The overarching theme of the story covers the impact of religious intolerance, overzealous nationalism, and the war that often results.

The book includes a vivid and detailed description of the horrors of life in the trenches during World War I.

Although fiction, the setting of Eskibahçe is based upon Kayaköy (Greek: Λειβίσσι, romanized: Leivissi) village near Fethiye, the ruins of which still exist today.

Attempts by the Turkish government to get Turks deported from Greece to inhabit the village failed, and eventually, in the 1950s, the roofs of all the houses were removed.

The story is set in Eskibahçe, a small fictional village in southwestern coastal Anatolia during the 1900s, spanning World War I and the era of Turkish nationalism.