Mustafa Kemal Atatürk
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Mustafa Kemal Atatürk
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| In office 29 October 1923 – 10 November 1938 |
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| Succeeded by | İsmet İnönü |
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| In office 3 May 1920 – 24 January 1921 |
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| Succeeded by | Fevzi Çakmak |
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| In office 24 April 1920 – 29 October 1923 |
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| Succeeded by | Ali Fethi Okyar |
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| In office 1919 – 1938 |
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| Succeeded by | İsmet İnönü |
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| Born | May 19, 1881 Selânik (Thessaloniki) |
| Died | 10 November 1938 (aged 57) Dolmabahçe Palace, İstanbul |
| Nationality | Turkish |
| Political party | Republican People's Party |
| Spouse | Lâtife Uşaklıgil (1923–25) |
| Religion | Islam[1][2][3] |
| Signature |  |
| Military service | |
| Allegiance | Ottoman Empire (1893 - 8 July 1919) Turkey (9 July 1919 - 30 June 1927) |
| Service/branch | Army |
| Rank | Ottoman Empire: General Republic of Turkey: Mareşal |
| Commands | 19th Division - XVI corps - 2nd Army - 7th Army - Thunder Groups Command |
| Battles/wars | Tobruk - Anzac Cove - Chunuk Bair - Scimitar Hill - Sari Bair - Bitlis - Sakarya - Dumlupınar |
| Awards | List (24 medals) |
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| Mustafa Kemal Atatürk (series) | |
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| Personal life | Birth date · Name · Early life (Education) · Family · Character · Religious beliefs · Will · Publications |
| Military career | Early period · Gallipoli · Caucasus · Sinai and Palestine |
| Independence War | Establishment · Conflicts · Peace |
| Atatürk's Reforms & Kemalist ideology | |
| Gallery: Picture, Sound, Video | |
Mustafa Kemal Atatürk (19 May 1881–10 November 1938) was a Turkish army officer, revolutionary statesman, and founder of the Republic of Turkey as well as its first President.
Mustafa Kemal established himself as an intelligent and extremely capable military commander while serving as a division commander at the Battle of Gallipoli. He later fought with distinction on the eastern Anatolian and Palestinian fronts, making a name for himself during World War I.[4] Following the defeat of the Ottoman Empire at the hands of the Allies, and the subsequent plans for its partition, Mustafa Kemal led the Turkish national movement in what would become the Turkish War of Independence. Having established a provisional government in Ankara, he defeated the forces sent by the Entente powers. His successful military campaigns led to the liberation of the country and to the establishment of the Republic of Turkey.
As the first President of Turkey, Atatürk embarked upon a major programme of political, economic and cultural reforms. An admirer of the Enlightenment, Atatürk sought to transform the ruins of the Ottoman Empire into a modern, democratic, secular, nation-state. The principles of Atatürk's reforms are often referred to as Kemalism and continue to form the political foundation of the modern Turkish state.
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Mustafa Kemal Atatürk was born in the Ottoman city of Salonika (Turkish: Selânik; modern-day Thessaloniki in Greece) in the spring of 1881.Ali Rıza Efendi his father, Zübeyde Hanım his mother. Born as Mustafa, his second name Ke-mal (meaning Perfection or Maturity) was given to him by his mathematics teacher in recognition of his academic excellence.[5] In his early years, his mother encouraged Mustafa to attend a religious school (the Mahalle Mektebi or Neighborhood School), though a reluctant Mustafa completed only a brief period of study there. Due to a fight with one of his teachers, he left the school and attended the Şemsi Efendi school at the behest of his father. His parents wanted him to have education in trade, but he secretly took an exam for getting into a military junior high school in Selânik in 1893. In 1896, he enrolled into a military high school in the Ottoman city of Manastır (today's Bitola, in the Republic of Macedonia.) In 1899, he enrolled at the War College in Constantinople (modern Istanbul) and graduated in 1902. He later graduated from the War Academy on 11 January 1905.
After his graduation in 1905, he was assigned to Damascus as a lieutenant. He joined a small secret revolutionary society of reformist officers called "Motherland and Liberty." In 1907, he was promoted to the rank of captain and assigned to Manastır. He joined the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP). However, in later years he became known for his opposition to, and frequent criticism of, policies pursued by the CUP leadership. In 1908, he played a role in the Young Turk Revolution which seized power from Abdülhamid II. In 1910, he took part in the Picardie army maneuvers in France. In 1911, he served at the Ministry of War for a short time. Later in 1911, he was posted to the Ottoman province of Trablusgarp (present-day Libya) to oppose the Italian invasion. He returned to the capital in October 1912 following the outbreak of the Balkan Wars. During the First Balkan War, he fought against the Bulgarian army at Gallipoli and Bolayır on the coast of Thrace. In 1913, he was appointed military attaché to Sofia and promoted to the rank of lieutenant colonel in 1914.
In 1914, the Ottoman Empire entered World War I and engaged with the Allies in the Middle Eastern theatre. Mustafa Kemal was given the task of organizing and commanding the 19th Division attached to the 5th Army during the Battle of Gallipoli. The Gallipoli campaign became a disastrous defeat for the Allies. Mustafa Kemal became the outstanding front-line commander after correctly anticipating where the Allies would attack and holding his position until they retreated. Following the Battle of Gallipoli, Mustafa Kemal served in Edirne until 14 January 1916.
