For the first time these hundred years, May witnessed the absence of the great historian…
For May was his favorite month, with the blossoming flowers everywhere…
For May was the month he wished to be born and so determined its 26th day as his birthday…
For May recalled to him the scent of oleasters, taking him back to 1930s Ankara with nostalgia…
For May was the time he thanked God every year for letting him breathe its freshness…
Now this May, for the first time in a hundred years, his absence will be felt everywhere but at Bilkent …
For the campus still witnesses, in absence, the grandeur of him walking slowly to his apartment, clad in trenchcoat and beret…
So, dear İnalcık, be sure that the tree overhanging your balcony blossomed, but this time not with the joy of May but with sorrow…
So this May will be dismay for all whom he left behind…
And the last words would be best given to Alfred de Musset’s “Le Nuit de Mai,” by which he was inspired:
The muse inspires the poet
Thou poet, hold thy lute and give me a kiss
The flower of the eglantines’ buds
Spring blossomed at night and the winds to embosom it
And the wagtail awaiting for the dawn
Roosts on the fresh bushes posing
Thou poet, hold thy lute and give me a kiss (….)
Hold thy lute! Hold thy lute! I can’t becalmed anymore
Hence my wings take me off to the breeze of the Spring
For the wind will take me so far away…
A tear from thou! God hears me; time to leave…
- Esim Mergen Türk
PhD Student, Department of History