The First Morning of the Republic

I opened my eyes to the world in the middle of a war. I didn’t know exactly where the middle of the war was, but my mother always said, “I gave birth to you in the middle of a war.”

The date is April 23, 1920. There is no room to step in front of the Grand National Assembly building. A stall catches the eye at the back of the crowd. A child in front of it, who knows, maybe a street vendor. Does it have a mother, is its father alive? How does a child live life when the homeland is tired, the people are poor, and hopes are lost? Şermin Yaşar
, one of the productive and beloved writers of our children’s literature , takes us to the years of the War of Independence through the eyes of a sherbet boy. Accompanied by Gökçe Akgül’s delicate drawings, we will experience the mobilization, the hope that slowly blossomed in the footsteps of our great leader Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the change in society, the days of deprivation, and the expected victory together. We will welcome the first morning of the Republic together in the light of the light shed by İlber Ortaylı, the great name of Turkish history, on the historical aspects of the War of Independence days.