He was then assigned to the command of the XVIth Corps of the 2nd Army and sent to the Caucasus Campaign. The massive Russian offensive had reached the Anatolian key cities. On 7 August, Mustafa Kemal rallied his troops and mounted a counteroffensive.[6] Two of his divisions captured not only Bitlis but the equally important town of Muş, greatly upsetting the calculations of the Russian Command.[7] On 7 March 1917, Mustafa Kemal was appointed from the command of the XVI Corps to the overall command of the 2nd Army. The Russian Revolution erupted and the Caucasus front of the Czar's armies disintegrated.[6] Mustafa Kemal had already left the region and was assigned to the command of the 7th Army at the Sinai and Palestine Campaign.
He returned to Aleppo on 28 August 1918, and resumed his command. Since Liman von Sanders had lost the Battle of Megiddo, nothing stood between General Allenby's forces and Mustafa Kemal. Concluding that he didn't have enough men to engage the British forces, Mustafa Kemal retreated towards Jordan to establish a stronger defensive line. He was appointed to the command of Thunder Groups Command (Turkish: Yıldırım Orduları Gurubu), replacing Liman von Sanders. Mustafa Kemal's position became the base line for the Armistice of Mudros.
Kemal's last active service to the Ottoman Army was organizing the return of the troops that were left behind the south of his line. Mustafa Kemal returned to an occupied Constantinople on 13 November 1918. Along the established lines of partitioning of the Ottoman Empire, British, Italian, French and Greek forces began to occupy Anatolia. The occupation of Constantinople along with the occupation of İzmir mobilized the establishment of the Turkish national movement and the Turkish War of Independence.[8]
Mustafa Kemal's active participation in the national resistance movement began with his assignment as a General Inspector to oversee the demobilisation of remaining Ottoman military units and nationalist organizations. On 19 May 1919, he departed from the Ottoman capital to Samsun. The first goal in his mind was the establishment of an organised national resistance movement against the occupying forces. In June 1919, he and his close friends declared that the independence of the country was in danger. He resigned from the Ottoman Army on 8 July and the Ottoman government issued a warrant for his arrest. Later, he was condemned to death.
Mustafa Kemal called for a national election to establish a new Turkish Parliament that would have its seat in Ankara.[9] On 12 February 1920, the last Ottoman Parliament gathered in the capital. This parliament was dissolved by British forces after it declared the National Pact (Turkish: Misak-ı Milli). Mustafa Kemal used this opportunity to establish the "Grand National Assembly" (GNA). On 23 April 1920, the GNA opened with Mustafa Kemal as the speaker. On 10 August 1920, Grand Vizier Damat Ferid Pasha signed the Treaty of Sèvres. It finalized the plans for the partitioning of the Ottoman Empire, including the regions that Turkish nationals viewed as their heartland. Kemal insisted on complete independence and the safeguarding of the interests of the Turkish majority on Turkish soil. He persuaded the GNA to gather a National Army. The Army faced the Allied occupation forces and fought on three fronts: in the Franco-Turkish, the Greco-Turkish and the Turkish-Armenian wars. After a series of initial battles during the Greco-Turkish war, the Greek army advanced as far as the Sakarya River, just eighty kilometers west of the GNA. On 5 August 1921, Mustafa Kemal was promoted to Commander in chief of the forces.[10] The ensuing Battle of Sakarya was fought from 23 August to 13 September 1921 and ended with the defeat of the Greeks. The Allies, ignoring the extent of Kemal's successes, hoped to impose a modified version of the Sèvres treaty as a peace settlement on Ankara, but Kemal rejected their proposal. In August 1922, Kemal launched an all-out attack on the Greek lines at Afyonkarahisar in a final conflict, the Battle of Dumlupınar.
The Conference of Lausanne began on 21 November 1922. In accordance with the directives of Mustafa Kemal, İsmet İnönü refused any proposal that would compromise Turkish sovereignty,[11] major matters regarding the control of Turkish finances, the Capitulations, the Turkish Straits, justice, and the like. On 24 July 1923, the Treaty of Lausanne was signed. The final outcome of the independence war came with the proclamation of the Republic of Turkey on 29 October 1923.
- For conceptual analysis, see Kemalist ideology and Atatürk's Reforms
The Treaty of Lausanne ended the Turkish War of Independence and recognized the new nation's independence. However, efforts to modernise the country had just started; institutions and constitutions of Western states such as France, Sweden, Italy, or Switzerland were yet to be analyzed and adapted according to the needs and characteristics of the Turkish nation. Highlighting the public's lack of knowledge regarding Kemal's intentions, the public cheered: "We are returning to the days of the first caliphs".[12] In order to establish reforms, Mustafa Kemal placed Fevzi Çakmak, Kazım Özalp and İsmet İnönü in important political positions. Mustafa Kemal capitalized on his reputation as an efficient military leader and spent the following years, up until his death in 1938, instituting wide-ranging and progressive political, economic, and social reforms. In doing so, he transformed Turkish society from perceiving itself as Muslim subjects of a vast Empire into citizens of a modern, democratic, and secular nation-state.
