Contemporary Narratives and Counternarratives of a Myth: The Battle of Gallipoli

This essay aims to investigate the reconstruction of national identity and collective memory in Turkey by choosing the commemoration of the battle of Gallipoli (1915–16) as a case study. It is considered that the remembering of Gallipoli is a fruitful field of investigation in order to identify the semantic and symbolic shifts in the constant re-building of collective memory in the Turkish context. The starting point of the paper is that the field of cultural production can be analysed as an extension of the commemorative practice. Thus, after a short account of the basic features of the narratives surrounding the remembering of the battle, attention will be drawn on some literary works — with few remands to cinematography — which show the different ways through which the myth of Gallipoli is popularised and incorporated in the public debate. The study will illustrate how cultural production focused on Gallipoli is marked by different ideological trends which give evidence to a widespread need to participate in its remembering by reasserting or even questioning official narratives.