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CHAPTER 4 – HALIDE EDIP AND YAKUP KADRI 
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Ordeal
in the chapter ‘Sakarya’ just after the victory and the withdrawal of the 
Greek divisions. Halide Edip:
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(I)saw a Turkish sergeant leading a group of Greek prisoners. They also 
sat opposite the train and rested. One of them, a youth about eighteen, 
with a narrow sun-burned face and wistful eyes, looked at me, and I 
beckoned him to come near me, which he did eagerly. He seemed to be 
so happy to hear Greek spoken, for he was from old Greece and did not 
speak Turkish. I hate to see a prisoner even of war. Man is born free. He 
cheered up as he talked about his little town, his mother and six sisters. 
He told me how he hated the brutal way his government forced them all 
to fight. No, he was not the Greek patriot of these days. The Greek 
patriotism meant such a lot of ugly and inhuman things these days, and 
the young boy I was talking to was a simple human boy. He did not 
understand the ‘Big Idea’ of the Greeks, which meant this: ‘Asia Minor 
belonged to the Greeks some thousand years ago. The Turks, who own it 
now, must be swept aside. Their homes, women folk, and property, as 
well as their lives, belong to the Greeks. Kill, rob and violate: these 
things were holy actions when done to the Turks. When the young Greek 
got up to go and shouted his last ‘Adioses Kyria’ (sic: Farewell, Madam) 
with a gleam of comfort in his pathetic eyes, feeling less lonely because a 
woman who had two lads in a far corner of the world and no end of 
human ties had listened to his woes and patted his back, I thought a 
great deal with some queer hopelessness in my heart. Patriotism which 
could make people bear the impossible could also transfer itself into this 
beastliness whenever it took an aggressive form. 
 
Halide Edip gives an understandable parody of the ‘Big Idea’. Also, what she 
describes about the Greek young man is credible if we bear in mind that there was a 
lot of dissent in the army against the Asia Minor campaign particularly among the 
communists. What she failed to see though, is that the expression of Turkish 
patriotism at that time was the exact other side of the coin. In her Kurtuluş novels her 
patriotic feelings are far from nuanced and the Greek enemy is presented in an 
explicitly loathsome manner. In addition, for a person who otherwise shows such 
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Adıvar 1928, 306 

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