A basic political principle for Kemal was the complete independence of the country; the independence of the country was not negotiable for him.[13] He was well aware that independence could not be maintained solely by use of physical power. He clarified his position:
...by complete independence, we mean of course complete economic, financial, juridical, military, cultural independence and freedom in all matters. Being deprived of independence in any of these is equivalent to the nation and country being deprived of all its independence."[14]
—Mustafa Kemal
He led wide-ranging reforms in social, cultural, and economical aspects. As a result, the new Republic's backbone of legislative, judicial, and economic structures was put in place with these reforms.
Mustafa Kemal created a banner to mark the changes between the old Ottoman and the new Republican rule. Each change was symbolized as an arrow in this banner. The new citizens of the Republic, who had been subjects of the Ottoman Empire only a few years ago, carried this banner to remind them of the major concepts of this new establishment. This defining ideology of the Republic of Turkey is referred to as the "Six Arrows" or Kemalist ideology. Kemalist ideology is based on Mustafa Kemal's conception of realism and pragmatism.[15] The fundamentals of nationalism, populism and etatism were all defined under the Six Arrows. These fundamentals were not new in world politics or, indeed, among the elites of Turkey. What made them unique was that these interrelated fundamentals were formulated specifically for Turkey's needs. A good example is the definition and application of secularism; the Kemalist secular state significantly differed from predominantly Christian states.
[edit] Emergence of the state, 1923-1924
Mustafa Kemal's private journal entries dated before the establishment of the republic in 1923 show that he believed in the importance of the sovereignty of the people. In forging the new republic, the Turkish revolutionaries turned their back on the perceived corruption and decadence of cosmopolitan Istanbul and its Ottoman heritage.[16] For instance, Ankara became the country's new capital. It was a provincial town deep in Anatolia that turned into the center of the independence movement. He wanted a "direct government by the Assembly"[17] and visualized a representative democracy, parliamentary sovereignty, where the National Parliament would be the ultimate source of power.[17] However, in the following years, he took the position that the country needed an immense amount of reconstruction, and that "direct government by the Assembly" could not survive in such an environment. The revolutionaries regularly faced challenges from the supporters of the old Ottoman regime, and also from the supporters of relatively new ideologies such as communism and fascism. Mustafa Kemal saw the consequences of fascist and communist doctrines in the 1920s and 1930s and rejected both,[18] He prevented the spread of totalitarian party rule which held sway in the Soviet Union, Germany and Italy.[19] Some perceived his opposition and silencing of these ideologies as a means of eliminating competition, others believed it was a necessary means to protect the young Turkish state from succumbing to the instability of new ideologies and competing factions.[citation needed]
The heart of the new republic was the GNA. The GNA was established during the Turkish War of Independence by Mustafa Kemal.[20] The elections were free and an egalitarian electoral system that was based on a general ballot was used.[20] The role of deputies at the GNA was to be the voice of Turkish society by expressing its political views and preferences. It had the right to select and control both the government and the Prime Minister. Initially, it also acted as a legislative power, controlled the executive and, if necessary, acted as an organ of scrutiny under the Turkish Constitution of 1921.[20] But the Turkish Constitution of 1924 set a loose separation of powers between the legislative and the executive organs of the state, whereas the separation of these two within the judiciary system was a strict one. Mustafa Kemal, then the President, occupied a powerful position in this political system.
The single-party regime was established de facto in 1925 after the adoption of the 1924 constitution. The only political party of the GNA was the "Peoples Party" that was founded by Mustafa Kemal in the initial years of the independence war. On 9 September 1923 it was renamed as the Republican People's Party (Turkish "Cumhuriyet Halk Fırkası").
