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CHAPTER 1 - INTRODUCTION 
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Measured merely by pages most of the Greek literary works inspired by the Asia 
Minor disaster are novels, short stories and personal memoirs; plays and poetry 
figure to a lesser extent. It seems also that the disaster generated relatively little folk 
poetry by contrast, for example with the drawing of the new border between Greece 
and Turkey in 1881, which certainly left its impact on the folk poetry of Epirus and 
more specifically of the parts which had remained Turkish
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. Why this is so remains 
a subject for further research. 
The use of first person narration in both literatures and expressly autobiographical 
work in the Greek case suggest investigation of the links with oral history projects in 
both countries. After like work during the war itself, which was frankly produced for 
the purposes of atrocity propaganda, the paths taken in the two countries diverged 
from each other. 
At a first stage and while the war was taking place memoirs of the victims, both 
Christian and Muslim, appeared in the respective countries but via the skilful pens of 
the Kurtuluş Edebiyatçılar in the case of Turkey and correspondingly of the less 
skilful pens of the Greek journalists in Asia Minor.
The Turkish writers of the early period were all witnesses of the events. The most 
prominent among them, Halide Edip (Adıvar) and Yakup Kadri Karaosmanoğlu, 
were young but recognised literary figures at the time of the war. They were ardent 
supporters of the emerging resistance movement in Anatolia, and there is a clear 
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Two examples in Lambros, 58, 63 

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CHAPTER 1 - INTRODUCTION 
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continuum between their journalism and activism for the national cause
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and the 
novels they published during and after the war.
Prominent examples include Halide Edip’s 
Ateşten Gömlek
(Shirt of Flame) of 1922 
and 
Vurun Kahpeye
(Strike the Whore) which appeared first in serialized form in 
1924 and then as a book in 1926, and Yakup Kadri’s 
Yaban
of 1932. This activism 
included the investigation and publication of Greek atrocities which they undertook 
together with Yusuf Akçura (b. Simbirsk 1876 - d. İstanbul 1935) on the instructions 
of İsmet Pasha after the Sakarya victory. About a year later, in 1922, there appeared 
a book entitled 
İzmir’den Bursa’ya
Hikâyeler Mektuplar ve Yunan Ordusunun 
Mesul’iyetine dair bir Tedkik 
(From Izmir to Bursa: Stories, Letters and 
Investigations Pertaining to the Greek Army’s Responsibility) which is a collection 
of stories of the victims of war retold by Halide Edip, Yakup Kadri, Mehmet Asım 
(b. Gördes 1884 – d. Istanbul 1967) and Falih Rıfkı (b. Istanbul 1894 – d. Istanbul 
1971). The purpose of the book is made clear in the introduction, which in contrast 
to each story is not attributed to any one of the authors and should accordingly be 
regarded as a collective statement.
In this book the authors wished to bring together their personal 
impressions from their journey through the scorched earth between İzmir 
and Bursa among the hundreds of thousands of oppressed Turks who 
were subjected to all sorts of crimes committed by the Greeks. ..... The 
purpose of this book’s publication is not to convert those against us to 
our side, neither is it to reignite the wrath and hatred in the hearts of the 
nation. It is to enlighten us about the oppression we the Turks ourselves 
were subjected to and of which we are more ignorant than anybody 
else
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. 
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Adıvar 1928, 307-310 
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Adıvar 1922, 3-4 

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