A simpering star representing a nation? Addressing the star, Ersoy wrote: “Do not frown…please smile upon my heroic nation. Coy means simpering, arch, flirtatious, kittenish, and skittish. The anthem describes the “Turkish” star as “coy”. Tunisia’s flag is almost identical to the Turkish flag. Now there are at least fifty states-from Angola to Zimbabwe-with the same star on their flags. When Ersoy wrote the lines about “Turkey’s star”, a dozen nations-including the U.S.–had the identical five-point stars on their flags. Ottoman Turkey adopted the crescent-and-star in the mid-18 th century, borrowing it from Christian Byzantium (it was the flag of Byzantine Constantinople). The third line refers to the star on the Turkish flag: “For that is the star of my people…It is mine, and solely belongs to my valiant nation.” Thus Turkey appropriates a symbol that has been universally in use since at least 1,000 BCE. Is it the poet-politician-academic Ersoy addressing Turkey or Turkey addressing the Turks?
“Fear not For the crimson banner that providing ripples in this glorious dawn shall not fade,” starts the anthem. The English translation of the anthem has a number of such illogical English phrases as “take shame” and “unhand not”.
Ersoy also couldn’t differentiate between an exclamation mark and a semi-colon. Perhaps unsure whether his feverish lines had conveyed his ultra-nationalist bipolar message, Ersoy peppered his lyrics with eighteen exclamation marks. During a trip to Lebanon he contracted typhoid and died shortly after.Īlmost every line of the anthem is an invitation to disbelief and ridicule because of excesses in expression, absence of logic, or historical truth. Several years later Ersoy moved to Egypt. Poet, politician and academic Mehmet Ersoy (1873-1936) wrote İstiklal Marşı in 1921. One can only imagine the cruel imposition on millions of Turks who are expected to remember the rambling and interminable lyrics. The Turkish anthem also has the rare distinction of being the only national rah-rah whose title is made up two foreign words- İstiklal Marşı (‘independence’ and ‘ march’ in Arabic and French respectively.) As well, with forty-one lines, the Turkish anthem must be one of the longest.
#Turkish anthem full
National anthems are, by definition, bombastic, over-the-top, full of braggadocio and glittering generalities. But even in such an unrestrained musical category, Turkey’s national anthem stands out as an exemplar of hyperbole, blood-and-guts vows, triumphalism, self-pity, and paranoia. A Increase font size.īy Jirair Tutunjian, Toronto, 29 March 2020
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