Yahya Kemal was born Ahmet Âgâh on 2 December 1884, in Skopje, then in the Kosovo Vilayet of the Ottoman Empire into an ethnic Turkish family originally from Anatolia.

His absence from school coincided with the oppressive regime of Abdülhamit II (reigned 1876–1909), and Yahya Kemal got involved in various anti-regime movements.

Yahya Kemal grew up in a household where hymns and chants were sung, where values of the past were kept alive, hence in his poems he used religion and esthetics together.

Writing about the loss of Ottoman lands like Thessaloniki, Bitola, Skopje and Pristina he wrote:[2] When I pass my youth in Balkan towns I felt a yearning with every breath I took.

I felt the passion of my raiding ancestors Every summer, for centuries, a run to the North That has left a thundering echo in my breast.

While the army was in defeat, the whole country in mourning A conqueror's thought entered my dreams every night Feelings of melancholy, a sad remnant of the flight."

When he returned to Istanbul in 1912, Yahya Kemal was already known as a master poet, and the change of regime in the country provided him with opportunities in various high-level governmental positions.

[5] After the foundation of Turkey, Yahya Kemal became a member of parliament for the provinces of Urfa (1923–1926), Yozgat (1934), Tekirdağ and Istanbul (1943).