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CHAPTER 7 – ERGENEKON 
206 
their battles against the Tatars in Mongolia in a mythically indeterminate past
13
. It 
was made famous by Ziya Gökâlp, the leading figure of Turkism, who in 1912 used 
this material in a narrative poem which he named 
Ergenekon
, addressed to Turkish 
youth. The 1973 edition of Yakup Kadri’s 
Ergenekon 
emphasises the connection by 
quoting two lines of Ziya Gökâlp’s poem on the title page. 
Yakup Kadri says that he picked only fifty or sixty (actually 59) articles from the 
several hundred that he wrote. He claims not to have liked these more than others but 
that they are simply “scrap documents” which the history of the War of 
Independence will not capture
14
. Without a full survey of Yakup Kadri’s political 
journalism it is impossible to say how representative of all the views he may have 
held between 1919 and 1922 the selected articles are. There is clearly a 
chronological bias in the selection, as is clear from the following table and a 
suspicious reader might remember that the Nationalists only started to look like 
winners after the end of 1920.
Date Span 
 
Items
 
Number of articles 
 
1920 1
st
half
1-2
2 
1920 2
nd
half
3-6
4 
1921 1
st
half
7-12 
6 
1921 2
nd
half
13-26
14 
1922 1
st
half
27-48
22 
1922 2
nd
half
49-59 (ends Aug) 
14 
13
Şükrü, 77-78 
14
Karaosmanoğlu 1973, 226

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CHAPTER 7 – ERGENEKON 
207 
A categorisation of the content by theme also produces interesting results. Of the 59 
articles no fewer than 15 are directed against pessimists and appeasers among which 
in emphatic place is the very first in the book. There is direct criticism of the CUP in 
one of the articles
15
and naturally of the defeatist Liberals as well
16
. Mustafa Kemal 
is exorbitantly praised in four articles
17
devoted only to him and İsmet in two
18
. The 
only victories emphasised are the two at İnönü and that at Sakarya. There is only one 
vague and inaccurate reference to a victory over the Armenians
19
. This selection of 
themes fairly precisely agrees with the official line, as drawn after 1926.
In his original preface to 
Ergenekon 
Yakup Kadri characterises these articles in very 
strange terms, as if he is apologising. He was “sleepwalking”, “feverishly talking”, 
saying things which were “as meaningless as the hoarse cries of a dervish in 
ecstasy”
20
. It is true that the articles are written with a zeal that is almost religious
21
, 
an analogy which Yakup Kadri draws in the epilogue. Their unmoderated fury lacks 
the shading and ambiguity found in his creative writing. A typical instance is the 
following: 
“Biz harbin en zorunu bizi içimizden sarsan iç düşmanlarımıza karşı 
yaptık. Bursa’nın düşüşü, İzmit ve Bilecik faciaları Yunanlılardan çok 
bunların eseridir. Ben hiçbir zaman Yunan ordusundan korkmadım, 
15
Karaosmanoğlu 1973, 156
16
Karaosmanoğlu 1973, 171
17
Karaosmanoğlu 1973, 59-61, 90-93, 102-105, 185-188 
18
Karaosmanoğlu 1973, 62-66, 222-225
19
Karaosmanoğlu 1973, 160
20
Karaosmanoğlu 1973, 5
21
The words of Bertrand Russell may apply here too: “The reason why communists are so zealous in pursuit of 
their own idea is because they are a minority and because they are not quite positive that it is true.” (Harold 
Nicolson, 
Diaries and Letters 1945-62
, 1968, London: Collins, 202) 

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