Hero Women in the Turkish Popular Memory of the Russo-Ottoman War (1877 – 1878): Presentation of Nene Hatun as an Eternal Heroine in the Popular Media
Hero Women in the Turkish Popular Memory of the Russo-Ottoman War (1877 – 1878): Presentation of Nene Hatun as an Eternal Heroine in the Popular Media

Summary/Abstract: The nationalistic mythical image of women as heroines defending the homeland as an auxiliary power alongside men during vital battles can be best illustrated by the example of Nene Hatun (1857-1955) who is generally presented in the collective memory in Turkey as a woman hero playing a symbolic role in the battlefield near Erzurum during the Russo-Ottoman War of 1877 – 1878. She had performed exceptional bravery during her unexpected participation in the military combat as a leader of some civilians. One of the aims of this essay is to explain the essence of the terms ‘exceptional’ and ‘unex-pected’ in the previous sentence in the framework of discussions on women heroism, on militarism, on popular memory and on construction of modern collective identities.

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