[edit] Civic independence and the Caliphate, 1924-1925
Abolition of the Caliphate was an important dimension in Mustafa Kemal's drive to reform the political system and to promote the national sovereignty. The Caliphate was the core political concept of Sunni Islam, by the consensus of the Muslim majority in the early centuries.[21] Abolishing the sultanate was easier because the survival of the Caliphate at the time satisfied the partisans of the sultanate. This produced a two-headed system with the new republic on one side and an Islamic form of government with the Caliph on the other side. Kemal and İnönü worried that "it nourished the expectations that the sovereign would return under the guise of Caliph...[22]" Caliph Abdülmecid II was elected after the abolishment of the sultanate (1922). The Caliph had his own personal treasury and also had a personal service that included military personnel; Mustafa Kemal said that there was no "religious" or "political" justification for this. He believed that Caliph Abdülmecid II was following in the steps of the sultans in domestic and foreign affairs: accepting and responding to foreign representatives and reserve officers, and participating in official ceremonies and celebrations.[23] He wanted to integrate the powers of the Caliphate into the powers of the GNA. His initial activities began on 1 January 1924.[23] He acquired the consent of İnönü, Çakmak and Özalp before the abolition of the Caliphate. The Caliph made a statement to the effect that he would not interfere with political affairs.[24] On 1 March 1924, at the Assembly, Mustafa Kemal said
The religion of Islam will be elevated if it will cease to be a political instrument, as had been the case in the past."[25]
—Mustafa Kemal
On 3 March 1924, the Caliphate was officially abolished and its powers within Turkey were transferred to the GNA. The debate as to the validity of Turkey's unilateral abolition of the Caliphate was taken up by other Muslim nations in order to decide whether they should confirm the Turkish action or appoint a new Caliph.[24] A "Caliphate Conference" was held in Cairo in May 1926 and a resolution was passed declaring the Caliphate "a necessity in Islam", but failed to implement this decision.[24] Two other Islamic conferences were held in Mecca (1926) and Jerusalem (1931), but failed to reach a consensus.[24] Turkey did not accept the re-establishment of the Caliphate and perceived it as an attack to its basic existence; while Mustafa Kemal and the reformists continued their own way.[26]
The removal of the Caliphate was followed by an extensive effort in establishing the separation of governmental and religious affairs. Education was the cornerstone in this effort. In 1923, three main horizontal institutions existed, which were closed to each other. The first and most common institutions were local schools and medreses based on Arabic, the Qur'an and memorization. The second type of institution was the reformist schools of the Tanzimat era called idadî and sultanî. Also, there were schools educating pupils in foreign languages, like colleges and minority schools. Under Kemal the old medrese education was modernized.[27] Mustafa Kemal changed the classical Islamic education with a vigorously promoted reconstruction of educational institutions along the line of an enlightened pragmatism.[27] Kemal linked educational reform to the liberation of the nation from dogma, which he believed was even more important than the Turkish war of independence.
Today, our most important and most productive task is the national education [unification and modernization] affairs. We have to be successful in national education affairs and we shall be. The liberation of a nation is only achieved through this way."[28]
—Mustafa Kemal
In the summer of 1924, Mustafa Kemal invited American educational reformer John Dewey to advise him on ideas for reforms and recommendations aimed at modernizing the Turkish educational system.[27] His public education reforms endeavored to enhance public literacy and thus better prepare citizens for roles in public life. He wanted to institute compulsory primary education for both girls and boys; since then this effort has been an ongoing task for the Republic. He pointed out that one of the main targets of education in Turkey had to be raising a generation nourished with what he called the "public culture". The state schools established a common curriculum which became known as the "unification of education." Unification of education was put into force on 3 March 1924 by the Law on Unification of Education (No. 430). With the new law, education became inclusive, and organized and operated on a deliberate model of the civil community. In this new design all schools submitted their curriculum to the "Ministry of National Education." It was a government agency modeled after other Ministry of Educations of its time. It established a contemporary route to the traditional social structure by causing contemporary citizen consciousness. Concurrently, the Republic abolished the two ministries and subordinated the clergy to the department of religious affairs. The change was one of the foundations of secularism in Turkey. The unification of education under one curriculum was the end of "clerics or clergy of the Ottoman Empire." It was not the end of religious schools which were moved to higher education until consequent governments pulled them back to secondary education after Mustafa Kemal's death.
Beginning in the fall of 1925, Mustafa Kemal encouraged the Turks to wear modern European attire.[29] He was determined to force the abandonment of the sartorial traditions of the Middle East and finalize a series of dress reforms, which were originally started by Mahmud II.[29] The fez was established by Sultan Mahmud II in 1826 as part of the Ottoman Empire's modernization effort. The Hat Law of 1925 introduced the use of Western style hats instead of the fez. Mustafa Kemal first made the hat compulsory to civil servants.[29] The guidelines for the proper dressing of students and state employees (or , indeed, anyone, in public space controlled by the state) were passed during his lifetime; many civil servants adopted the hat willingly. In 1925, Mustafa Kemal wore his "Panama hat" during a public appearance in Kastamonu, one of the most conservative towns in Anatolia, to explain that the hat was the headgear of civilized nations. The last part of reform on dress emphasized the need to wear modern suits instead of antiquated religion-based clothing such as the veil and turban in the Law Relating to Prohibited Garments of 1934.
