Turkish Military Academy

MUSEUM

Restored in accordance with the contemporary norms and in a way to reflect the deeply-rooted history of the Turkish military academy (TMA) and the stages it has gone through so far since 1834, the museum of TMA was opened on the first of October 2001 and it has been extended by the addition of new sections in 2011.

The museum consists of Exhibits’ Gallery, Sports Section 1 and 2, History Section, and Library Section.

HISTORY SECTION

At the military academy cadets from 15 different countries (Afghanistan, Albania, Azerbaijan, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Gambia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, the Republic of Korea, Kosovo, NCTR, Macedonia, Moldova, Turkmenistan, Jordan) are trained. Here are the flags, information boards of the countries our guest cadets have come from, and cadet registration books.

SPORTS SECTION 2

In this section the cups won by the TMA teams since 1940s and the photographs of the successes of sports events are exhibited.

LIBRARY

In this section, the maps and documents of 1937-dated copy of the Speech written by our eternal commander-in-chief Ataturk in Ottoman Turkish, and copies of course books used in TMA since 1800s, and national information books presented by foreign delegations and School yearbooks of TMA graduates are exhibited.

EXHIBITS’ GALLERY

From the entrance to the section opening to Anafartalar Battalion, at one side of the corridor, tokens of visits presented by foreign delegations, and on the other side, paintings, with high artistic and historical value by TMA graduates are located. In this section the pictures of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk and other TMA graduate statesmen, the chiefs of staff and land forces commanders and the general commander of the gendarmerie are exhibited as well. There is also a board for exhibiting the plates presented by the graduates on “alumni days”.

SPORTS SECTION 1

The second part of the museum is "Sports Museum". The trophies won by TMA Teams from the past to the present are on display. The first football cup, won by the TMA football in 1924, the first basketball cup, won by TMA basketball team in 1951, are located here. In addition, the sports activities at TMA since the foundation in 1834 up to present are displayed here at a three-block board.

OLD TMA BUILDING

Opposite to the door of the corridor opening to the “History Section” there is the model of the building that served as TMA between1834-1936 and currently used as Military Museum in Istanbul. Our eternal Commander- in-chief, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, had his education and training between the years 1899-1902 at this building.

HISTORY SECTION

This is the main section of the museum. There is a board on which the photographs of the foundation of TMA, buildings, Abidinpasha training center in which TMA served between 1920-1923 in Ankara, moving of TMA from Istanbul to Ankara and model of present day TMA are on display. Where the board ends, in special glass case are the academy diploma samples from the past to present which are in TMA achieves, the first cadet registration book from 1834, and the cadet registration book having the records of our eternal of our eternal Commander-in-chief Ataturk’s registration (1899).

In the History section there are also School Commanders, Weapons, Old TMA classroom, Ataturk, Memories and Cadet Uniforms sub-sections.

In school commanders section, a school commander’s working desk from Old TMA (Istanbul) era, pictures of previous academy commanders since 1834 up to present, the regimental standards of 1965 and 1987 are displayed.

The weapons section, where the weapons presented to the academy and training weapons used by the cadets are displayed, precedes the old TMA classroom designed in its original form. At the entrance of the classroom at both sides, the Cadet’s logs, on which the first graduate cadet hammers a star and a plate, are placed. In the classroom library there are course books from 1700s and 1800s.

In Ataturk section, in a glass-case, personal belongings and the transcripts of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk from Salonika military high school to Military Academy and photographs of his funeral are exhibited.

In the memories section, materials donated by the alumni are displayed. Belongings of Resneli Niyazi Bey, the map used by General Fahrettin Altay during Gallipoli campaign, War of Independence medals are among them. Also, in this section some of the TMA annual albums, student year books are exhibited.

At the end of the history section, there is a uniforms section in which the uniforms worn by the cadets until now are displayed in glass-cases in a huge section.

After the History section at the exhibits’ gallery, there are the sections added in 2011, namely International cadets’ section, Sport section 2 and Library.

INTERNATIONAL CADETS’ SECTION