Republic instead of empire. How Mustafa Kemal Ataturk created a new Turkey. Turkish reformer Ataturk Mustafa Kemal: biography, life history and political activity
At the beginning of the 20th century, the great Ottoman Empire came close to its decline. It was only a matter of time before it disappeared from the world map. Few people in the empire itself or in the rest of the world could imagine what would happen next.
The emergence of modern Turkey, as we know it, from the ruins of the empire, occurred thanks to the activities of a man who could well be called a “Turkish Peter I" The only difference is that Gazi Mustafa Kemal Pasha, better known as Mustafa Kemal Ataturk created not a monarchical state, but a republic. But the scale of the reforms he carried out is quite comparable to those carried out in Russia by Peter the Great.
Gazi Mustafa Kemal Pasha was born in 1881 in the Ottoman city of Thessaloniki, in the family of a small timber merchant and former customs official. Ali Ryza Effendi and his wife Zübeyde Hanim. His exact date of birth is not known for certain; Kemal Pasha himself, in adulthood, celebrated his birthday on May 19, the day the struggle for Turkish independence began.
At the age of 12, Mustafa Kemal Pasha entered a preparatory military school in Thessaloniki, and in 1896 he was enrolled in a military school in Bitola, Macedonia. In 1899, Mustafa, who showed strong abilities in military matters, entered the Ottoman Military College in Istanbul.
In 1902-1905, Mustafa Kemal Pasha completed his military education, graduating from the Ottoman General Staff Academy.
Kemal Pasha's military career began with his arrest for illegal criticism of politics. Sultan Abdul Hamid II. After several months in prison, the young officer was exiled to Damascus, but he did not give up critical thoughts about the regime existing in the Ottoman Empire.
Photo: www.globallookpress.com
"I am not ordering you to advance, I am ordering you to die"
After two years of service in the 5th Army in Damascus, Mustafa Kemal Pasha was transferred to serve in the 3rd Army in the city of Monstiri with a promotion in rank.
In 1911, the promising officer Mustafa Kemal Pasha was transferred to serve at the General Staff in Constantinople.
Kemal Pasha’s “military debut” occurred in 1911 during the Italo-Turkish war that broke out in Libya. The units under the command of the young officer acted successfully: in December 1911, he defeated the Italians near Tobruk. In the spring of 1912, he was given command of the Ottoman troops in Derna.
During the Balkan War of 1912, Mustafa Kemal Pasha successfully acted against the Bulgarian troops, and already in 1913 he became the military attaché of the embassy in Sofia, where he rose to the rank of lieutenant colonel.
In 1915, Lieutenant Colonel Kemal Pasha was recalled to his homeland to form the 19th Division, which was to participate in the fighting of the First World War.
In February 1915, the Entente countries launched the Dardanelles Operation, the goal of which was to seize control of the Dardanelles Strait and the port city of Canakkale located on the shore of the strait, take the capital of the Ottoman Empire, Constantinople, and open it to the allies. sea route to Russia.
After the failure of the Anglo-French squadron's breakthrough through the Dardanelles in March 1915, the Allies decided to carry out a landing on the Gallipoli Peninsula. On April 25, 1915, British and French units landed at Cape Aryburnu went into battle with the 19th Division of the Ottoman Army under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Mustafa Kemal Pasha.
The Allied attack was extremely powerful, and only the high command skill of Kemal Pasha allowed the Ottomans to hold their position. In his address, the lieutenant colonel uttered a phrase that became widely known: “I do not order you to attack, I order you to die.”
The 57th Regiment of the 19th Division, located in the most dangerous sector, was almost completely killed, but the Allied offensive was repulsed.
For this success, Kemal Pasha was promoted to colonel.
Photo: www.globallookpress.com
Popular General of the Losing Army
In August 1915, a group of Ottoman troops under the command of Kemal Pasha won a series of victories over the allies - at Suvla Bay, at Kirechtepe and at Anafartalar.
The success achieved in the battles for the Dardanelles made Colonel Kemal Pasha widely known and popular in the country. He was appointed commander of the troops in Edirne Diyarbakir, and in April 1916 he was promoted to lieutenant general and assumed the post of commander of the 2nd Army.
In August 1916, General Kemal Pasha, who was transferred to the Russian-Turkish front at the head of the 2nd Army, was able to recapture Mush and Bitlis from the Russian troops, but soon the tsarist army regained control over them.
After an inspection trip to Germany to the front line with Crown Prince Vahidettin Efendi Mustafa Kemal Pasha became seriously ill and was sent for treatment to Baden-Baden.
By the time he returned to the active army, everything was practically over for the Ottoman Empire in the war. Despite this, General Kemal Pasha, at the head of the 7th Army, repelled attacks by British troops from August to the end of October 1918.
After the signing of the Armistice of Mudros on October 31, which sealed the defeat of the Ottoman Empire in World War I, General Kemal Pasha returned to work in the Ministry of Defense.
Photo: www.globallookpress.com
A country without sultans, caliphs and sharia
In the spring of 1919, Mustafa Kemal Pasha, who believed that the country's independence was under threat, became the head of the revolutionary movement of his like-minded people who opposed the occupying forces and the Sultan's government.
In April 1920, Mustafa Kemal Pasha convened his own parliament in Ankara and formed a new government, which saw its task as the formation of a new independent Turkish state.
After several years of bloody wars with Armenia and Greece, confrontation with Great Britain and France, Kemal Pasha managed to achieve recognition of his government and new borders of the state.
In 1923, after the withdrawal of Allied troops, Mustafa Kemal Pasha founded the Turkish Republic and was elected its first president, retaining this post until his death.
The reforms that Kemal Pasha considered mandatory for the preservation of statehood were begun even before the conclusion of the Lausanne Peace Treaty, which finally put an end to the war.
In 1922, the sultanate was liquidated and a course was set for the creation of a secular state. In 1924, despite fierce opposition from conservatives, Kemal Pasha achieved the abolition of the caliphate.
The next step was the transfer of all scientific and educational institutions at the disposal of the Ministry of Education, the creation of a unified secular system of national education.
In 1926, a new Civil Code was adopted, which established liberal secular principles of civil law, defined the concepts of property, possession real estate- private, joint, etc. The code was rewritten from the text of the Swiss civil code, then the most advanced in Europe. Thus, the legislation of the Ottoman Empire, based on Sharia, became a thing of the past.
In 1928, the head of state's struggle for his secular character ended with the adoption of a law separating religion from the state.
Kemal Pasha and his supporters suppressed the resistance of religious fanatics mercilessly. The Dervish orders, which formed the ideological support of opponents of the government, were dissolved and banned.
Photo: www.globallookpress.com
"The Great Turk"
Just as Peter the Great once did, Kemal Pasha, changing the country, also changed the capital - from Istanbul it was moved to Ankara. This allowed the leader to greatly weaken the influence of opponents on political processes.