Even though he personally promoted modern dress for women, Mustafa Kemal never made specific reference to women’s clothing in the law. In the social conditions of the period, he believed that women would adapt to the new way with their own will. He was frequently photographed on public business with his wife Lâtife Uşaklıgil, who originally covered her head in accordance with Islamic tradition, but then threw off the hijab and urged Turkish women to do the same.[30]. He was also frequently photographed on public business with women wearing modern clothes. But it was Atatürk's adopted daughters like Sabiha Gökçen and Afet İnan who provided the real role model for the Turkish women of the future. He wrote: "The religious covering of women will not cause difficulty ... This simple style [of headcovering] is not in conflict with the morals and manners of our society."[31]
On 30 August 1925, Mustafa Kemal's view on religious insignia used outside places of worship was introduced in his Kastamonu speech. This speech also had another position. He said:
In the face of knowledge, science, and of the whole extent of radiant civilization, I cannot accept the presence in Turkey's civilized community of people primitive enough to seek material and spiritual benefits in the guidance of sheiks. The Turkish republic cannot be a country of sheiks, dervishes, and disciples. The best, the truest order is the order of civilization. To be a man it is enough to carry out the requirements of civilization. The leaders of dervish orders will understand the truth of my words, and will themselves close down their lodges [tekke] and admit that their disciplines have grown up.[13]
—Mustafa Kemal, Kastamonu Nutku
On September 2, the government issued a decree closing down all Sufi orders and the tekkes. Mustafa Kemal ordered their dervish lodges to be converted to museums, such as Mevlana Museum in Konya. The institutional expression of Sufism became illegal in Turkey, but a politically neutral form of Sufism, functioning as social associations, was permitted to exist.[citation needed]
The abolition of the Caliphate and other cultural reforms were met with fierce opposition. The conservative elements were not happy and they launched attacks on the Kemalist reformists.[24]
[edit] Opposition, 1924-1927
In 1924, while the "Issue of Mosul" was on the table, Sheikh Said Piran began to organize the Sheikh Said Rebellion. Sheikh Said Piran was a wealthy Kurdish hereditary chieftain (Tribal chief) of a local Naqshbandi order. Piran emphasized the issue of religion; he not only opposed the abolition of the Caliphate, but also the adoption of civil codes based on Western models, the closure of religious orders, the ban on polygamy, and the new obligatory civil marriage. Piran stirred up his followers against the policies of the government, which he considered to be against Islam. In an effort to restore Islamic law, Piran's forces moved through the countryside, seized government offices and marched on the important cities of Elazığ and Diyarbakır.[32] Members of the government saw the Sheikh Said Rebellion as an attempt at a counter-revolution. They urged immediate military action to prevent its spread. The "Law for the Maintenance of Public Order" was passed to deal with the rebellion on 4 March 1925. It gave the government exceptional powers and included the authority to shut down subversive groups (The law was eventually repealed on 4 March 1929).
There were also parliamentarians in the GNA who were not happy with these changes. There were so many members who were denounced as opposition sympathizers at a private meeting of the Republican People's Party (CHP) that Mustafa Kemal expressed his fear of being among the minority in his own party.[33] He decided not to purge this group.[33] After a censure motion gave the chance to have a breakaway group, Kazım Karabekir, along with his friends, established such a group on 17 October 1924. The censure became a confidence vote at the CHP for Mustafa Kemal. On 8 November the motion was rejected by 148 votes to 18, and 41 votes were absent.[33] CHP held all but one seat in the parliament. After the majority of the CHP chose him[33] Mustafa Kemal said, "the Turkish nation is firmly determined to advance fearlessly on the path of the republic, civilization and progress".[33]
On 17 November 1924, the breakaway group officially established the Progressive Republican Party (PRP) with 29 deputies and the first multi-party system began. The PRP's economic program suggested liberalism, in contrast to the state socialism of CHP, and its social program was based on conservatism in contrast to the modernism of CHP. Leaders of the party strongly supported the Kemalist revolution in principle, but had different opinions on the cultural revolution and the principle of secularism.[34] The RPR was not against Mustafa Kemal's main positions as declared in its program. The program supported the main mechanisms for establishing secularism in the country and the civic law, or as stated, "the needs of the age" (article 3) and the uniform system of education (article 49).[33] These principles were set by the leaders at the onset. The only legal opposition became a home for all kinds of differing views.
During 1926, a plot to assassinate Mustafa Kemal was uncovered in İzmir. It originated with a former deputy who had opposed the abolition of the Caliphate and had a personal grudge. The trail turned from an inquiry of the planners of this attempt to an investigation carried out ostensibly to uncover subversive activities and actually used to undermine those with differing views regarding Kemal's cultural revolution. The sweeping investigation brought before the tribunal a large number of political opponents, including Karabekir, the leader of PRP. A number of surviving leaders of the Committee of Union and Progress, who were at best second-rank in the Turkish movement, including Cavid, Ahmed Şükrü, and Ismail Canbulat were found guilty of treason and hanged.[35] During these investigations there was a link that was uncovered among the members of the PRP to the Sheikh Said Rebellion. The PRP was dissolved following the outcomes of the trial. The pattern of organized opposition, however, was broken. This action was the only broad political purge during Atatürk's presidency. Mustafa Kemal's saying, "My mortal body will turn into dust, but the Republic of Turkey will last forever," was regarded as a will after the assassination attempt.[36]
[edit] Modernization efforts, 1926-1930
In the years following 1926, Mustafa Kemal introduced a radical departure from previous reformations established by the Ottoman Empire.[37] For the first time in history, Islamic law was clearly separated from the secular law of the nation and confined to its religious domain.[37] Mustafa Kemal said
We must liberate our concepts of justice, our laws and our legal institutions from the bonds which, even though they are incompatible with the needs of our century, still hold a tight grip on us.[38]
—Mustafa Kemal
On March 1, 1926 the Turkish penal code was passed. It was modeled after the Italian Penal Code. On October 4, 1926, Islamic courts were closed. Establishing the civic law needed time, so Kemal delayed the inclusion of the principle of laïcité until February 5, 1937. Ottoman practice discouraged the social interaction between men and women aligned with the Islamic practice of sex segregation. Mustafa Kemal began to develop the concepts of his social reforms very early, as was evident in his personal journal. He and his staff constantly discussed issues like abolishing the veiling of women and the integration of women to social life. The clue on how he was planning to tackle the issue was stated in his journal on November 1915;
The social change can come by (1) educating capable mothers who are knowledgeable about life; (2) giving freedom to women; (3) a man can change his morals, thoughts, and feelings by leading a common life with a woman; as there is an inborn tendency towards the attraction of mutual affection.[39]
—Mustafa Kemal
Mustafa Kemal needed a new civil code to establish his second major step of giving freedom to women. The first part was the education of girls and was established with the unification of education. On October 4, 1926, the new Turkish civil code passed. It was modeled after the Swiss Civil Code. Under the new code, women gained equality with men in such matters as inheritance and divorce. Mustafa Kemal did not consider gender a factor in social organization. According to his view, society marched towards its goal with all its women and men together. He believed that it was scientifically impossible for him to achieve progress and to become civilized if the gender separation continued as in Ottoman times.[40] During a meeting he declaimed:
To the women: Win for us the battle of education and you will do yet more for your country than we have been able to do. It is to you that I appeal.
