“We Will Not Abandon You, Your Greatest Work Is Entrusted to Us”
Anatolia, which we call our homeland today, was relegated to the background, even forgotten, during the last two centuries of the Ottoman Empire, its people abandoned. Mustafa Kemal Atatürk laid the foundations of the National Struggle in the heart of Anatolia. After the victory, with the proclamation of the Republic, he traveled every inch of Anatolia, choosing to engage with his fellow citizens; he embraced the people’s concerns as his own. He viewed the people not as subjects, but as citizens with equal rights, and always acted accordingly; from city dwellers to villagers, from women to men. Gazi Mustafa Kemal Atatürk was the first leader to truly connect with the people of Anatolia. While equipping the country with iron networks, he also traveled domestically on a train called the “White Train.” He traversed the entire country in long journeys lasting months. Atatürk, who traveled on this train until the last days of his life, also traveled to eternity on this same train.
The tragic news from Dolmabahçe Palace plunged all of Turkey into a heavy silence. Following the great loss of our Great Leader, his final journey began with a sadness so profound it defies history. Atatürk’s remains were transported from Dolmabahçe Palace to İzmit aboard the Battleship Yavuz. The train he was transported from there was met with such intense interest that it reached Ankara in exactly 17 hours. This was a nation’s farewell ceremony. Atatürk, who never forgot the people of Anatolia, did not abandon them on his final journey. People from villages and towns swarmed the train, almost grinding it to a halt. Thousands waited on the roads, tears in their eyes, flowers in their hands, and an indescribable pain in their hearts, to greet the train and bid him one last farewell. Gazi Mustafa Kemal Atatürk was sent off on his eternal journey with perhaps the longest farewell in the world. This was much more than just an ordinary farewell. This was the eternal journey of a leader’s love for his people and the devotion his people felt for him.
