"Gallipoli Letters 1912-1915, My Soul, My Dear Husband!"

Century-old letters revealing, through a real family drama, the love and the suffering of war betweenCaptain Yusuf Kenan Bey, who was martyred on the Gallipoli Peninsula on 25 April 1915, one hundred years ago, and his wifeZehra Hanımhave been brought together in the book titled"Gallipoli Letters 1912 – 1915, My Soul, My Dear Husband!".

“Retrieved from the dusty shelves of history and prepared for publication by the "Bahçeşehir University Gallipoli Centenary Research Center", the book by Dr. Fikret Yılmaz offers, for the first time, such a close look at the life of a family during the wars, at what happened among them and at how the war affected those away from the front, through the letters exchanged between Captain Kenan Bey, one of the steadfast defenders of Gallipoli and the Dardanelles in 1912 – 1915, his wife and other relatives.

Published by Bahçeşehir University Press, the book seeks to trace the face of the war at and away from the front and what people felt, based on 94 letters written between Captain Yusuf Kenan, his wife Zehra and their close circle.

WHO WAS YUSUF KENAN?

Captain Yusuf Kenan Bey, who was martyred during the First World War, had spent the last three years of his life on duty defending the Gallipoli Peninsula and the Dardanelles. However, the battle in which he was martyred was not his first assignment on the Gallipoli front. He was first involved in the defense of the Dardanelles during the Italo-Turkish War (1911 – 1912). He served at Gallipoli a second time due to the Balkan Wars (1912 – 1913), and a third time he was among the soldiers defending the Gallipoli Peninsula during the First World War until the day he was martyred. During the Italo-Turkish War, he was at Kumkale and Ezine on the Anatolian side. During the Balkan Wars, he served for 11 months at Maydos (Eceabat), Bolayır and Anafartalar. When he was sent back to Gallipoli in the First World War, in October 1914, he was martyred on 25 April 1915, the day the Gallipoli land battles began, while fighting against the forces landing at İkiz Bay. He was 34 years old when he was martyred, leaving behind his 27-year-old wife Zehra and two children, one three years old and the other about six months old. His family only learned of his death 15 days later. Telling of the great love revealed through the letters written a century ago by Captain Yusuf Kenan and Zehra Hanım, as well as the suffering of war, the book"Gallipoli Letters, 1912 – 1915, My Soul, My Dear Husband!"is the first publication of the Bahçeşehir University Gallipoli Centenary Research Center.