing in on the Germans. Raouf Bey and our sailors returned empty-handed.
These lines from an exhibition in Ankara… Prepared in cooperation with Koç University, the Collectors Association and the Cankaya Municipality and with the great efforts of Ambassador Sermet Atacanli, the exhibition “Either Independence or Death! On the Road to the Republic” meets visitors on the centenary of the Republic.
The exhibition, prepared chronologically using original documents and photographs of the period, highlights the final periods of the Ottoman Empire, the War of Independence led by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk and his comrades-in-arms, and Ankara’s role in this process.
Within the scope of the exhibition, rare works, some of which have never been exhibited in Turkey before, can be examined, as well as many everyday items from the period, newspaper copies, unearthed photographs, documents, original records, video and audio recordings. First time.
As you visit the exhibition and move through history, you will see how time periods of 10, 20, 30 years that mean so much to us have become meaningless in the flow of history.
The Ottoman Empire is on its way to collapse, and there are expectations from countries that play a leading role in this process. He commands ships, takes loans, entrusts them with a system of military education, etc.
Warships were not delivered to him even though he paid for them… strategic mistakes on the fronts and a major collapse…
Today, the world is once again experiencing great tension. The imperialists are fighting among themselves over the distribution of resources and the sharing of markets… Some imperialists do not want to lose the “living space” that they have dominated for centuries. The new imperialists, whose stars shine on the world stage, are desperate to create space for themselves.
Balances change, and alliances are formed again… Yesterday’s friends become today’s enemies, and yesterday’s enemies become today’s friends. Who would have thought that Vietnam, the scene of America’s greatest atrocities in the world, would today be America’s greatest friend! Who would have imagined that Ukraine, its greatest friend, would become Russia’s greatest enemy today? We live in a time that requires taking steps by knowing history, analyzing world politics, and thinking not once but five times.
We are the heirs of the Ottoman Empire… on the eve of another great tension (I don’t want to say world war), we take reckless and thought-provoking steps on a daily basis. Everyday politics, the period in which foreign policy was used as an instrument of domestic politics, and the F-35 aircraft that were not delivered to Turkey even though they had paid for them before this great tension.
Warships that were not delivered even though we paid for them a hundred years ago, and warplanes that were not delivered even though we paid for them a hundred years later!
As we go through such extraordinary days, the exhibition at Ankara’s Cankaya Municipality Contemporary Art Gallery is a must-see history lesson…
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