Under Mustafa Kemal Pasha, the Romanization of the Turkish alphabet took place, and clothing was introduced european style, titles and feudal forms of address were abolished, Turkish women received voting rights.
In 1934, residents of Turkey received surnames that simply did not exist in the Ottoman Empire. The Turkish Parliament assigned the surname “Ataturk” (“Father of the Turks” or “Great Turk”) to the head of state himself.
Ataturk's economic reforms were no less important than political ones. With him in agriculture the outdated taxation system was abolished and favorable conditions for private enterprise.
The Law on the Encouragement of Industry, which came into force on July 1, 1927, was of utmost importance. From now on, an industrialist who intended to build an enterprise could receive a land plot of up to 10 hectares free of charge. He was exempt from taxes on indoor premises, on land, on profits, etc. For materials imported for construction and production activities enterprises, no customs duties and taxes were imposed.
Under Ataturk, active construction of roads in the country began, the 1st and 2nd plans for the industrial development of the country were adopted and implemented.
Photo: www.globallookpress.com
Not everything is so clear...
Ataturk also formulated the ideological basis of the new Turkish state, called “Kemalism.” It was based on six points introduced into the 1937 Constitution:
1) nationality;
2) republicanism;
3) nationalism;
4) secularism;
5) statism (state control in the economy);
6) reformism.
What was good for the ethnic majority was not necessarily as good for national minorities. The persecution of Christians, which began even before Ataturk came to power, was less intense, but continued under him. Turkish nationalists demanded that minorities abandon their language in favor of Turkish, and assimilation was declared the highest manifestation of loyalty to the state.
Ataturk suppressed Kurdish protests demanding autonomy with the help of the army, the very concept of “Kurdistan” was removed from books and documents, and the Kurds were declared “mountain Turks.”
IN international relations the course adopted under Ataturk was also very controversial. In the 1920s, during the struggle to create the Turkish Republic, Atatürk collaborated with the USSR, accepting help from it. But, having gained a foothold in power, he abruptly changed course, which led to a cooling of relations between the two countries.
In the 1930s, the rapprochement between Turkey and Nazi Germany, whose leader Adolf Hitler spoke favorably of Ataturk. After the death of Kemal Pasha, Turkey will be teetering on the brink of entering World War II on the side of the Nazi bloc, but, fortunately, it will be able to avoid this.
The image that Erdogan fears
Mustafa Kemal Ataturk was not an ascetic, he loved music, dancing, playing backgammon and billiards, and appreciated good wine and other alcoholic drinks. It is believed that the latter addiction provoked cirrhosis of the liver, which tormented the Turkish leader in the last years of his life. In 1937, his condition began to rapidly deteriorate, but he continued to work actively.
Anticipating an imminent end, Ataturk donated the lands belonging to him to the Treasury, and part of his real estate to the mayors of Ankara and Bursa. He had no natural children, so he distributed the inheritance between his sister and adopted children. By the way, one of Ataturk’s adopted daughters, Sabiha Gokcen, became the country's first female pilot.
Mustafa Kemal Ataturk died on November 10, 1938, at the age of 57, in Dolmabahce Palace, the former residence Turkish sultans in Istanbul, and was buried on the territory of the Ethnography Museum in Ankara. On November 10, 1953, the remains were reburied in the Anitkabir mausoleum, specially built for Ataturk.
Mausoleum "Anitkabir". Photo: www.globallookpress.com
The cult of personality of Ataturk, established after his death, is not even comparable to veneration Lenin in the USSR, but rather with the veneration of leaders in North Korea. In Turkey, it is a crime to desecrate Ataturk’s images, criticize his activities and denigrate the facts of his biography. Therefore, even the current leader of Turkey Recep Tayyip Erdogan, not unreasonably accused of attempts to dismantle the secular state created by Ataturk, does not even try to encroach on the personality of the first leader of modern Turkey. At least for now.
Ataturk Mustafa Kemal (1881 - 1938) Leader of the national liberation revolution in Turkey 1918-1923. First President Turkish Republic (1923-1938). He advocated strengthening the national independence and sovereignty of the country and maintaining friendly relations with the USSR.
(Ataturk) Mustafa Kemal(1881, Thessaloniki, - November 10, 1938, Istanbul), founder and first president (1923-38) of the Turkish Republic. The surname Ataturk (literally “father of the Turks”) was given by the Grand National Assembly of Turkey (GNTA) in 1934 when surnames were introduced. Born into the family of a timber merchant and former customs official. He received his secondary military education in Thessaloniki and Monastir (Bitola), and his higher education in Istanbul, where he graduated from the General Staff Academy in January 1905. Participated in the Young Turk movement, but soon after Young Turk Revolution 1908 moved away from the "Unity and Progress" committee. Fought on the fronts Italian-Turkish (1911-12), 2nd Balkan (1913) and 1st world (1914-18) wars. In 1916 he received the rank of general and the title of pasha. In 1919 he led the national liberation movement in Anatolia (“Kemalist Revolution”). Under his leadership, congresses of bourgeois revolutionary societies for the “defense of rights” were held in Erzurum and Sivas in 1919 and the VNST was formed in Ankara (April 23, 1920), which declared itself the supreme body of power. As chairman of the VNST, and from September 1921 as supreme commander, Atatürk led the armed forces in the war of liberation against the Anglo-Greek intervention. For the victory in the battles of the Sakarya River (August 23 - September 13, 1921), the All-Russian People's Commissariat awarded him the rank of marshal and the title of ghazi. Under the command of Ataturk, the Turkish army defeated the invaders in 1922. On the initiative of Ataturk, the sultanate was abolished (November 1, 1922), a republic was proclaimed (October 29, 1923), and the caliphate was abolished (March 3, 1924); a number of progressive reforms of a bourgeois-nationalist nature were carried out in the field of state and administrative structure, justice, culture and everyday life. Founded by Ataturk in 1923, the People's Party (from 1924, the Republican People's Party), of which he was life-long chairman, opposed the restorationist attempts of feudal-clerical and comprador circles. In the field of foreign policy, Ataturk sought to maintain friendly relations between Turkey and Soviet Russia .
Materials from the Great Soviet Encyclopedia were used.
Mustafa Kemal Ataturk provided this portrait with the following inscription:
"Ankara. 1929. To His Excellency the Ambassador of the Soviet Union Ya.Z. Suritsu".
