Satıkadın Müzesi

The Satıkadın Museum is a small house museum in the Kahramankazan district in the north-west of Ankara, set up in the home of Satı Kadın, one of the first women village heads and one of the first women members of parliament of the Republic. In the parliamentary records Satı Kadın appears under the name Hatı Çırpan, but in the district and among the public she has always been known as Satı Kadın. According to Wikipedia, the decision to turn the house into a museum was taken in 2012 and the museum entered service in 2014. The story of how the house became a museum is interesting too. According to a 2013 report by the Cihan News Agency, her grandchildren came together and decided to hand the house over to Kazan Municipality free of charge to become a museum, and the protocol was signed in December 2012. According to the same report, the house was thought to have been built of mud brick in the first years of the Republic. When the repair began at the roof, part of the rotten roof and one wall collapsed, bringing down the floor of the upper storey onto the floor below. No one was killed or injured, and the municipality announced that it would rebuild the house faithfully to the original and more solidly. The two-storey house you see today is the result of that reconstruction. With its white rendered walls, stone-faced base, wide wooden eaves and two wooden balconies, it is easy to pick out from the square. A bust of Satı Kadın stands on a pedestal in front of the house, and photographing the house together with the bust is the best-known frame. The museum displays belongings and clothes that belonged to Satı Kadın. The collection also includes photographs and paintings that bear witness to her time. Knowing Satı Kadın's story before walking through the rooms makes the objects easier to read. Satı Kadın was born in 1890 in what was then the village of Kazan; her father was Kara Mehmet Efendi and her mother Emine Hanım. Her real name was Hatice, and after her father's death she won a struggle over the inheritance against one of the village bullies, after which she began to be called Satı Ağa. She was married to a soldier who had been wounded in the throat in the Balkan War, and she was the mother of five children. She is said to have worked to supply the army during the War of Independence and to have made her living from farming. She learned to read and write in the Nation Schools opened after the Alphabet Reform. After women were given the right to become village heads, she won the headship of Kazan village on 26 October 1933 and became one of the first women village heads in Turkey. According to English Wikipedia, Atatürk made an excursion to the village of Kazan on 16 July 1934 and met the village head there. In the 1935 elections Satı Kadın became one of the eighteen women members who entered parliament, and she served on the Agriculture Committee. She changed her name from Satı to Hatı at the suggestion of Atatürk, who was interested in the Hattian civilisation in those years. It is recorded that during her term she lived in a village house in Ankara and hosted people from her village there. After completing her term she returned to Kazan, and she died in March 1956. Satı Kadın's monumental tomb lies near the museum, and there is also a monument in a park named after her in the district. On 5 December 2024, the anniversary of the day women were granted the right to vote and be elected, Kahramankazan Municipality held a commemoration in front of the monument, and the participants toured the museum house. The house is small, and walking through the rooms and looking at the photographs is easily done in a short visit. For visiting days and hours, check the current announcements of Kahramankazan Municipality before you go. Kahramankazan, known by its old and popular name Kazan, lies on the Mürted Plain to the north-west of Ankara and became a district in 1987. According to tradition, the village took its name from the cauldrons left behind by the Ottoman army in the Battle of Ankara in 1402. In an excavation carried out in 1942 at Bitik, one of the villages of the plain, nine settlement layers going back to the Copper Age were found. The district is reached by road from central Ankara, and current bus services are published on the municipality's website. It is possible to fit the museum into the same day as the Galatian remains at Karalar to the west of the district centre and the picnic area of the Kurtboğazı Dam to the north. The Kurtboğazı Dam was built between 1963 and 1967 for irrigation and drinking water.