At Belkahve, the spot where Gazi Mustafa Kemal Ataturk first saw Izmir on September 9, 1922, a memorial fountain was commissioned by Izmir Governor Kazim Dirik between 1926 and 1928 to immortalize this historic moment. The current fountain was renovated in the 1940s; its original inscription was discovered in 2017 and is now exhibited at the Belkahve Ataturk Memorial House.
The Belkahve Ata Memorial House Fountain stands at the point from which Mustafa Kemal Atatürk first looked out over İzmir on the morning of 9 September 1922.
To commemorate this historic moment, a memorial fountain was built between 1926 and 1928 by Kazım Dirik, then Governor of İzmir.
Constructed in the early years of the Republic, the structure carries great symbolic value both as a symbol of Liberation and as one of the memorial sites of modern Turkey.
The original inscription bears the following words in Ottoman Turkish (old Arabic script):
"The soul of the homeland, the great Ghazi.
As he drove the enemy army into the sea,
from Belkahve, where this fountain stands,
he gazed upon İzmir and the sea."
This inscription is a powerful symbol of the culture of memorial-building and the reverence for Atatürk in the early years of the Republic.
The Belkahve Ata Memorial House Fountain is not simply a water structure; it is a tangible embodiment of:
With Bornova Municipality's discovery and restoration of the inscription in 2017, this emblematic structure has been restored to its rightful place in the national memory.
Category
Historic Fountains
Belkahve, Bornova
At Belkahve, the spot where Gazi Mustafa Kemal Ataturk first saw Izmir on September 9, 1922, a memorial fountain was commissioned by Izmir Governor Kazim Dirik between 1926 and 1928 to immortalize this historic moment. The current fountain was renovated in the 1940s; its original inscription was discovered in 2017 and is now exhibited at the Belkahve Ataturk Memorial House.
