1920: National Assembly Opens

On This Day in Politics: April 23, 1920

On April 23, 1920, the Grand National Assembly opened in Ankara, establishing a new center of political authority for the Turkish national movement. Deputies gathered after Friday prayers at the Hacı Bayram mosque and ceremonies outside the assembly building. The opening came amid occupation and conflict following the Ottoman Empire’s defeat in the First World War. The assembly claimed the right to act for a nation whose independence its members believed was endangered. It was not yet the proclamation of the Turkish Republic, which came in 1923. The immediate achievement was to bring representatives together in an institution capable of making decisions during an unresolved struggle for power.

Mustafa Kemal’s preparations reveal the mixture of national and religious language surrounding the occasion. In a circular dated April 21, later reproduced in his account of the national struggle, he announced that the assembly would open after Friday prayers two days later. The instructions arranged prayers, a procession, and ceremonies and called for the announcement to reach even remote villages and military units. They described the undertaking in terms that included independence and the rescue of the caliphate and sultanate. A further notice on April 22 declared that, once the assembly began work, it would be the authority to which military and civilian offices should turn. The documents show an organized claim to government, not simply a commemorative gathering.

Şerif Bey, the deputy from Sinop and the oldest member, presided over the opening meeting. His speech referred to the occupation of the imperial capital and rejected submission to foreign control. He presented the assembly as the means through which the nation would determine its own future. Mustafa Kemal then explained that the body included newly elected representatives with extraordinary powers and members who had escaped from the occupied capital. The setting was materially modest: the building had required completion, school benches supplied seating, and locally obtained lamps, stoves, and office equipment helped make it usable. The contrast between limited resources and extensive claims of authority was central to the institution’s beginnings.

The following day, the assembly elected Mustafa Kemal as its president. It subsequently became the political center of the War of Independence and adopted major decisions in the formation of the new state, including the 1921 Constitution and abolition of the sultanate in 1922. Those steps developed after the opening rather than being accomplished in a single ceremony. April 23 became a lasting reference point for national sovereignty and is commemorated in Turkey as National Sovereignty and Children’s Day. The anniversary’s political importance rests on the founding claim that national representatives, meeting together, could supply legitimate authority in a period when older imperial institutions no longer commanded the same power.