Monuments of the Republic from Krippel to Hanak

Begin the route with the Victory Monument in Ulus Square, the Republic's first major monument project in Ankara. The international competition opened in 1925 was won by the Viennese sculptor Heinrich Krippel; the money came from public donations and the monument was unveiled on 24 November 1927, with the Speaker of the Assembly, Kazım Bey, cutting the ribbon. Krippel was much in demand in Turkey at the time: in 1926 he had made the Atatürk statues at Sarayburnu in Istanbul and in Konya, and he would go on to Samsun and Afyon.

The composition consists of four bronze figures. At the centre is Atatürk on his horse Sakarya; on either side of the pedestal stand two soldiers, one calling to battle, the other watching the front; behind them a Turkish woman carries an artillery shell on her back, representing the labour behind the lines. The bronzes were cast in Vienna; the pedestal is andesite and marble.

Give the pedestal your real time. The front carries four sun motifs and a quotation dated 1919; the back shows a fallen plane tree beside a sprouting tree of life, a picture of the passage from the old order to the new. The right side depicts scenes from the battles of Sakarya and the Commander-in-Chief; the left shows a victory parade and women hauling ammunition. Until Anıtkabir was built, this was the centre of state ceremonies; it was restored in 2002.

The monument stands on the east side of the boulevard; the 1925 competition was opened to place it opposite the First Assembly building. The square is crowded with traffic and pedestrians, so come early in the morning to see the reliefs up close. It is two minutes from the M1 Ulus station.

Source: Wikipedia (Zafer Anıtı, Ankara); Kültür Envanteri; Ankara Büyükşehir Belediyesi.

From Ulus walk towards the Opera and climb Namazgah hill, where Friday prayers were held during the War of Independence; the equestrian monument in front of the Ethnography Museum is waiting. This is the first Atatürk monument of Republican Ankara. The competition opened by the Ministry of Education was won by the Italian sculptor Pietro Canonica; the statue was cast in Italy and the reliefs decorating the pedestal were prepared in Venice. The statue was placed on its base on 29 October 1927 and unveiled on 4 November 1927 in the presence of Prime Minister İsmet Paşa, Speaker Kazım Paşa and Mayor Asaf Bey; İsmet Paşa cut the ribbon.

The figure wears a marshal's uniform and cape. The monument stands about eight metres high in total. The pedestal reliefs tell scenes from the War of Independence; according to the sources these include the new capital rising from ruins and the battlefield. Canonica finished a second Ankara monument that same year, which you will see a few stops later in Zafer Square; a year afterwards he made the Republic Monument in Taksim.

The building behind the statue was designed by Arif Hikmet Koyunoğlu; it was completed in the summer of 1927 and formally opened as a museum on 18 July 1930. From 21 November 1938 to 10 November 1953 Atatürk's remains lay in a temporary tomb prepared in the inner courtyard of this building, which means the road to Anıtkabir, the last stop of this route, began here.

The statue stands on a rise commanding the boulevard; morning light comes from the front, while the afternoon is better for the reliefs. Check the museum's official site for entry and hours; the monument is always visible from the garden.

Source: Wikipedia (Atlı Atatürk Anıtı; Ankara Etnografya Müzesi); Türkiye Turizm Ansiklopedisi.

Descend from the Ethnography Museum to Sıhhiye; a bronze sun disc rises in the middle of the junction. It is the only monument on this route without Atatürk and the most reproduced symbol of Ankara. The work of the sculptor Nusret Suman, it was erected in 1978, the year Suman died. Born in Thessaloniki, trained in sculpture in Paris and a long-time teacher at the Academy of Fine Arts, Suman also carved several of the tower reliefs at Anıtkabir, so this stop and the last one come from the same hand.

The monument is a copy, but the copy has its own history. The original is a Hatti ceremonial object found in the excavations at Alacahöyük; the originals are in the Museum of Anatolian Civilizations. In 1973 Mayor Vedat Dalokay made the sun disc the symbol of the city; the insurance company Anadolu Sigorta presented the monument to the people of Ankara in 1977. From 1977 to 1995 the disc also served as the municipality's logo; it was later debated and replaced, but the bronze at the junction stayed. It stands about four metres high and was restored in 2001 and most recently in 2022, in a joint effort of the metropolitan municipality and Anadolu Sigorta. The disc still lives in the city's visual identity, from the emblem of Ankara University to souvenirs; anyone who wants to see the original goes up to the Museum of Anatolian Civilizations.

There is plenty of detail for those who know how to look. The deer figures inside the disc are taken from the Alacahöyük find; they read best not up close but from the far pavement, against the sky. The monument stands in the traffic, not on a pedestrian island; use the underpasses to approach and do not step into the road. It is directly above the M1 Sıhhiye station.

Source: Wikipedia (Hitit Güneş Kursu Anıtı, TR ve EN); Ankara Resim ve Heykel Müzesi sanatçı sayfası; Yeni Ankara.

