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Türkiye marked the 105th anniversary of its national anthem on March 12, 2026, with commemorations across the country, as students took part in recitation contests and public institutions held events to remember both the anthem’s adoption and its writer, Mehmet Akif Ersoy.
The anthem was written in 1921, at a time when parts of the former Ottoman lands were under foreign occupation after World War I. As the independence struggle unfolded, a nationwide competition was launched to select an original national march that could lift morale among fighting forces and strengthen public resolve.
A total of 724 poems were submitted, yet none was considered suitable. Attention then turned to Ersoy, already widely recognized as one of the nation’s leading poets. He had stayed out of the competition because he objected to the cash prize attached to it. Parliament later persuaded him to contribute a poem without taking the reward, and he eventually submitted a 10-verse work centered on courage, sacrifice, faith, homeland and independence.
The opening line, “Fear not! For the crimson flag that waves in these dawns, shall never fade,” has remained the anthem’s best-known verse and has long been associated with the spirit of resistance during the war.
Ersoy’s poem, titled Istiklal Marsi, was adopted as the Turkish national anthem on March 12, 1921, before the republic was formally declared in 1923. The reward linked to the original poetry competition was donated to a foundation that helped poor women and children gain vocational skills and earn an income.
After the lyrics were adopted, a separate competition was held for the musical composition. Although 24 composers took part, wartime conditions prevented an immediate final evaluation, and the anthem was sung in different ways in different parts of the country.
In 1924, a composition by Ali Rifat Cagatay was selected and used until 1930. It was then replaced by the composition prepared in 1922 by Osman Zeki Ungor, conductor of the Presidential Symphony Orchestra. That version became the anthem’s current musical form, while the orchestration was later prepared by Edgar Manas.
This year’s anniversary events brought renewed attention not only to the anthem itself but also to Ersoy’s place in Turkish history. The sources describes him as Türkiye’s national poet and one of its best-known literary figures of the War of Independence period.
By marking the anniversary through school competitions and official ceremonies, the country once again highlighted the anthem’s dual role as both a wartime text and a lasting state symbol, written before the republic’s founding but carried into the new era.
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