ATATURK, MUSTAFA KEMAL (Atatrk, Mustafa Kemal) (1881-1938), first president of the Turkish Republic. Born in Thessaloniki on March 12, 1881. At birth he received the name Mustafa. Kemal received his nickname at military school for his mathematical abilities. The name Ataturk (Father of the Turks) was given to him by the Grand National Assembly of Turkey in 1933. He was educated in Thessaloniki, then at the Military Academy and the General Staff Academy in Istanbul and received the rank of captain and assignment to Damascus. Used his position in the army for political agitation. Between 1904 and 1908 he organized several secret societies to combat corruption in the government and army. During the revolution of 1908, he disagreed with the leader of the Young Turks, Enver Bey, and withdrew from political activities. Participated in the Italo-Turkish War of 1911-1912 and Second Balkan War 1913. During the First World War, he commanded the Ottoman troops defending the Dardanelles. After the war, he did not recognize the surrender and division of the Ottoman Empire under the Treaty of Sèvres. After the landing of Greek troops in Izmir in 1919, Atatürk organized a national resistance movement throughout Anatolia. Relations between Anatolia and the Sultan's government in Istanbul were severed. In 1920 in Ankara, Atatürk was elected chairman of the new Grand National Assembly. Ataturk recreated the army, expelled the Greeks from Asia Minor, forced the Entente countries to sign the fairer Treaty of Lausanne (1923), abolished the sultanate and caliphate, and founded a republic (1923). Ataturk was elected the first president of Turkey in 1923 and was re-elected in 1927, 1931 and 1935. He pursued a policy of modernizing the Turkish state and society along Western lines, reformed the education system and abolished the institutions of Islamic law. After several attempts at rebellion, he was forced to dissolve the opposition Progressive Republican Party (in 1930 and the Free Republican Party that replaced it) and move to more authoritarian methods of government, necessary for the effective implementation of reforms in traditional Turkish society. Thanks to Ataturk, gender equality was proclaimed in Turkey in 1928, and women received voting rights. In the same year, the Latin alphabet was introduced instead of Arabic, and in 1933, family surnames according to the Western model were introduced. In the economy, he pursued a policy of nationalization and reliance on national capital. Ataturk's foreign policy was aimed at achieving complete independence of the country. Türkiye joined the League of Nations and established friendly relations with its neighbors, primarily Greece and the USSR. Ataturk died in Istanbul on November 10, 1938.
Materials used: Encyclopedia "Round the World".
On the left is Ataturk, and on the right is the USSR Ambassador to Turkey. Yakov Surits .
Photo from the site http://www.turkey.mid.ru
Mustafa Kemal Pasha (Gazi Mustafa Kemal Pasa), Ataturk (Ataturk; “Father of the Turks” (1881, Thessaloniki 11/10/1938, Constantinople), Turkish marshal (Sept. 1921). From the family of a minor customs official. Educated at military schools in Thessaloniki and Monistira, as well as the Academy of the General Staff in Constantinople (1905). Member of the Young Turk movement, member of the executive committee of the secret society “Batan” (Motherland). In December 1904 he was arrested, but was soon released in 1905. in Syria organized the secret society “Vatan ve hurriyet” (“Motherland and Freedom”). In September 1907 he was transferred to Macedonia. In 1909 he was sent to France, upon his return and transferred to the III AK with headquarters in Thessaloniki, but soon Mahmud-Shevket- Pasha returned him to the General Staff. Since November 1914, the head of the division in the 1st Army defending Constantinople and the straits. Participant in the defense of the Gallipoli Peninsula (1915), during which he commanded the XII AK, which occupied the strategically important area of Anafarta. straits. In January 1916, the people of Constantinople hailed him as the savior of the capital. Then he was transferred to the XVI AK of the 3rd Army in Transcaucasia. Replaced Ahmet Izzet Pasha as commander of the 2nd Army, and from April 1, 1917, commander of the 2nd Army in Transcaucasia. In the spring of 1917, part of the army's forces were transferred to other fronts. In May 1917, he was appointed commander of the 7th Army, formed from units arriving from Galicia, Macedonia, etc. The army became part of the Yildirim group of forces, headed by a German. gene. E. von Falkenhayn. In 1917 he came into conflict with the general. von Falkenhayn, after which on November 13, 1917 he was removed from his post and sent to Germany as part of a military mission. From Jan. 1918 commander of the 7th Army on the Syrian front. The army included 111 (Colonel Ismet Bey) and XX (General Ali Fuad Pasha) AK. In March - October 1918, he was replaced as commander by General. Fevzu Pasha. During the offensive, the English troops in September-October 1918, his army was defeated and virtually ceased to exist. On October 31, 1918, he took command of the Yildirim Army Group instead of General O. Liman von Sanders, although it no longer actually existed. In October 1918 he was appointed aide-de-camp of the Sultan (Fahri Ever). From May 1919, inspector of the 3rd Army in Samsun, occupied by British troops. He led the national liberation revolution (the so-called Kemalist Revolution) in Turkey in 1918-23.4.1920. National Assembly of Turkey (TNTA), chaired by M. , declared himself the bearer of supreme power in the country. From Sep. 1921 Supreme Commander-in-Chief. Under the leadership of M., the sultanate was abolished on November 1, 1922 and the caliphate on March 3, 1924, and the creation of Tur was proclaimed on October 29, 1923. republics. 1st President of the Turkish Republic (1923-38). Since 1924, lifelong chairman of the Republican People's Party. In 1934, by decision of the VNST, he received the surname Ataturk
Book materials used: Zalessky K.A. Who was who in the Second World War. Allies of Germany. Moscow, 2003.
Atatürk, Mustafa Kemal (1880 or 1881 - November 10, 1938) - Turkish statesman, political and military figure, founder and first president (1923-1938) of the Turkish Republic. The surname Ataturk (“father of the Turks”) was given by the Grand National Assembly of Turkey in 1934, when surnames were introduced. She was born in Thessaloniki in the family of a small timber merchant and former customs official. In 1904 he graduated from the Istanbul General Staff Academy with the rank of captain. While in military service in Syria (1905-1907) and Macedonia (1907-1909), he participated in the Young Turk movement, but after the Young Turk Revolution of 1908 he left the Committee of Unity and Progress. In April 1909, he headed the headquarters of the Army of Action, which suppressed the counter-revolutionary rebellion of Abdul Hamid II. Participated in the Italo-Turkish (1911-1912) and 2nd Balkan (1913) wars. In 1913-1914 - military attaché in Bulgaria. During the First World War he played a prominent role in the defense of the Dardanelles (1915), and in 1916 he received the rank of general and the title of pasha.
In 1919, Kemal led the anti-imperialist national liberation movement in Anatolia, which received the name “Kemalist” after him. Under his leadership, congresses of bourgeois revolutionary societies for the “defense of rights” were held in Erzurum and Sivas in 1919. Elected by the Congress in Sivas, the Representative Committee, chaired by Kemal, actually performed the functions of the government in the territory of Anatolia not occupied by the Entente powers. After the occupation of Istanbul by the troops of the Entente countries and the dispersal by England of the Chamber of Deputies sitting there, Kemal convened a new parliament in Ankara (April 23, 1920) - the Grand National Assembly of Turkey (GNTA). Kemal was elected chairman of the VNST and the government he created (he held these posts until he was elected president). He also led the armed forces in the national liberation war against imperialist intervention. For the victory over the Greek troops in the 22-day battle of the Sakarya River (August 23 - September 13, 1921), he received the rank of marshal and the title "Gazi" ("Winner") from the All-Russian National Liberation Council. Under the command of Ataturk, the Turkish army finally defeated the interventionists in 1922.