To the men: If henceforward the women do not share in the social life of the nation, we shall never attain to our full development. We shall remain irremediably backward, incapable of treating on equal terms with the civilizations of the West.[41]—Mustafa Kemal
In 1927, advocated by Mustafa Kemal, the State Art and Sculpture Museum (Turkish: Ankara Resim ve Heykel Müzesi) opened its doors. The museum highlighted the art of sculpture which had hardly been practiced in Turkey due to the Islamic tradition of avoiding idolatry. Kemal believed that "culture is the foundation of the Turkish Republic."[42] and described modern Turkey's ideological thrust as "a creation of patriotism blended with a lofty humanist ideal." He included both his own nation's creative legacy and what he saw as the admirable values of global civilization. The pre-Islamic culture of the Turks became the subject of extensive research, and particular emphasis was laid upon the fact that, long before the Seljuk and Ottoman civilizations, the Turks have had a rich culture. He instigated the policy of studying the Anatolian civilizations such as the Phrygians and Lydians, foremost of which being the Sumerians and Hittites. To link the cultural signatures of the past into public attention, he personally named the "Sümerbank" (1932) after the Sumerians, and the "Etibank" (1935) after the Hittites. He also stressed the folk arts of the countryside as a wellspring of Turkish creativity.
On November 1, 1928, Mustafa Kemal introduced the Turkish alphabet as a replacement for Arabic script and as a solution to the literacy problem. Literate citizens of the country comprised as little as 10% of the population at the time. Dewey noted that learning how to read and write in Turkish with Arabic script took roughly three years with rather strenuous methods at the elementary level.[27] They used the Ottoman Language written in Arabic script with Arabic and Persian loan vocabulary.[27] The creation of the new Turkish alphabet as a variant of the Latin alphabet was undertaken by the Language Commission (Turkish: Dil Encümeni) with the initiative of Mustafa Kemal.[27] The tutelage was received from an Ottoman-Armenian calligrapher.[43] The first Turkish newspaper using the new alphabet published on December 15, 1928. Kemal himself actively encouraged people and made many trips to the countryside in order to teach the new alphabet. The adaptation to the new alphabet was very quick. Beginning in 1932, the People's Houses (Turkish: Halk Evleri) opened throughout the country. The older population of Turkey received help at People's Houses. There were congresses for discussing the issues of copyright, public education and scientific publishing. Literacy reform was also supported by strengthening the private publishing sector with a new law on copyrights.
Mustafa Kemal promoted modern teaching methods at the primary education level, and Dewey took a place of honour.[27] Dewey presented a paradigmatic set of recommendations designed for developing societies that are moving towards modernity in his "Report and Recommendation for the Turkish educational system."[27] He was interested in adult education for the goal of forming a skill base in the country. Turkish women were taught not only child care, dress-making and household management, but also the tools that they needed to use in becoming part of the general economy. Turkish education became a state-supervised system, which was designed to create a skill base for the social and economic progress of the country.[44] His "unified" education program was designed to educate responsible citizens as well as useful and appreciated members of society.[27] Turkish education became an integrative system, aimed to alleviate poverty and used female education to establish gender equality.
Mustafa Kemal constantly tried to generate media to propagate modern education during this period. He instigated official education meetings called "Science Boards" and "Education Summits." The quality of education, training issues and certain basic educational principles were discussed at these meetings. He said, "our schools [curriculum] should aim to provide opportunities for all pupils to learn and to achieve." He was personally engaged with the development of two textbooks. The first one was Turkish: Vatandaş İçin Medeni Bilgiler (1930). The second one was Geometry (1937), a text for high schools. The Vatandaş İçin Medeni Bilgiler (Civic knowledge for the citizens) introduced the science of comparative government and explained the means of administering public trust by explaining the rules of governance as applied to the new state institutions.
