Mustafa Kemal Ataturk: The Founder of Modern Turkey

On November 10, 1938, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the country's first president, passed away at his main residence in Istanbul's Dolmabahçe Palace. On November 21, his official funeral took place in the Turkish capital of Ankara, with dignitaries from 17 different countries in presence. Until the fifteenth anniversary of his passing on November 10, 1953, when his remains were transported to his ultimate resting place at Antkabir, his body stayed at the Anthropological Museum of Ankara.

The founder of modern Turkey was born to a poor Turkish Muslim family in Salonika, Ottoman Empire (now Thessaloniki, Greece) in 1881.   A teacher gave the youngster the nickname Kemal (‘the perfect one'). He became a national hero after defeating the Allies at Gallipoli in the First World War. The Ottoman sultanate, which had sided with the wrong side, was on its final legs, and British, French, and Italian troops took Istanbul as the Greeks invaded Anatolia. Mustafa Kemal led Turkish resistance and founded a new government and capital in Ankara in 1920. He led a national parliament that dissolved the Ottoman sultanate with many famous Turks. In 1923, Mustafa Kemal founded the Republic of Turkey after defeating the Greeks.

The new government adopted a radical secularization and westernization based on the ideology of Kemalism, which included the six fundamental principles; republicanism (i.e., the creation of the republic), nationalism, populism, Statism, secularism, and revolutionism. These reforms were based on construction of roads and railways, the expansion of government industry, the adoption of the Latin script in place of Arabic script in Turkish language, and the substitution of the Gregorian calendar for the Islamic one. The dervishes, together with the Islamic religious courts and institutions, were prohibited. Women were also given more rights under the government, which included encouraging them to discard their head coverings, granting them the right to vote in assembly elections, and allowing them to run for office.

In 1925, Mustafa Kemal argued that Turkey's religious-based political unity should be replaced by a national one that accepted western civilization. He thought the fez, a symbol of Islam, was backward and ignorant. ‘If we want to be civilized, we must wear civilized international attire,' he remarked. While the legislature enacted the Hat Law, making fez wearing a crime and the police arresting them, he donned a panama hat and suit. Turks rushing to comply wore anything they could find, including a pile of women's summer hats with garlands and feather from a shop in one area.

Even the salaam was banned, replaced by the handshake. In 1934, when surnames were first introduced, the assembly bestowed Mustafa Kemal the distinctive surname Ataturk ('Father of the Turks'). Successfully fostering a revitalized feeling of Turkish national identity and pride, the country was brought into the modern era and the western world. 

In his later years, Ataturk lived in Istanbul's beautiful Dolmabahce Palace on the northern, European side of the Bosphorus, which had once been one of the sultans' magnificent palaces. On November 9th, he returned into unconsciousness after being in a coma since September. He died the next day, at the age of 57, and the bedside clock was set to 9.05am, the timing of his death, which it still is to this day.

Turkey mourned his death in huge numbers. His remains was brought through a sorrowful Istanbul to Ankara, where it was subsequently buried while a splendid mausoleum and museum were built in his honour. Millions of tourists visit it annually since its completion in 1953. Paintings of Ataturk hung in houses and workplaces, monuments of him are located in town centers, and he features on Turkish currencies and postage stamps. 

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