The One and Only Ataturk, Seriously.

By Reuben Pine

Merhaba Everyone!

Ataturk's mausoleum in Ankara

Thursday we visited the Mausoleum of Ataturk, and if you want to know how significant this is just look at the last four letters of his name and you might get a better idea. Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, formerly known simply as Mustafa, was born in 1881 in Thesseloniki and he came to be the single most influential and renowned Turk to have ever lived. Mustafa was born in the time of the Ottoman Empire into a country that was ruled by the Islamic religion. It was not required that citizens be Muslim, but those citizens belonging to other religions were treated unfairly through increased taxes and different military service requirements among other things. Simply put, the world that Mustafa was born into was not a pleasant one, and he would come to play a leading role in the revival of this area and the birth of a new country.

Funerary monument inside the mausoleum--the grave itself is several floors down

Throughout his life Mustafa excelled in his studies and as a leader. Because of this he was given another name, Kemal, which means clever or wise, by his mathematics teacher when he was still just a boy. Mustafa Kemal’s mother knew that he was a good student and since he was her only son, she wanted him to enroll in religious school. Mustafa Kemal did so but only for one year as his dream, along with every other boy in this culture, was to be a military officer, and so Mustafa Kemal enlisted to serve in the military.

View of the city of Ankara from the mausoleum

Mustafa Kemal served in the Ottoman army during the First World War and during that time he was sent to a northern city in Turkey on a mission to stop local resistance against the Allied forces. While he was there, however, he actually encouraged the resistance and even organized it, much to the displeasure of his commanding officers. For this reason, Mustafa Kemal was summoned to return to his military headquarters for trial. Mustafa ignored this summon and instead headed down to the city of Ankara where he gained a following and set up a new government which lead to the creation of a new nation which he called Turkiye (later named Turkey by the British). Mustafa was displeased with the way the Ottoman Empire was run, and he sought to create a new nation, a Democratic Republic, which was operated in a completely different way than that of the Ottomans. In 1924, the first constitution of Turkey was signed, and in that same year the country was named a secular country in order to peel away from the roots of injustice that surrounded the Ottoman Empire’s religious biases. Mustafa Kemal refused to be named a Caliph (the religious leader of the Sunni world) in order that he could distance his new nation from the ways of the Ottoman Empire.

Statue of Ataturk in front of the Turkish flag

Despite all of the work that Mustafa Kemal had done, a new war began to rage in the young nation of Turkey, the war of revolution. In 1926, the city of Ankara was named the capital due to its defendable location; in 1928 the Turkish alphabet was changed to what it currently is; and in 1930 Turkish women were given the right to vote. Along with those changes, burkhas had been banned to distance Turkey from the grip of Islamic rule, educational reforms were made, and family surnames were chosen by the people. Mustafa Kemal had devoted his life to the creation and revolution of a nation. He stood up and led the Turkish people to reform, and for that reason, in 1934, he was given the name Ataturk which means father of the Turks. Mustafa Kemal Ataturk continued working tirelessly, often sleeping only about 3 hours per night, until he died of liver cancer in 1938. To this day, no other Turk has had the name Ataturk, and as he had no children, no Turk ever will have the name again as it has been forbidden for any other to take this name thus making him the one and only Mustafa Kemal Ataturk. 

In the present day, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk is revered and loved by the Turkish people, and it is almost impossible to go to a city and not see his face or a statue of him somewhere in the city. Never have I seen a man so revered by a country in my entire life the way that Ataturk is in Turkey. If you didn’t know, you would think that Ataturk was worshipped as a god here in Turkey, but this was exactly opposite of what he wanted. He told the people not to deify him, as all he wanted to do was make a nation for the people. Of course this did not stick as his face is literally everywhere, but what stands out most is the character of this man who gave everything he had to the people of Turkey and wanted nothing back but to see this nation thrive.

 

                Thanks for stopping in! See you all soon!

                              -Reuben-