Reflecting the interests of the Turkish national bourgeoisie, Kemal sought to ensure the independent development of Turkey along the capitalist path. On his initiative, the sultanate was abolished (November 1, 1922), a republic was proclaimed (October 29, 1923), the caliphate was abolished (March 3, 1924), and a number of progressive reforms of a bourgeois-national character were carried out in the field of state and administrative structure, justice. Founded by Kemal in 1923 on the basis of “protection of rights” societies, the People’s Party (from 1924 - Republican People’s) Party, of which he was life-long chairman, opposed the restoration attempts of feudal-clerical and comprador circles, supported by the imperialist powers. In the field of foreign policy, Kemal sought to maintain friendly relations between Turkey and Soviet Russia. On April 26, 1920, he sent a letter to V.I. Lenin with a proposal to establish diplomatic relations and with a request to support the Turkish people in their struggle for independence. The Soviet government agreed and provided selfless assistance to the national government of Turkey. In March 1921, an agreement on friendship and brotherhood between the RSFSR and Turkey was signed in Moscow, in October 1921 - on friendship between the Soviet republics of Transcaucasia and Turkey, in January 1922 - on friendship and brotherhood between Soviet Ukraine and Turkey. These agreements significantly strengthened international situation fighting Turkey and made it easier for the Turkish people to fight against the imperialists. Ataturk further contributed to the strengthening and development of Soviet-Turkish friendship, although from the 2nd half of the 30s, the Ataturk government began to move closer to the imperialist powers, making significant concessions to them.
V. I. Shpilkova. Moscow.
Soviet historical encyclopedia. - M.: Soviet Encyclopedia. 1973-1982. Volume 1. AALTONEN – AYANY. 1961.
Works: Atatürk "ün söylev ve demeçleri, (cilt) 1-2, Ankara, 1945-52; Nutuk, cilt 1-3, Istanbul, 1934 (Russian ed. - The Path of the New Turkey, vol. 1-4, M. , 1929-34).
Ataturk. Mustafa Kemal Pasha. Mustafa Kemal Ataturk was born in the Greek city of Thessaloniki in the family of a minor customs officer. He received his military education at military schools in Thessaloniki and Monistira. In 1905 he successfully graduated from the Academy of the General Staff in Constantinople.
The young officer combined his army service with active participation in the Young Turk movement, being a member of the executive committee of the secret society "Vatan" ("Motherland").
In 1904, Mustafa Kemal was briefly arrested for his political beliefs. One of the reasons for his release was the intercession of the military command, which did not want to lose a promising officer.
Since 1905, Captain of the General Staff Mustafa Kemal served in the Syrian city of Damascus, where the following year he organized the secret society "Vatan ve Hurriyet" ("Homeland and Freedom").
In the fall of 1907, Mustafa Kemal was transferred to Macedonia, and two years later he was sent to France to study European military experience.
Upon his return, Mustafa Kemal was assigned to the 3rd Army Corps, whose headquarters were in Thessaloniki.
By the beginning of the First World War, Mustafa Kemal had already been a participant in two wars - the Italo-Turkish war of 1911-1912 and the second Balkan war of 1913.
The future marshal became famous during the defense of the Gallipoli Peninsula from the landing of Anglo-French troops. The Gallipoli operation of the Entente allies ended in complete failure. At the end of the war, Mustafa Kemal commanded the 16th Army Corps, which occupied a strategically important area.
The operation to capture the Gallipoli Peninsula lasted 300 days. During this time, Great Britain lost 119.7 thousand people, France - 26.5, Turkey - 185 thousand people.
In January 1916, the inhabitants of Istanbul warmly welcomed the hero of the Gallipoli defense as the savior of the Turkish capital. For his valor, Mustafa Kemal received the long-deserved rank of major general and the title of pasha and began to quickly move up the career ladder.
Since 1916, he successively commanded the 16th Army Corps in Transcaucasia, then the 2nd Army on the Caucasus Front and the 7th Army on the Palestine-Syrian Front.
An active participant in the Young Turk movement, Mustafa Kemal Pasha led the national liberation revolution in Turkey in 1918-1923. When Sultan Mehmed VI removed the government of Talaat Pasha and replaced it with the non-party cabinet of Ahmet Izzet Pasha, leadership of the Turkish army passed to the Sultan's aide-de-camp. He enjoyed undeniable authority in army circles and strove for the true sovereignty of Turkey, defeated in the world war.
Meanwhile, the Kemalist revolution was gaining momentum. On April 23, 1920, the Grand National Assembly of Turkey, chaired by Mustafa Kemal Pasha, declared itself the bearer of supreme power in the state. In September 1921, the Sultan was forced to transfer the title and position of Supreme Commander to his former adjutant.
On this high position Mustafa Kemal Pasha again distinguished himself in the military field, this time in the Greco-Turkish War of 1920-1922. Having landed in Smyrna, Greek troops managed to break into the central regions of the country and captured the city of Adrianople in Thrace, the city of Ushak in Anatolia, 200 kilometers from Smyrna and south of the Sea of Marmara the cities of Bandirma and Bursa.
For the victory of the Turkish army in many days of stubborn battles in August - September 1921 on the Sakarya River, Mustafa Kemal Pasha, who personally commanded the Turkish army here, received the highest military rank marshal and the honorary title "gazi" ("victorious").
The sultanate was abolished in November 1922, and in March next year- caliphate. On October 29, 1924, Turkey was declared a republic, and Mustafa Kemal Pasha became its first president, while simultaneously retaining the post of Supreme Commander. He held these posts until his death.
After the complete elimination of the Sultan's power in the country, its president carried out many progressive reforms, which earned him great respect among the people. In 1924, he became life chairman of the Republican People's Party, the leading political force in the Turkish Republic at that time.
Mustafa Kemal Pasha received the surname Ataturk (literally “father of the Turks”) in 1934 by decision of the Grand National Assembly of Turkey when introducing surnames in the country. Under it he entered world history.
