The Sivas Congress was the path to the liberation of a nation, according to Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, founder of the Republic of Türkiye. Some 107 years later, the convention is remembered as one of the key events leading to the foundation of the republic.
The central Turkish city that lent its name to the congress has hosted several events since Aug. 31 and was scheduled to host more on Thursday to mark the 1919 congress, which was part of the National Struggle led by Atatürk and embraced by the nation seeking to repel invaders in post-World War I Türkiye. Atatürk’s arrival in the city more than a century ago was re-enacted on Wednesday, while the courtyard of the building where the congress was held hosted a fashion event showcasing traditional dresses dating from the Seljuk period to the Republican era.
The Sivas Congress was among a chain of events initiated by Atatürk, who secretly left occupied Istanbul in 1919 under the guise of inspecting Ottoman troops in Anatolia. Planning to mobilize the country to expel the Allied forces, Atatürk, then known as Ottoman commander Mustafa Kemal, advanced this goal with the Sivas Congress, the first public gathering that served as a kind of precursor to the republic’s Parliament by giving the people of Anatolia a say in the future of a country that was in tatters as the Ottoman Empire was collapsing. A Council of Representatives was elected at the congress and served as the top body overseeing the struggle for liberation. It gave legitimacy to the national anti-occupation movement, which would later be based in present-day capital Ankara, where the republic was declared four years later.
Atatürk first arrived in Sivas on June 27, 1919, to organize mobilization for the National Struggle before leaving for the eastern city of Erzurum. He returned on Sept. 2, 1919, and stayed in Sivas, which he described as one of the “safe cities” during the occupation, until Dec. 18, 1919. The congress officially began in a building that now serves as a museum on Sept. 4, 1919. The congress lasted seven days, during which Atatürk, fellow soldiers, and public figures discussed various pressing issues in an effort to realize the goal of liberating the country. It hosted heated debates, including over a proposal that the nation should accept a foreign mandate or protectorate under the control of the occupying powers.
Ultimately, participants rejected any notion of a mandate or protectorate. On Sept. 12, 1919, Atatürk, or Mustafa Kemal Pasha as he was known at the time, announced the decisions made at the congress. The most important among them was the rejection of a mandate.
This was perhaps best embodied in an exchange between Atatürk and a medical student identified only as “Hikmet” in official records. During the Sept. 8 session of the congress, Hikmet told Atatürk that they should not accept a mandate.
“My fellow students sent me here to represent their efforts for our cause of independence. If anyone here accepts a mandate, we will strictly oppose them. Even if it is you, Mr. Pasha, we will reject and condemn you,” he said.
The words moved Mustafa Kemal, who told the congress to pay attention to the example set by the youth.
“This is the expression of the Turkish nation’s noble blood. So, rest assured. I am proud of the youth, and I want them to know that we will not accept a mandate even if we are to remain in the minority. Our goal will not change: it is either independence or death,” Atatürk said.
Serap Bozpolat Ayan, a lecturer at the Department of Atatürk’s Principles and History of the Turkish Revolution at Sivas Cumhuriyet University, told Anadolu Agency (AA) that books would not be enough to fully describe the Sivas Congress.
Emphasizing that the Sivas Congress was where the Turkish nation declared, “I will not surrender,” Ayan said: “At the Sivas Congress, the only concrete option before us appeared to be a mandate or a protectorate. But a Turk cannot live as a captive; a mandate or colonial rule could never be an option for us. Therefore, the Sivas Congress offered a choice between independence and death. In other words, a mandate or protectorate would have been worse than death for us and was not an option. The survival of the Turkish people could only be possible through independence.”
Recalling that Atatürk emphasized that freedom and independence were inherent to the character of the Turkish people, Ayan said: “We were under occupation. Our flag, territorial integrity and independence were under threat, and we were virtually left without a state. We were under serious intervention by the victorious powers. We had entered a period in which they sought to determine our fate. In such an environment, it seemed as though there was a road ahead of us, but it was pitch dark, and we were going through a period in which we could not see our way. Mustafa Kemal’s role was essentially to illuminate that path. The Sivas Congress was one of the most important steps in this process and, in a sense, its beginning.”
