Double palimpsest: History and myth in the poetry of the Gallipoli campaign

The Ottoman defeat of the British and French imperial forces during the Gallipoli campaign of 1915, known in Turkish as the Çanakkale Wars, had already shown how the theatres of war would extend beyond Europe. While much of the poetry in English that came from Gallipoli is well known in the Anglophone world, the Turkish poetry from Çanakkale is less well known outside Turkey itself. This article analyses selected Gallipoli poems written in both languages in order to show how they had similar recourse to overlapping narratives of history and myth in their efforts to place the experience of war within a wider transhistorical and transcultural framework. By reflecting on the different uses of this double palimpsest, it aims to show how a transnational and transcultural approach to memorial culture can develop our understanding of how the Great War was written.