Site materials used http://100top.ru/encyclopedia/
Kemal Pasha, Gazi Mustafa (Ataturk) (1880-1938) - outstanding Turkish political and statesman, founder of the Turkish Republic. Born into a petty-bourgeois family in Thessaloniki. Received higher military education. In 1905, after graduating from the Istanbul Academy of the General Staff, Kemal Pasha was subjected to repression for propaganda against the despotism of Abdul Hamid II (...). While in military service in Syria (1905-07) and Macedonia (1907-09), Kemal Pasha participated in the preparation and conduct of the Young Turk revolution of 1908-09, but then, due to disagreements with the leaders of the Committee of Unity and Progress, especially with Enver (...), temporarily withdrew from political activity. He distinguished himself in the Tripolitan and Second Balkan wars and in 1913-1914 served as a military attaché in Bulgaria. Being an opponent of foreign control over Turkey, he condemned Enver’s pro-German policy, calling for an invitation to Turkey for a mission. Liman von Sanders (see) "national insult." Kemal Pasha also objected to Turkey's entry into the First World War on the side of Germany.
In 1915, Kemal Pasha commanded, with the rank of colonel, a group of divisions on the Dardanelles front, where he successfully implemented, contrary to the instructions of Liman von Sanders, his own plan for the defense of the Gallipoli Peninsula. In 1916 he was promoted to general and sent to the Caucasian Front. The Russian General Staff, in its reviews of the enemy’s command staff, especially singled out Kemal Pasha from among the other Turkish generals as “the most popular, brave, talented, energetic and highly independent,” also noting that Kemal Pasha, although “accepts the program of the Young Turks” , but “despises the members of the committee” and is “a dangerous rival of Enver.” In 1917, Kemal Pasha was appointed commander of the army in Syria, but soon came into conflict with his immediate superior, the German General von Falkenhayn, due to his interference in the internal affairs of Turkey and resigned. In the spring of 1918, Kemal Pasha accompanied Prince (later Sultan) Vahideddin on a trip to the Western Front at German headquarters. Convinced of the hopelessness of Germany's military situation, Kemal Pasha tried to persuade Vahideddin to remove Enver from the post of vice-generalissimo and to break the alliance with the Germans, but Vahideddin informed Enver about this, and K. was again sent to the Syrian front.
The Mudros truce (q.v.) found Kemal Pasha in Aleppo. Having taken command of the remnants of the defeated Turkish armies in northern Syria, Kemal Pasha intended to hold at least those areas that were not occupied by the enemy at the time of the truce, in particular Alexandretta. However, the Grand Vizier Ahmed Izzet Pasha ordered him not to interfere with the entry of British troops into Alexandretta, since the British command, in exchange for this “courtesy,” promised to ease the terms of the truce for Turkey. Kemal Pasha responded by telegraphing that he “lacked the proper delicacy to appreciate both the gentlemanliness of the English representative and the need to respond to him with the said courtesy,” and, having resigned, returned to Istanbul. In May 1919, after fruitless attempts to induce the Sultan, Parliament and the Porte to counter the aggressive plans of the Entente aimed at dismembering Turkey, Kemal Pasha went to Eastern Anatolia as inspector of the III Army with the official mission of liquidating the national movement that had begun there, but in reality - with the aim take an active part in it.
By this time, in the west and south of Anatolia, peasant partisan detachments were already operating against the invaders, and in many vilayets public organizations had been created that demanded that Turkey retain its lands. These actions were carried out without a general plan and guidance within the framework of local interests: in the east of Anatolia - against the Dashnaks, in the southeast - against Kurdish separatism, in the north - against the project of creating a Greek "Pontic Republic", in the west - against the occupation of Izmir by the Greek army, etc. D. Kemal Pasha set as his task the unification of these disparate national forces, bearing in mind the need for a nationwide struggle against Entente imperialism, as the main threat to the integrity and independence of Turkey.
Soon Kemal Pasha, thanks to the breadth of his intellectual and political horizons, patriotism, strong will and extraordinary military talent, became the generally recognized leader of the national liberation movement. This was greatly facilitated by the fact that during the World War he openly quarreled with Enver, protested against Turkey’s subjugation to the Germans, did not participate in any speculation, and was the only Turkish general who did not experience defeat on the battlefield.
Already the initial steps of Kemal Pasha in Anatolia caused concern among the British occupation authorities and the Porte. At the request of the British, the Sultan issued a decree on July 8, 1919 “to end the functions of the inspector of the Third Army of Mustafa Kemal Pasha.” In response, Kemal Pasha, refusing to return to Istanbul, but at the same time not wanting to be a violator of military discipline, resigned. From that time on, he openly led the Anatolian national liberation movement, which later received the name “Kemalist” after his name. Under K.'s leadership, the Erzurum Congress and the Sivas Congress (see) were held in 1919, the National Pact was developed, and the Grand National Assembly of Turkey and its executive body, the Ankara government, were created in 1920. The Sultan and Porta declared K. a rebel. 9. VIII 1919 K., called “Mustafa Kemal Bey” in the Sultan’s decree, was excluded from the army lists and deprived of all ranks, titles and orders. 11. V 1920 Kemal Pasha (this time simply “effendi”) was sentenced to death in absentia by a military court in Istanbul.
Kemal Pasha had the main merit in organizing armed resistance to the Anglo-Greek interventionists who tried to impose the Treaty of Sèvres on Turkey (see). Under his leadership, a victory was won on the river in 1921. Sakarya, for which the Grand National Assembly awarded him the title "Gazi" ("Winner") and elevated him to the rank of marshal. A year later, in August-September 1922, the Turkish army under the command of Kemal Pasha inflicted a final defeat on the Greeks, which resulted in the Mudaniya Truce, which was honorable for Turkey (...) and then the Lausanne Peace Treaty of 1923 (see).
Kemal Pasha also led the revolutionary struggle against the Sultan and the feudal-comprador elements. The Kemalist revolution was limited to the framework of bourgeois-national transformations, mainly in the field of state system, law, culture and life, without making significant changes in the position of the main productive class of the country - the peasantry. But these transformations, combined with the military victory over imperialist intervention, allowed Turkey to move from its previous, semi-colonial existence to independence. The most important reforms were carried out on the initiative and under the direct leadership of Kemal Pasha. These included: the destruction of the sultanate (1922), the proclamation of a republic (1923), the abolition of the caliphate (1924), the introduction of secular education, the closure of dervish orders, clothing reform (1925), the adoption of a new criminal and civil code on the European model (1926), romanization of the alphabet, separation of church and state (1928), enfranchisement of women, abolition of titles and archaic forms of address, introduction of surnames (1934), creation of national banks and national industry, construction of railways, redemption of foreign concessions, etc. As chairman The Great National Assembly (1920-23) and then (from 29.10. 1923) as the president of the republic, invariably re-elected to this post every four years, as well as as the permanent chairman of the Republican People's Party he created, K. acquired indisputable authority in Turkey. In 1934, the Grand National Assembly gave him the surname Ataturk, which means “Father of the Turks.”