From Sıhhiye walk south along the boulevard; in front of the Officers' Club, in Zafer Square, a standing Atatürk greets you. This is Pietro Canonica's second Ankara monument and counts as the fourth monument of the Republic. It was unveiled on the same day as the equestrian statue at the Ethnography Museum, 4 November 1927, in the presence of Prime Minister İsmet İnönü. The square took its name that day; once the monument stood, the ground around it was planted and it became the new meeting place of Yenişehir.

The figure wears a marshal's uniform, both hands on the hilt of his sword, facing south towards Kızılay Square and Çankaya, with the old town at his back. The bronze statue is 1.75 metres and the marble pedestal 2 metres, 3.75 metres in all. The pedestal is a rectangular block on four steps; victory wreaths and torches are carved on its sides and there is no inscription. Seeing Canonica's two Ankara monuments on the same day makes a good comparison: one in motion and mounted, the other still and in command.

The square was once framed by buildings such as the Council of State and the Officers' Club; a new administrative court building was added in the 1960s. After the 1980s the square ceased to be a square, eroded by boulevard widening and construction around it; today the monument sits on a narrow green island. Because the space is too small for official ceremonies, only wreaths are laid here on national holidays. The monument was restored in 2022 with the support of Anadolu Sigorta.

Seen from the opposite pavement, the mass of the Officers' Club stands behind the monument; photograph the statue head-on in the morning and from the side in the afternoon. The Kızılay metro station is a few minutes away, and the next stop, Güvenpark, is within walking distance.

Source: Wikipedia (Mareşal Atatürk Anıtı; Zafer Meydanı); Çankaya Kaymakamlığı.

Descend from Zafer Square to Kızılay; at the boulevard end of Güvenpark stands the largest monument on the route. The Güven Monument, also called the Security Monument or Emniyet Abidesi in some sources, is the structure that gave its name to Güvenpark, the first park of the Republic. The park opened in 1930 as part of Hermann Jansen's city plan; the monument and the square around it were designed by the Austrian architect Clemens Holzmeister.

The sculpture's story is one of unfinished work. The Viennese sculptor Anton Hanak made the figures of the front and died at the beginning of 1934; Josef Thorak took over and finished the back. The sources differ on the dates: the front was unveiled in the autumn of 1934 and the back in 1935 or 1936. The andesite reliefs of the base were carved in Turkey, by Hanak's students together with Turkish craftsmen.

What you see: the bronze figures at the front are six metres tall; the base is 37 metres long, with an eight-metre central block and wings on either side. The reliefs show police and gendarmes beside the people, and on the back, peasants working the land and different sections of society. The monument is dedicated to the police and gendarmerie; the inscription on the base is Atatürk's saying "Türk, öğün, çalış, güven", roughly "Turk, be proud, work, trust", from which the monument takes its name.

The monument was damaged by graffiti in 2013 and by shrapnel and bullet marks in 2016; the metropolitan municipality restored it. Both faces are worked, so walk around it from the square side and from inside the park; half the reliefs are seen only from the back. The Kızılay metro and Ankaray stations lie beneath the park, and its benches make the most comfortable rest stop on the route.

Source: Wikipedia (Güvenlik Anıtı; Güvenpark; Security Monument); Yeni Ankara.

End the route at Anıtkabir, where the sculptures and reliefs were the collective test of Turkish sculpture in the 1950s. The architectural competition of 1941-42 was won by Emin Onat and Orhan Arda; the foundation stone was laid on 9 October 1944, and the opening and the transfer of Atatürk's remains took place on 10 November 1953. The sculpture and relief competition was judged on 26 January 1952 by a jury chaired by Rudolf Belling and was open only to Turkish artists.

Start with the Road of Lions. It is 262.20 metres long and 12.80 metres wide, with twenty-four lions, twelve on each side; Hüseyin Anka Özkan carved them in the Hittite manner, inspired by the Maraş Lion in the Istanbul Archaeological Museum, and the number stands for the twenty-four Oğuz tribes. The two figure groups at the head of the road are also his: three women holding a sheaf of wheat in front of the Independence Tower, and three men representing the soldier, the intellectual and the peasant in front of the Liberty Tower; both groups express mourning.

The Ceremonial Plaza measures 129 by 84.25 metres and holds fifteen thousand people; its paving forms 373 carpet compositions in coloured travertine. On the right of the stairs rising to the Hall of Honour is İlhan Koman's relief of the Battle of Sakarya; on the left, Zühtü Müridoğlu's relief of the Battle of the Commander-in-Chief. Müridoğlu also made the reliefs of the Independence, Mehmetçik and Liberty towers; those of the Revolution, Peace, Defence of Rights and National Pact towers are by Nusret Suman, the sculptor of the sun disc in Sıhhiye. The rostrum and flag reliefs are by Kenan Yontunç.

The Hall of Honour is 17 metres high and clad in marble; the symbolic sarcophagus stands there, with the actual burial chamber beneath it. Visitors pass a security check; confirm visiting hours and entry conditions on the official site. For the reliefs, walk the Road of Lions while the sun is low.

Source: Anıtkabir resmi sitesi (anitkabir.tsk.tr); Wikipedia (Anıtkabir; Anıtkabir'deki heykeller listesi); anitkabir.org.