Gökçen Efe
Encyclopedia
Life
He was born in ÖdemişÖdemis
Ödemiş is a district of İzmir Province of Turkey. North of Ödemiş, which is 113 km southeast of İzmir, are the ruins of Hypaiapa...
, İzmir Province
Izmir Province
İzmir Province is a province of Turkey in western Anatolia on the Aegean coast, whose capital is the city of İzmir. On the west it is surrounded by the Aegean sea, and it encloses the Gulf of İzmir. Its area is 11,973 km.2, population 3.948.848 . The population was 3,370,866 in 2000...
. His real name was Hüseyin. But he used the name Gökçen Efe after choosing to live an Efe life as an assistant of the well known efe Çakırcalı Mehmet who was his relative. After Greek
Greece
Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....
army began invading Turkish territory on 15 May 1919, he bagan to fight against the regular Greek troops as a guerilla fighter under the general principles of Turkish National Movement
Turkish National Movement
The Turkish National Movement encompasses the political and military activities of the Turkish revolutionaries which resulted in the creation and shaping of the Republic of Turkey, as a consequence of the defeat of the Ottoman Empire in World War I....
(Kuvai Milliye). During the summer of 1919, he fought successfully against the Greeks usually with hit and run tactics. In November the tried to confront a Greek advance in the village Fata near Ödemiş. But at the end of 3 day fight, he was killed on 16 November 1919.
Legacy
In 1957, Turkish government renamed the town Fata (after merging with another settlement) as GökçenGökçen, İzmir
-Geography:Gökçen is a town in Tire district of İzmir Province at . It is situated in bottom land and along a tributary of Büyük Menderes River. The distance to Tire is and to İzmir is . The population of Gökçen is 2524 as of 2010- History :...
to immortalize Gökçen Efe's name.