Guide
The building was a school before it was a museum. It went up in 1916 as the Turan Numune Mektebi and belongs to the First National Architecture period; for many years it housed a succession of public bodies, then stood empty. It was transferred to Anadolu University in 1989, restored and fitted out, and opened as the Museum of Republican History on 23 April 1994.
It has been closed for longer than most visitors would guess. After some twenty years it shut in 2013 for rebuilding and stayed shut for six; it reopened on 21 March 2019, with the formal opening that September.
The display runs over two floors. The right wing of the ground floor covers Turkish history in panels, images and drawings, with objects in cases alongside. The corridor linking the two wings carries the Ottoman coat of arms and the text of the speech Mustafa Kemal gave to the people of Eskişehir on 15 January 1923, together with models of ships that served in the War of Independence and the Republic — the minelayer Nusrat, the Bandırma and the Savarona. The left wing of the ground floor turns to Gallipoli, one of the decisive fronts of the First World War.
Visit status for this record: open to visitors.
