In 1920, the revolutionary government of the Grand National Assembly in Ankara, led by Mustafa Kemal (later Atatürk), was fighting allied occupying forces trying to partition the country after World War I. To boost military and public morale, the Ministry of Education organized a national contest to write a patriotic anthem.
A total of 724 poems were submitted. However, the prominent national poet Mehmet Âkif Ersoy initially refused to participate because the contest offered a cash prize, which he felt was dishonorable for a tribute to the homeland. After being promised that the money would be donated to a charity for orphaned women and children, he agreed to write it in just a few days.
Ersoy’s poem was read aloud to the Parliament on March 12, 1921. The deputies were moved to tears and approved it unanimously with standing ovations.
In 1930, as part of Atatürk’s sweeping modernization and Westernization reforms, the government officially adopted a new composition by Zeki Üngör, the conductor of the Presidential Symphony Orchestra. It transformed the anthem into a fast-paced, Western-style, and majestic military march.