Why did I remember Nene Hatun, who left her baby in the cradle and walked to the bastion?
Perhaps the wars that are being talked about again these days, the open threats against Turkey and the increasingly harsh language of the world led me to this story.
Because there are times.
History ceases to be a distant story, it touches one's shoulder.
This is exactly what happened in Erzurum on that November night in 1877.
The war between the Ottomans and Russia, known in history as the 93 War, was going on. The Russian army had advanced in Eastern Anatolia and was at the gates of Erzurum.
On the night of November 8 to November 9, Russian troops infiltrated the Aziziye Bastion.
It was not just the fall of a position.
This meant forcing Erzurum's door.
If the bastion could not be held, Erzurum would wake up in the morning as a city captured by the Russian army.
If a bastion fell, a city could fall.
If a city falls, the homeland that its inhabitants would leave to their children could also fall.
Word spread in the city.
“Aziziye has fallen.”
Doors opened.
People came out of their homes.
The one with a rifle picked up a rifle.
He took an axe that wouldn't pass.
Pickaxe, shovel, stick...
Erzurum began to fill with people walking towards Aziziye in the darkness.
In a house in that city, a three-month-old baby was sleeping in a cradle.
His name was Yusuf.
His mother was the only one at home.
Because the baby's father had already gone to the front and joined the Ottoman army in the 93 War.
The sounds from outside were getting louder.
“Aziziye has fallen!”
There are many such moments in the history of the Turks.
Sometimes one has to leave one's own life, sometimes one's home, sometimes one has to leave one's loved ones behind.
That night, a mother left her baby in the cradle and walked with the crowd towards Aziziye Bastion.
Her name was Nene Hatun.
When they reached Aziziye, there was no turning back.
Bayonets, axes, screams...
The people of Erzurum stormed the bastion with the soldiers.
The attack was so great that the Russian soldiers could not hold the bastion.
By morning, Aziziye was back in the hands of the Erzurians.
What made Nene Hatun go down in history was not only her fighting.
It was a mother suppressing her strongest instinct and putting the fate of the country ahead of her own fear.
Years later she was given the title “Grandmother of the 3rd Army”.
But it is not titles that keep him alive.
It's the memory of that night.
When the bastion was retaken in the morning, only one position was not saved.
A city was saved.
The door of a homeland was closed to occupation.
That young woman who left a baby in a cradle at home and walked to the bastion became a symbol years later.
But it was not only Nene Hatun who was a symbol.
What emerged in Erzurum that night was this nation's bond with its homeland.
That's why some nights are not ordinary.
Some nights a nation remembers its strength, its heart and its unity.
In this land, sometimes a baby in a cradle can be alone.
But the homeland is never abandoned to its fate.