Kemal Pasha's foreign policy concept stemmed from his desire to create an independent Turkish national state on the ruins of the former feudal-theocratic Ottoman Empire. Therefore, Kemal Pasha rejected the Young Turk tendencies of pan-Islamism and pan-Turkism, regarding them as anti-national. When discussing the caliphate issue, he pointed out that Turkey had no need to take on the burden of caring for the entire Muslim world. “The people of the new Turkey,” he said, “have no reason to think about anything else but their own existence, their own well-being.” According to Kemal Pasha, Turkey had to pursue a “strictly national policy,” namely: “to work within our national borders, relying primarily on our own strength and protecting our existence, in the name of the real happiness and prosperity of the people and the country; in no case should you distract the people with unrealistic aspirations and do not harm them by doing so; demand cultural and human treatment and mutual friendship from the civilized world." These principles were for Kemal Pasha during the period of the National War (1919-1922) the basis of his foreign policy and diplomacy. From the first days of his stay in Anatolia, he put forward a demand for the liberation of Turkey from imperialist control Based on this, he insisted on the formation of a national center in the depths of the country, “outside the supervision of Istanbul and outside the influence and influence of foreign powers.” At the same time, he pointed out to his supporters that the Entente powers would show respect for Turkey only “if the nation.” will demonstrate to them that she is aware of her rights and is ready unanimously, regardless of sacrifice, to protect them from any encroachment." At the Sivas Congress, K. spoke out against the American mandate over Turkey and the rest of the territories of the former Ottoman Empire, noting in particular that the population of Anatolia does not have the right speak on behalf of the Arabs. After the London Conference of 1921 (...) he disavowed Bekir Sami Bey (...), who signed conventions with France and Italy that limited the sovereignty of Turkey.
The diplomatic methods used by Kemal Pasha during this period were aimed mainly at exploiting the contradictions between the imperialist powers and at creating difficulties for England, which was the initiator and leader of the intervention in Turkey. So, for example, in order to attract the sympathy of the Muslim subjects of the Entente powers, especially the Muslims of India, to Turkey, Kemal Pasha put forward the thesis that national forces were not against, but in defense of the Sultan-Caliph. Despite the actual war between Anatolia and the Sultan, Kemal Pasha announced that the Istanbul government was “hiding the truth from the padishah,” and the orders of the padishah were not subject to execution only because he was “captured by the infidels.”
Another means of diplomatic influence on England was wide publicity for Kemal Pasha. Given the dissatisfaction of influential British circles with Lloyd George's Middle East policy, Kemal Pasha sought to inform European public opinion about all the facts of the anti-Turkish activities of the British government. In one of his instructions, K. noted that the British are trying to harm Turkey secretly, and “our (i.e., Turkish) method is to inspire them that even the slightest nagging on their part will entail a huge noise in everything world."
At the same time, Kemal Pasha successfully used France's dissatisfaction with the Treaty of Sèvres, its contradictions with England and the interest of French capitalists in preserving the integrity of Turkey. He personally negotiated with Franklin Bouillon, which ended with the signing of the Franco-Turkish treaty on 20.X. 1921 (...) on France's cessation of hostilities against Turkey and its recognition of the Ankara government.
But Kemal Pasha considered the most important foreign policy task during this period to be ensuring friendly relations with Soviet Russia. Back in 1919, at the Erzurum Congress, he cited as an example worthy of imitation the anti-imperialist struggle of “the Russian people, who, seeing that their national independence was threatened and that foreign invasion was approaching them from all sides, unanimously rose up against these attempts at world domination.” . 26.IV 1920, three days after the opening of the Grand National Assembly in Ankara, Kemal Pasha sent a letter to Moscow addressed to V.I. Lenin, in which he proposed to establish diplomatic relations between both countries and asked for assistance to Turkey in its fight against imperialism. When, at one of the meetings of the Grand National Assembly, in the summer of 1920, reactionary deputies made a request about the nature of the relationship between the Ankara government and the “Bolsheviks,” Kemal Pasha replied: “We ourselves were looking for the Bolsheviks, and we found them... Relations with the Soviet Republic are official installed." In the autumn of the same year, K., in a telegram sent to the Soviet government, wrote: “It gives me the greatest pleasure to inform you of the feeling of admiration felt by the Turkish people towards the Russian people, who, not satisfied with breaking their own chains, are already leading more two years of unparalleled struggle for the liberation of the entire world and enthusiastically endures unheard of suffering so that oppression will forever disappear from the face of the earth." A year later, speaking at the Grand National Assembly with a message about the victory on the river. Sakarya, Kemal Pasha said: “Russia and I are friends. For Russia, earlier than anyone else, recognized our national rights and showed respect for them. Under these conditions, both today and tomorrow, and always Russia can be confident in the friendship of Turkey."
With the end of the national war foreign policy Turkey began to lose its anti-imperialist character, and then completely lost it. As this process developed, Kemal Pasha's diplomacy also changed. During the Lausanne Conference of 1922-23, Kemal Pasha gave the Turkish delegation a directive: “to achieve full recognition in a broad and satisfactory form of our independence and our rights in matters of financial, political, economic, administrative and other.” But at the same time, hoping to receive support from England in financial and economic issues (in which France was most interested) and seeking the rapid signing of a peace treaty in order to quickly evacuate foreign troops from Istanbul, Kemal Pasha made significant deviations from previous principles: he agreed to the establishment of a regime of the straits that was unfavorable for Turkey and other Black Sea countries (...), agreed to postpone the resolution of the Mosul issue, etc. Subsequently, changes in Kemal Pasha’s foreign policy line were manifested in diplomatic combinations carried out by Aras (...), and in some speeches Kemal Pasha himself, testifying to the gradual rapprochement of Turkey with the imperialist powers.
Nevertheless, K. retained his basic views on Turkish foreign policy until the end of his life. Emphasizing the difference between the Turkish national state and the former Ottoman Empire, he stated in 1931: “The present Balkan states, including Turkey, owe their birth to the historical fact of the successive dismemberment of the Ottoman Empire, which was ultimately buried in the grave of history.” Speaking against the developing aggressive tendencies of Hitler's Germany, Kemal Pasha in 1935 said in an interview given to an American journalist: “Some hypocritical leaders have turned into agents of aggression. They have deceived the people they rule by perverting national ideas and traditions...” In 1937, Kemal Pasha published a warning to the fascist aggressors, indicating that “whoever attacks the Balkan borders will get burned.” He emphasized the need to ensure collective security and spoke out against neutrality in its previous meaning, that is, against the same treatment of the aggressor and the victim of aggression.
Friendship with Soviet Union Kemal Pasha considered it necessary to guarantee Turkey's independence. In his annual presidential speeches (at the opening of the session of the Grand National Assembly), he devoted a prominent place to relations with the USSR. He invariably characterized these relations as the most important element of Turkish foreign policy. As head of state, Kemal Pasha did not visit foreign missions, but made the only exception to this rule for the Soviet embassy.