[edit] Opposition, 1930-1931
On August 11, 1930, Mustafa Kemal decided to try a multiparty movement once again and asked Ali Fethi Okyar to establish a new party. He insisted on the protection of secular reforms. The brand-new Liberal Republican Party succeeded all around the country. Without the establishment of a real political spectrum, once again, the party became the center to opposition of Atatürk's reforms, particularly in regard to the role of religion in public life.
On December 23, 1930, a chain of violent incidents occurred, starting with the rebellion of Islamic fundamentalists in Menemen, a small town in the Aegean region. This so-called Menemen Incident was considered a serious threat against secular reforms.
In November 1930, Ali Fethi Okyar dissolved his own party after seeing the rising fundamentalist threat. Mustafa Kemal never succeeded in establishing a long lasting multi-party parliamentary system. A more lasting multi-party period of the Republic of Turkey began in 1945. In 1950 the RPP released the majority position to the Democratic Party. There are arguments that Kemal did not promote direct democracy by dominating the country with his single party rule. The reason behind the failed experiments with pluralism during this period was that not all groups in the country had agreed to a minimal consensus regarding shared values (mainly secularism) and shared rules for conflict resolution. In response to such criticisms, Mustafa Kemal's biographer Andrew Mango said: "between the two wars, democracy could not be sustained in many relatively richer and better-educated societies. Atatürk's enlightened authoritarianism left a reasonable space for free private lives. More could not have been expected in his lifetime."[45] Even though, at times, he did not appear to be a democrat in his actions, he always supported the idea of eventually building a civil society; a system of totality of voluntary civic and social organizations and institutions that form the basis of a functioning society as opposed to the force-backed structures of the state. In one of his many speeches about the importance of democracy, Mustafa Kemal said in the year 1933:
Republic means the democratic administration of the state. We founded the Republic, reaching its tenth year. It should enforce all the requirements of democracy as the time comes."[46]
—Mustafa Kemal
[edit] Modernization efforts, 1931-1938
In 1931, Mustafa Kemal took the lead in establishing the Turkish Language Association for conducting research works in the Turkish language (Turkish: Türk Dil Kurumu). The establishment of the Turkish Historical Society (Turkish: Türk Tarih Kurumu) was archived in 1932 for conducting research works on the history of Turkey. He declared that the advancement of education called for the endeavors of the private sector and he urged Turkish society to take part in the effort.[47] On 1 January 1928, he established the Turkish Education Association.[47] The Association became active in the field of education, supporting intelligent and hard-working children in financial need, as well as making material and scientific contributions to the educational life.
In 1933, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk ordered the reorganization of the Istanbul University into a modern institution and later established the Ankara University in the capital city.[48]
Mustafa Kemal personally dealt with the translation of scientific terminology into Turkish.[49] He wanted the Turkish language reform to be methodologically based. Any attempt to "cleanse" the Turkish language of foreign influence without modeling the integral structure of the language was inherently wrong to him. He personally oversaw the development of the Sun Language Theory (Turkish: Güneş Dil Teorisi), which was a linguistic theory which proposed that all human languages were descendants of one Central Asian primal language. His interest started with the works by the French scientist Hilaire de Baranton entitled L'Origine des Langues, des Religions et des Peuples, which postulates that all languages originated from hieroglyphs and cuneiform used by Sumerians,[50] and the paper of Austrian linguist Dr. Hermann F. Kvergić of Vienna entitled "La psychologie de quelques elements des langues Turques" ["the psychology of some elements of the Turkic Languages".[51] He introduced the Sun Language Theory into Turkish political and educational circles in 1935. Nevertheless, after 1936, he saw the extremist aspects of this campaign and corrected them.[49]
Beginning in 1932, several hundred "People's Houses" (Turkish: Halk Evi) and "People's Rooms" (Halk Odası) across the country allowed greater access to a wide variety of artistic activities, sports, and other cultural events. The visual and the plastic arts, whose developers had, on occasion, been arrested by some Ottoman officials claiming that the depiction of the human form was idolatry, were now highly encouraged and supported by Atatürk. Many museums were opened, architecture began to follow modern trends, and classical Western music, opera, and ballet, as well as the theatre, also took greater hold. Book and magazine publications increased as well, and the film industry began to grow.
In 1932, the first Qur'an in the Turkish language was read in front of the public.[52] Mustafa Kemal commissioned Elmalılı Hamdi Yazır for a Qur'an translation. Yazir authored the tafsir "Hak Dini Kur'an Dili." His highest goal in the religious field was the translation of the Qur'an into Turkish.[53] He wanted to "teach religion in Turkish to Turkish people who had been practicing Islam without understanding it for centuries"[53] The Turkish Qur'an was fiercely opposed by religious people. It was only in 1935 that the version read in public found its way to print.[54] Mustafa Kemal believed that the understanding of religion was too important to be left to a small group of people. This included the central religious text of Islam. Mustafa Kemal's objective was to make the Qu'ran accessible and modern. By 1936, the Qur'an had already been translated into 102 languages.[55] There is a debate if Mustafa Kemal's Turkish Qur'an is the first. There was a polyglot Qu'ran written in Arabic, Persian, Turkish and Latin in the tetrapla style. This version of the Qu'ran was prepared by savant Andrea Acolutho of Bernstadt and printed at Berlin in 1701.[56] Arguments concentrate on the previous rare translations, which also used a variant of the Turkish language, the Ottoman Turkish language, which was understandable to common Turkish people.
