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Field of Contest for Brave
Men: Kırkpınar
You can say either a lasting tradition, or the sports of our ancestors…
Kırkpınar is the place where the Turk’s bravery has been written, where
his courage has been told and where his power has been shown to the whole
world for centuries…
The marks on the history which Turkish people left show themselves in
their works of art, culture, social life and customs.
Turkish people have been usually remembered during thousands of years as a
warrior nation on the lands which they conquered. The preparations for the
war of Turkish army were mainly sports and wrestling. The origin of the
Turkish wrestling is based on the era when the Hun Empire was established.
At that time the wrestling was organized as “Karakucak”. After the Ottoman
Empire passed to Rumelia, it started to be organized as greased wrestling
without losing its self and soul and became an extant tradition.
The Rise of Kırkpınar Wrestling
There are many stories about the rise of the historical Kırkpınar
Wrestling. The most common of them is shortly like that:
During the wartimes which Orhan Gazi organized to conquer Rumelia in 1346,
his brother Süleyman Pasha with 40 soldiers walked upon Domuzhisar
belonging to Byzantines. They conquered there by raiding. After conquering
other castles, the scout with 40 people returned and stopped for a rest in
Samona which is in Greece now. 40 heroes wrestled there. During the
wrestling for hours, it was seen that two brothers, named Ali and Selim,
could not defeat each other.
Later on a spring festival day, on Ahıköy field near Edirne, the same
couple wrestled again. The brothers who could not defeat each other
although they wrestled all the day, continued to wrestle by the light of
the candles all night. But they died being out of breath.
Their friends left the place after burying them under a fig tree on the
same place. After years when they went to the same place they saw a spring
on the land where the two wrestlers’ graves stood. And then the people
called the district as “KIRKPINAR” in memoriam of the ones resting there.
 The place of Kırkpınar and its moving to Edirne
The real KIRKPINAR field is the area within the meadow of Samona village
in Greece. At the end of the Balkan Wars and the First World War,
Kırkpınar Wrestling was organized in “Virantekke” between Edirne and
Mustafapaşa Road. After the Republic, the wrestling started to be
organized in Sarayiçi in Edirne in 1924.
Kırkpınar Wrestling was organized by “Kırkpınar Aghas” until 1928. They
provided the awards on the wrestling and the entertainment of the guests.
But because of the economic distress in the country in 1928, nobody
applied for being agha and the organization of the wrestling and the
entertainment of the guests were undertaken by the Red Crescent and the
Society for the Protection of Children.
The historical Kırkpınar Wrestling has started to be organized by the
Edirne Municipality since 1946. In the same year, the mayor Tahsin Şıpka
held the Kırkpınar Wrestling among the municipality services.
In which period of the year is Kırkpınar
Wrestling organized?
Traditionally, the Kırkpınar Wrestling is organized at the last week of
June each year.
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