In one of his most recent parliamentary speeches, in November 1936, noting that according to the convention signed in Montreux (...), “from now on, passage through the straits for ships of any belligerent power is prohibited,” Kemal Pasha emphasized “with exceptional satisfaction” that between Turkey and its “great sea and land neighbor” a sincere friendship exists and continues to develop normally, “which has proven its merits for 15 years.”
Even at the most last days In his life, Kemal Pasha pointed out, in the form of a political testament to his future successors, the need to maintain and develop friendship with the USSR.
After the death of Kemal Pasha, under the new President İnönü (...) and his ministers Saracoglu, Menemecioğlu (...) and others, Turkey's foreign policy, moving away from the principles of Kemal Pasha, took a reactionary and anti-national path.
Diplomatic Dictionary. Ch. ed. A. Ya. Vyshinsky and S. A. Lozovsky. M., 1948.
Read further:
First World War(chronological table)
Participants of the First World War(biographical reference book).
Historical figures of Turkey(biographical index)
Türkiye in the 20th century(chronological table)
Essays:
Atatürk"ün söylev ve demeçleri, (cilt) 1-2, Ankara, 1945-52;
Nutuk, cilt 1-3, Istanbul, 1934 (Russian edition - The Path of New Turkey, vol. 1-4, M., 1929-34).
Literature:
Ata türk"ün söylev ve demecleri. Istanbul. 1945. 398 s. -
Nutuk, Gazi Mustafa Kemal tarafindan. Gilt 1-317 s., eilt 11-345 s., cilt III-348 s. Istanbul. 1934. (Russian edition: Mustafa Kemal. The path of the new Turkey. T. 1-480 p., t. II-416 p., t. III-488 p., t. IV-571 p. M. 1929-1934). Ataturk 1880-1938. Ankara. 1939. 64 s. -
Melnik, A. Türkiye. M. 1937. 218 p.
On November 10, the 74th anniversary of the death of the founder of the Turkish Republic, Kemal Ataturk, was very solemnly and thoroughly celebrated in Turkey. He died at the age of 57 and is buried in a mausoleum in Ankara
Everyone in Turkey knows the canonized biography of Ataturk (as was once the case with the biography of the Soviet idol leaders Lenin and Stalin) almost by heart, but in reality it is full of mysteries and inconsistencies. So, there is no reliable information about the date of birth - either 1880 or 1881. Mustafa himself chose May 19 as his birthday - the day the struggle for independence began.
The place of birth is also questioned. Thessaloniki? Traditionally - yes, Thessaloniki, then an Ottoman city. There is no documentary information about the nationality of Mustafa's parents. It is possible, or most likely, that the father was Albanian by origin. It is widely believed that he belonged to the Jewish sect “Dönme”... His mother seems to be Macedonian, but there is also no exact information. Biographers claim that Mustafa was an active, hot-tempered, independent, uncompromising child. Of course, purposeful and independent. From the age of 12 he received his education at a preparatory military school and further up to the Ottoman Academy of the General Staff. He criticized the Abdulhamid regime and participated in the Young Turk coup...
Without a doubt, Ataturk was the greatest state, political and military leader of his country. He was able to “pull the Ottoman Empire out of the hole” after defeat in the First World War and lay the foundations of a modern state. Atatürk managed to gather the remnants of the troops of the former Caucasian Front and put them together into “kuvvval-i milliye” - “national forces”, creating a bourgeois-nationalist movement, later called “Kemalist”. It was directed primarily against the Greeks and Armenians, the Republic of Armenia. The main goal The Kemalist movement was to preserve the integrity of the Ottoman Empire. From the first day of the start of the “movement,” Kemal declared that “Turkey will not cede an inch of land to Armenia” and will “wage a decisive struggle against any movement that sets itself the goal of creating an independent Armenia.” He formulated his territorial claims on the opening day of the Grand National Assembly - April 23, 1920: “The borders of Turkey should include Kars, Batum, Ardahan in the Caucasus, Mosul and Diyarbakir in Mesopotamia.”
Speaking about the war with Armenia, Kemal was extremely conceptual and bloodthirsty: “We must destroy the Armenian army and the Armenian state.” In the captured Armenian cities and villages, he essentially continued the genocide organized by the Young Turks.
In 1920-1921 Kemal began a rapprochement with Soviet Russia, which was due to the well-known kinship of souls with Lenin and the anti-Entente position of Turkey. Half-starved Russia more than generously, royally, provided assistance to Turkey in two steps. The rapprochement led to friendly embraces - negotiations in Moscow and the Moscow Treaty of 1921. Let us remember that the agreement was signed without the participation of Armenia. Ataturk beat Lenin and Russia and achieved the most valuable territorial acquisitions mainly due to Armenia. In Transcaucasia, he received 26 thousand sq. km, of which 24 thousand were the territory of the Republic of Armenia.
Subsequently, Kemal continued to cheat no less successfully: on the one hand, he eloquently declared his unremitting desire to maintain relations with the USSR, on the other, he pursued a real and effective policy of rapprochement with Europe and the USA.
In recent weeks, almost all Turkish publications, as well as some foreign ones, have devoted articles to the Turkish leader, whose life and death are full of secrets. In “democratic” Turkey they are clearly not trying to solve them.
“Bin Yasha, Bish Yasha, Mustafa Kemal Pasha”
“Bin Yasha, bish Yasha, Mustafa Kemal Pasha,” “thousands of years of life to you, our beloved Ataturk,” sings Hamid, a Turkish bagel seller on the corner of one of the Istanbul streets. On November 10, at exactly 09:05, it suspends its trading and freezes to the long wail of sirens that sounds throughout the country in honor of the next anniversary of Ataturk’s death. Along with him, passersby on the street, schoolchildren, housewives, market traders, carpet sellers, construction workers and even drivers of passenger sea trams and metro trains, who stop the train cars in the dark tunnels for exactly five minutes, freeze in silent respect. Today, around ten thousand people gathered at Istanbul's Dolmabahce Palace, where the former Turkish leader died, to honor his memory and lay white chrysanthemums, Atatürk's favorite flowers, at the foot of his bed.
“Ataturk was a professional military man,” says thirteen-year-old Istanbul schoolgirl Ayşe Arman, who came here with her parents. “He studied in Thessaloniki and graduated from the General Staff Academy. During the First World War, which led to the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, he led the national liberation movement against the victorious countries: England, France, Italy, Greece,” continues schoolgirl Aishe. The war, as is known, ended with the proclamation of an independent Turkish state. Ataturk abolished the Islamic calendar, introduced a new civil code that established equality between the sexes, separated religion from the state, and adopted a new alphabet and the Turkish Constitution. Over the years of the existence of the Turkish Republic, the propaganda machine created its own biography of the leader, not disdaining even the most ridiculous myths. “Ataturk loved flowers and children,” says an Istanbul school student in an interview with CNN Turk, “once he was forced to hide from enemies in the snowy desert. He had not eaten for several days, was chilled and terribly cold, and could not find his way. He was helped by an eagle, which flew in and showed him the right path,” continues the ten-year-old schoolgirl.
