Rengigul

“A gravestone may disappear, but a song does not”. “The Triump of Dignity”

Rengigül Hanım was the paternal grandmother of my mother, who lost her mother and father in the Circassian Exile, lost Minister of Justice Nâzım Pasha, with whom she had grown up, in 31 March Incident in 1909, and was the beloved wife of Karahisâr-i Sâhib Şehremini Sarı Hacı Alizâde Ahmet Efendi, who was one of the first deputies of the first Turkish parliament called “Meclis-i Mebusan-ı Osmanî”, a Sufi, a respectable businessman and a wheat exporter. My name was whispered in my ear by her son, Haydar Bey, who was one of the owners of the first cinema and station restaurant, by telling “I put you in my mother’s place in my soul”. The mansion she had left as a bride became Istanbul University, and the mansion of the family she was married into became the “Personal Military Quarter” of Nikolaos Trikoupis, the Commander of the Greek Armies in the “Occupation Years”.

Sami Atam, who was the grandson of Atatürk’s grandfather’s sister and schoolmate of Atatürk, was taken prisoner in Turco-Italian War. During that time, Thessaloniki was no more a part of the “Ottoman Land”. With “Thessaloniki Exile”, his spouse and our maternal grandmother Habibe Hanım from Skopje settled in Istanbul, Firuzaga. Their daughter Bedia Hanım got married to Bedri Bey, who was the grandson of Hacı Ahmet Efendi who was the spouse of Rengigül Hanım, and adopted “Elado”. “Souls of Wars and Exiles”…

As the daughter of Prof. Dr. Faik Yaltırık, who was the son of mistress of fashion tailor shop in Istanbul, and the first Turkish botanist who started to work as of 1961 in the book of 10 volumes called “Flora of Turkey” which was started to be written in the Royal Botanic Garden in Edinburgh, and attributed one of his books to his both grandfathers who were Canakkale martyrs and instilled "Love of Forest", and whose name was given to newly found plants such as “Centaurea yaltirikii”, and as the daughter-in-law of Saffet Ural, a charcoal and photograhy master, I say how pleasant it is to “grow or send up shoots” instead of “sending into exile” and “be”ing by growing sad.

I wish that “Triump of Dignity” shall be composed hand in hand in a world full of “Love and Peace”.