SATI WOMAN
Prof. Dr. Afet İnan, Atatürk’s adopted daughter, recounts:
It was a scorching summer day in Ankara. Atatürk, accompanied by
his friends and aides, stopped near Kazan Village on his way to
Kızılcahamam and got out of his car. When the villagers—women,
young people, elders—saw these unfamiliar guests standing at the
roadside, they all rushed over. Some brought water, some brought
ayran. One of them, a village mother, poured cold ayran from her
jug and offered it to Atatürk:
-Would you like a cold ayran? she asked.
She was a Turkish mother, her face bronzed by the harsh climate,
embodying the most striking features of Anatolian women. After
pressing the swaddled baby at her chest a little tighter, she
extended the glass of ayran with her right hand and waited.
Atatürk drank it eagerly, paused for a moment, and asked:
-Who
is your husband?
The peasant woman, with a bronze face and calloused hands,
replied in Ankara’s local dialect that her husband was a warrior
wounded in the throat during the Battle of Sakarya. Atatürk
asked another question:
-When were you born?
-In 1919, when you landed in Samsun, she
said.
Atatürk thought for a moment. The year was 1934. By her account,
she should have been 15 years old. Yet the woman looked about
25. He asked again:
-How
can that be?
Without hesitation, with her characteristic wit and alluding to
the bitter years under occupation, Satı Woman replied:
-Yes, Pasha, because before that, I wasn’t
really living!
This remark deeply moved Atatürk. As he left, he instructed his
aide to note down the woman’s name and address.
Following this encounter, Satı Woman—already the headman
(muhtar) of Kazan village—was nominated at Atatürk’s request
after women were granted the right to vote and be elected on
December 5, 1934. She entered the Grand National Assembly of
Turkey as one of the Republic’s first female members of
parliament.
Note:May 19, 1919, is the date when Atatürk landed in Samsun and
launched the Turkish War of Independence. When Atatürk was asked
about his date of birth, he replied:
“I was born on May 19.”