Minister of Culture and Tourism Mehmet Nuri Ersoy introduced the Speech Collection Project, which carries Gazi Mustafa Kemal Atatürk's Speech, in which he describes the years of the War of Independence, the gain of independence and the founding of the Republic based on documents, into a new publication and research process. The work, which was delivered to wider audiences with its special editions in eight foreign languages and its digital platform, was also made available in audio, sign language and Braille alphabet formats.
Minister Ersoy attended the Speech Collection Project Promotion Program held at the Atatürk High Institution of Culture, Language and History and shared the details of the project prepared by the Atatürk Research Center with the public.
Drawing attention to the historical importance of the Speech in his speech, Minister Ersoy stated that the work reveals our nation's struggle for independence and the will to determine its own future and said:
“The Speech is the reflection on the pages of our nation's rising up against slavery, gaining its independence and building its own future with its own will… In his work, Mustafa Kemal Pasha revealed the conditions of the country during the War of Independence, and explained in detail, based on documents, the conditions under which the War of Independence and the modernization efforts that started after this war took place.”
Stating that the Speech reveals the historical march extending from May 19, 1919 to the founding of the Republic, Ersoy said that the Speech Collection Project was implemented with the responsibility of keeping this legacy alive and passing it on to future generations.
Ersoy stated that the project, prepared by the Atatürk Research Center Directorate in 2025, came to the agenda after the editions of Speech in foreign languages were about to run out, and noted that the study submitted to the Presidency of Strategy and Budget was accepted with the approval of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and included in the investment program.
Stating that the Nutuk is made available to the public not only as a printed work but also through digital technologies, Minister Ersoy announced that the internet platform www.nutuk.gov.tr has been opened for access.
Ersoy explained that on the new platform, Nutuk can be read in its original language, today's Turkish and English, and in the ongoing stages of the project, Turkmen, Kazakh, German, French, Persian, Urdu, Russian and Spanish will be added to the system.
Referring to the features of the digital platform, Ersoy said that text, audio and video contents can be used in conjunction with each other; He explained that it is possible to switch from text to audio, from audio to video, from one language to another, and from video to text again.
Ersoy stated that it is possible to switch between different sections of the work, and that in addition to the maps attached to the Nutuk, an interactive map showing the place names mentioned in the work can also be accessed, and that users can see in which parts of the Nutuk the place names they have chosen are mentioned and can directly access the relevant sections.
Touching on the opportunities the platform will provide to researchers, Ersoy stated that inter-platform connections have been created so that the expressions in the Speech texts can be researched through the Atatürk Encyclopedia, the Turkish World Encyclopedia, the Encyclopedic Turkish History Dictionary of the Turkish Historical Society and the Current Turkish Dictionary of the Turkish Language Association.
Minister Ersoy stated that thanks to these connections, the reading experience will also turn into a research experience, and that users will be able to create a membership, save notes for each chapter, and access these notes from different devices.
Ersoy stated that within the scope of the project, many contents, from historical events to scientific publications, from documents to photographs, were presented for research and analysis, and that the historical narrative of the work can be followed more closely with the "Today in Speech" and "Speech of the Week" sections.
Emphasizing that with all these features, Speech will no longer be a work that can only be read and passed over, Ersoy stated that the work will turn into a living source of information that is researched, examined, thought about and reunited with new generations.
Stating that opening the Nutuk to the world is one of the primary goals of the project, Minister Ersoy announced that special editions prepared in eight languages, including English, German, French, Kazakh, Russian, Urdu, Persian and Turkmen, were introduced in addition to Turkish.
Ersoy stated that different colors were used for each language in the prints prepared with new cover designs and boxed presentations, and that these publications, prepared with a common design approach, aimed to preserve the work in a qualified way and to reach wider audiences internationally.
Emphasizing that Kazakh and Turkmen translations, in particular, are of particular importance in terms of Nutuk's accessibility in the Turkish world, Ersoy said that Turkey's recent history can be directly examined by people living in different geographies, thanks to the compilation being introduced to readers in different languages and entering international circulation.
