Founding family · Karabağlar tribe
Yemen veteran, stream-named surname
Abdullah Akan (1896-1969) of this family served on the Yemen front in WWI, was wounded by shrapnel, and survived because stream water cooled his wound. When the 1934 Surname Law required a family name, he chose "Akan" (flowing) as a tribute to the water that saved his life.
The Akan family is the family of the village of Mesudiye that carries the most tangible and lasting marks of the First World War. The shrapnel fragments in Abdullah Akan's body turned the abstract history of the war into a bodily reality. Like the Özşahines family, the Akan family too is a family of dual origin, registered in the population records of both the villages of Mesudiye and İslihisar.
1896 Rumeli — 1969 Mesudiye
Son of Mehmet Ali · 1896–1969
Born in Rumeli in 1896, Abdullah Akan served on the Yemen front in the First World War. Yemen was a front where Ottoman soldiers faced the harshest conditions and where thousands of Turkish soldiers lost their lives because of disease, heat and distance.
In the war Abdullah Akan was wounded by shrapnel fragments in his forehead and his chest. The marks of these wounds remained on his body for the rest of his life.
Story of survival
"While he was lying wounded on the ground at the front, he was noticed by enemy soldiers. He came to at the edge of a stream and ate raw fish in order to stay alive."
Returning from the war, Abdullah Akan settled in the village of Mesudiye and lived a long life. He died in the village in 1969 at the age of 73. The shrapnel fragments in his body were a living testimony that reminded every villager of the reality of war in concrete form.
When the Surname Law was enacted in 1934, Abdullah Akan chose the surname AKAN for his family.
"In memory of the flowing water that saved him."
The soldier who found himself at the edge of a stream while lying wounded at the front carried his debt to that water into his life in a way that would recall it even after his death. In Turkish the verb form akan carries the meaning "that which is flowing, trickling downward". This surname is a striking piece of linguistic memory born out of a war recollection.
The Akan family is registered in the village population records of both Mesudiye (founded 1907) and İslihisar (founded 1880). This dual registration is an important feature it shares with the Özşahines family.
The geographical proximity between the two villages and the shared migrant identity of Bulgarian origin made such dual registrations possible. The Akan family is one of the families that serve as a bridge between the communities of Mesudiye and İslihisar.
As one of Mesudiye's 54 surnames, the Akan family holds a special place in the village's memory of war. The story of the shrapnel wounds that Abdullah Akan carried has been passed on from generation to generation in the oral history tradition. The family's dual population record, for its part, reveals how closely intertwined a community Mesudiye is with the neighbouring village of İslihisar.