In 1934, Mustafa Kemal commissioned the first Turkish operatic work, Özsoy. The opera, which was staged at the People's House in Ankara, was composed by Adnan Saygun and performed by soprano Semiha Berksoy.[57]
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On December 5, 1934, Turkey moved to grant full political rights to women. It was well before several other European nations. The equal rights of women in marriage had already been established in the earlier Turkish civil code.[58] The place of women in Mustafa Kemal's cultural reforms was best expressed in the civic book which was prepared under his supervision.[59] Mustafa Kemal said that
There is no logical explanation for the political disenfranchisement of women. Any hesitation and negative mentality on this subject is nothing more than a fading social phenomenon of the past. ...Women must have the right to vote and to be elected; because democracy dictates that, because there are interests that women must defend, and because there are social duties that women must perform."[60]
—Mustafa Kemal
However, the change was not easy; in the 1935 elections there were only 18 female MPs out of a total of 395 representatives.
Atatürk's foreign policy was aligned with his motto: "peace at home and peace in the world." Atatürk's perception of peace was not simply the absence of war but linked to his project of civilization and modernization.[61] The base and the expected outcomes of Kemal's policies depended on the power of the parliamentary sovereignty (justice, moral superiority, and social structure of the nation) that was established by the Republic.[62] The Turkish War of Independence was the last time Atatürk used his military might in dealing with other countries. Foreign issues were resolved by peaceful methods during his presidency.
[edit] Issue of Mosul
The "Issue of Mosul" was one of the first foreign affairs-related controversies of the new Republic. It was a dispute with the United Kingdom over the control of the Mosul Province. During the Mesopotamian campaign, General Marshall followed the British War Office's instruction that "every effort was to be made to score as heavily as possible on the Tigris before the whistle blew" and captured Mosul three days after the signature of the Armistice of Mudros (30 October 1918).[63] In 1920, the Misak-ı Milli, which consolidated the "Turkish lands" based on a common past, history, concept of morals and laws, declared that the Mosul Province was a part of the historic Turkish heartland. The British were in a precarious situation with the Issue of Mosul, and were adopting almost equally desperate measures to protect their interests. The Iraqi revolt against the British was put down by the RAF Iraq Command during the summer of 1920. Presumably, from a British perspective, if Mustafa Kemal Atatürk succeeded in securing stability on his side, he would have turned his attention to recovering Mosul and penetrate into Mesopotamia, where the native population would probably join him. Thus, an insurgent and hostile Muslim nation would be brought up to the very gates of India. In 1923, Mustafa Kemal tried to persuade the GNA that accepting the arbitration of the League of Nations at the Treaty of Lausanne over the Mosul did not mean giving up Mosul, but rather waiting for a time when Turkey might be stronger. The artificially drawn border had an unsettling effect on both sides of the population. Later, it was claimed that Turkey began where the oil ends as the border was drawn by the British geophysicists based on the oil reserves. Atatürk did not want this separation.[64] The British Foreign Secretary attempted to disclaim any existence of oil in the Mosul area. On 23 January 1923, Lord Curzon argued that the existence of oil was no more than hypothetical.[63] However, according to Armstrong, "England wanted oil. Mosul and Kurds were the key."[65]
While three inspectors from the League of Nations Committee were sent to the region to oversee the situation in 1924, the Sheikh Said rebellion, beginning in 1924 and escalating until 1927, broke out to establish a new government positioned to cut Turkey's link to Mesopotamia. The relationship between the rebels and Britain was questioned. British assistance was sought after the rebels realised that the rebellion, or its expected outcome, could not stand by itself.[66]
In 1925, the League of Nations formed a three-member committee to study the case while the Sheikh Said Rebellion was on the rise. Partly because of the continuing uncertainties along the northern frontier (present-day northern Iraq), the committee recommended that the region should be connected to Iraq with the condition that the UK would hold the British Mandate of Mesopotamia. By the end of March 1925, the necessary troop movements were completed, and the whole area of the Sheikh Said rebellion was encircled.[67] As a result of these maneuvers, the revolt was put down. Britain, Iraq and Kemal made a treaty on 5 June 1926, which mostly followed the decisions of the League Council. In 1926, Kemal faced growing opposition to his reform policies, a continuing precarious economic situation, and a defeat in the Mosul issue. A large section of the Kurdish population and the Iraqi Turkmen were left on the other side of the border. The Sheikh Said Rebellion hastened both the imposition of the Republican Party and the speed of Atatürk's reforms. In 1925, the population was largely illiterate and disparate. Turkey was in ruins, reconstruction was difficult, poverty was everywhere and people were in pain, which easily fed separatist violence.[68] Mustafa Kemal attributed the rebellion to certain notables rather than a section of the population, who had been found guilty by the courts (kanunen mucrim olan bazi muteneffizan) and who used the mask of religion to conceal the interests of landlords, feudal tribal leaders and other "reactionaries" on 7 March 1925.[69]
