1880-1938
Born Mustafa in 1880 or 1881 in Salonica, a prosperous city in the late Ottoman Empire. Later known as Mustafa Kemal, he assumed the surname Ataturk—”Father of the Turks”—in 1934. Son of Ali Riza, a civil servant, and Zubeyde, Mustafa Kemal became a prominent officer in the Ottoman army during World War I, the leader of the Turkish struggle for independence (1919-1922), and then founding president (1923-1938) of the Republic of Turkey. Ataturk died from cirrhosis of the liver in Istanbul on November 10, 1938.
Mustafa Kemal grew up under the authoritarian Ottoman sultan, Abdulhamid II (r. 1876-1909). He attended military high school in the town of Manastir before studying at the War College in Istanbul between 1899 and 1904. At a time when a growing number of Ottoman intellectuals and officers—collectively known as the Young Turks—were becomingly increasingly disillusioned with the state of the empire under Abdulhamid II, Mustafa Kemal found himself involved in revolutionary plots to overthrow the sultan. Appointed to serve in Syria in 1905, he returned to Salonica in 1907, where he was active in the Ottoman Freedom Society and the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP). Mustafa Kemal played only a minor role in the Young Turk Revolution of July 1908, but as a junior officer he was an active member of the Operational Army that marched on Istanbul in April 1909 to suppress a counterrevolution that aimed to restore power to Abdulhamid II.
Between 1909 and 1914 Mustafa Kemal held various posts in the Ottoman army and participated in campaigns against Italy in Tripoli in 1911 and after that in the Balkans. An opinionated and strong-willed young man, Mustafa Kemal developed a rivalry with the leadership of the CUP—Enver Pafa in particular—that prevented him from rising quickly within the ranks of the military and from having much influence over Ottoman politics. In late1914 Enver Pafa committed the Ottoman Empire to World War I on the side of Germany and Austria-Hungary, and throughout the war Mustafa Kemal served as an officer on numerous fronts. His most important campaign—for which he was to gain considerable fame after the fact—was at Gallipoli, where he played a critical role helping to defend the Dardanelles. There he gained a reputation for personal bravery and effective leadership, but also for challenging the authority of allied German commanders and of Enver Pafa. Thereafter Mustafa Kemal commanded forces in Eastern Anatolia and in Syria/Palestine, where he commanded the Seventh Army when the Ottoman government concluded an armistice at Mudros on October 30, 1918.
Ataturk as a Young Man. As the first president of the Republic of Turkey, AtatUrk modernized the country by instituting numerous political, economic, and social reforms.
With the conclusion of the war, the Allies set out to divide up Ottoman territory and to incorporate much of it into their own spheres of influence, while also permitting Greek and Armenian occupation of parts of Anatolia and Thrace. In Istanbul, Ottoman politicians and officers debated how to respond to these developments: the sultan advocated acquiescing to Allied demands, while nationalists—including Mustafa Kemal—discussed ways to resist the terms of the armistice. Meanwhile, across Anatolia and Thrace local Turkish groups dedicated to ”the defense of national rights” had emerged by May 1919 to oppose the presence of British, French, Italian, Greek, and Armenian occupying forces. Unable to exercise much influence in Istanbul, Mustafa Kemal secured an appointment as inspector of the Ninth Army and was dispatched to Anatolia by the sultan to oversee Ottoman compliance with the armistice. Mustafa Kemal, however, had very different ideas and following his arrival in
Samsun on May 19, 1919, he began to assume leadership of the nationalist opposition and to unite it into a cohesive political and military movement. He devoted the next three years to leading the Turkish War of Independence, and against considerable odds Turkish forces succeeded at driving out all occupying forces, while Mustafa Kemal adroitly isolated the sultan’s influence in Istanbul. The Ottoman parliament had reconstituted itself as the Grand National Assembly of Turkey in Ankara, and, increasingly under Mustafa Kemal’s influence, it then declared an end to the sultanate on November 1, 1922; it subsequently proclaimed the Republic of Turkey with Mustafa Kemal as its first president on October 29, 1923.
Mustafa Kemal served as president for fifteen years, during which time he strove to ensure Turkey’s independence at a time of ongoing Western colonial activity throughout Asia and Africa. Contrary to Western predictions that ”Eastern” or ”Oriental” peoples would prove too backward to be capable of self-governance, Mustafa Kemal pursued a cautious foreign policy that did not invite foreign interference and looked to Soviet Russia for support; moreover, he was determined to modernize the Turkish nation so that it might take its rightful place in the ”civilized” world. Convinced that his vision alone was best for Turkey’s future, Mustafa Kemal tolerated neither political nor popular opposition and ruled the country in an increasingly authoritarian manner. His vision for the country gradually developed into an ideology known as Kemalism, which denigrated the Ottoman-Islamic past and stressed the importance of a united modern nation rooted in an ancient Turkish history. Mustafa Kemal is frequently associated with efforts to reform and ”secularize” Turkish culture and society, but while these efforts had an undeniable impact, his policies did not eliminate popular commitment to Muslim beliefs and practices. In fact, developments in the nearly seven decades since his death demonstrate that while Turks did indeed come to identify with Mustafa Kemal’s Turkish nation-state, they also maintained a strong identity as Muslims.
After Ataturk’s death in 1938, the Republican People’s Party, which he had established, declared Ataturk the nation’s ”eternal leader.” In many ways he lives on today: His portrait, statues, and excerpts from famous speeches are displayed prominently throughout the country. Since the late 1940s there has been some debate as to the efficacy of Ataturk’s reforms and the nature of his leadership, in reaction to which the Grand National Assembly passed legislation in 1951 prohibiting his public defamation. Yet Ataturk today still remains deeply revered and respected and is mythologized for the role he played in leading what Turks consider to have been the first successful struggle of an Eastern nation against Western imperialism. Indeed, Ataturk provided important inspiration for subsequent nationalist movements from
North Africa to South Asia, although his commitment to secularization won him many critics in the Arab world especially. Few other nationalist leaders of the twentieth century continue to be as popular and prominent as does AtatUrk in Turkey. He must be considered one of the great statesmen of the twentieth century.
