"The Legend of the National Militia" is one of the timeless masterpieces of Turkish literature, in which Nazim Hikmet narrates the War of Independence in sections. It was written during Hikmet's imprisonments in the Istanbul Tevkifhanesi in 1939, Çankiri Prison in 1940, and Bursa Prison in 1941. The book was first published in Turkey in 1965 under the title "The Legend of the National Independence." The work was later published in 1968 under the title "The Legend of the National Militia" In this piece, Nazim Hikmet immortalizes hundreds of thousands of Anatolian people who sacrificed their lives for their country by transforming our National Struggle into an epic through his beautiful, simple, and fluent Turkish language and extraordinary metaphors. The work is currently being staged in various new productions as both theater, audio theater, and as podcast.
—Archive