The real data on the leader’s personal life, however, is still classified and is in secret archives, experts say. Despite the fact that every Turkish schoolchild knows the details of the life of the founder of the Turkish Republic, Ataturk still remains the most closed and untouchable figure in Turkish society. The memory of the founder of Turkey is sacred, a special law protects the reputation, honor and dignity of the former leader. Any insufficiently respectful mention of him in a public place threatens long term conclusions.
“Turkish society is not ready to accept Ataturk for who he really was,” says Turkish citizen H... Several years ago, letters, diaries and memoirs were published in Turkey for the first time ex-wife leader, Latifa, with whom he lived for several years and then divorced... This caused a real shock in Turkish society. Prominent representatives of the Turkish intelligentsia proposed arresting and sending the authors of the publication to prison. “Latifa was the daughter of a wealthy merchant from Izmir, she was a self-sufficient, intelligent, independent, educated woman,” wrote the authors of the publication, a group of Turkish historians and scientists, “she could not accept the leader’s too harsh temperament, his jealousy and temper.” She also could not get along with his lifestyle. In recent years, Ataturk drank a lot and had long drinking sessions with friends. He visited European neighborhoods, loved the company of liberated free women, met Russian emigrants from Russia, loved to dance, drank a lot, was mostly strong alcoholic drink cancer, for which he was called a drunkard behind his back. Excessive alcohol consumption, according to official data, caused the death of the Turkish leader. Doctors diagnosed cirrhosis of the liver, but the autopsy data were never made public. This gave rise to an incredible number of rumors, many of which are still popular today. A number of historians, for example, claim that Ataturk was killed, that he could have been destroyed by forces that did not want the rise of Turkey, in particular members of the Jewish-Masonic lodge, who in those years had quite a large force in Turkey, to which, according to historians, he belonged and Kemal himself.
The fact is that there were conspiracies against the leader during his lifetime. Many of his comrades opposed Ataturk's one-man rule. At the end of 1926, show trials were held in Istanbul against his associates, who planned his physical elimination. The American film star Zaza Gabor, known not so much for her roles as for her numerous marriages and novels, is allegedly involved in the murder. She was called “the most expensive courtesan since Madame de Pompadour.” In the early thirties, Zaza Gabor married a Turkish diplomat and moved to Turkey. She secretly met with Ataturk, had a close relationship with him, and after his death she unexpectedly secretly left for America.
Turkish researcher Ali Kuzu, author of the book “Who Killed Ataturk?”, believes that the Turkish leader could have been poisoned with a potent diuretic that contains mercury and is extremely dangerous with long-term use. When specialists from France came to treat Ataturk, his health improved, and when Turkish doctors again took care of him, his health deteriorated again,” he writes.
“I have photographs of one of the doctors who performed an autopsy on Ataturk’s body,” said the famous historiographer and collector Muhamed Yukce in an interview with Turkish TV on the eve of the next anniversary of Ataturk’s death, “in the photo, his body lies on foil, the abdominal cavity is opened. An autopsy of the leader's body was performed two days after his death by a group of Turkish doctors - Akyl Mukhtar, Mehmed Kamil, Sureya Hedo. The doctors said they did not even dare take a sample of the leader’s blood. However, autopsies have already been performed all over the world. Nobody knows what happened there. The part of the documents describing the autopsy is missing.”
After his death, Ataturk's body was embalmed and hastily sent to the ethnographic museum, and later buried in a mausoleum in Ankara. Experts claim that data on the autopsy of the body exist, but are still classified and are in the state archive. The opposition newspaper Sezhdu, for example, claims that Ataturk was poisoned in the same way as much later Turkish President Turgut Ozal, who died in 1993. The remains of Ozal's body were exhumed in early October this year. According to Turkish newspapers, tissue samples from the former ex-president's body contained a potent poison, strychnine, which was allegedly added to his food and drinks. Official authorities deny this information.
“We are still terribly afraid of Ataturk,” writes the famous Turkish journalist Mehmet Ali Birand. “He evokes in us admiration and fear, which we have absorbed since childhood, from school. These feelings were in the eyes of our mothers and grandfathers, who told us stories about him at night. heroic deeds. I experienced these feelings in the army every time the Turkish flag was raised. We still don’t know reality, it’s more convenient for us to live with the myth that was instilled in us since childhood, and we don’t want to part with our childhood dream.”
So in Thessaloniki, or in Malatya?
IN lately In Turkey, information about the Armenian or Kurdish origin of the founder of the Turkish Republic, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, began to actively circulate again. The reason for such conversations were the arguments according to which Ataturk was born not in Thessaloniki, but in Malatya, where the Armenian and Kurdish population predominated. A columnist for the Turkish newspaper Radikal, Orhan Kemal Cengiz, addressed these conversations in his article.
“We are a country that has left nothing in the past and has failed to move forward. We were unable to sincerely look at the events that happened in the past, we were unable to grieve the pain, however, no matter how painful it is, we need to have the strength to withstand the pain of reality. We have chosen to forget most of our history. This burden has become so heavy on our shoulders that today, because of this weight, we cannot solve any of our problems,” wrote Kemal Cengiz.
He noted that such rumors are periodically spread right and left, but they fail to face them bravely, just as, for example, they could not easily accept the fact that during the Çanakkale war, an Armenian officer, Sargis Torosyan, became a hero. That is, when, on the one hand, the Young Turks were destroying the Armenians, one Armenian officer fought for his country. Of course, Torossian's name is not in any of our history books, because the story of an Armenian who fought to the death for his country bothers us and reminds us of the burden on our backs. Addressing talk that Atatürk was born not in Thessaloniki, but in Malatya, Cengiz writes: “This information can be both true and false. It is quite possible that the information about Ataturk’s birth in Thessaloniki was also invented.” To prove this, the journalist recalls that until recently, all sorts of facts were invented to deny the existence of the Kurds. Today their existence is accepted, but they are not given equal rights, they even refuse to recognize their right to native language. “We need to take a sincere look at our history. Then we will see the struggle of the Armenian officer in Canakkale, and we will perceive Ataturk and the Kurdish rebels as they are, and, leaving aside the burden on our shoulders, we will move on,” he concludes.
TURKISH-ARMENIAN WAR. RELATIONS WITH THE RSFSR
The main stages of the Turkish-Armenian war: the capture of Sarykamysh (September 20, 1920), Kars (October 30, 1920) and Gyumri (November 7, 1920).
Of decisive importance in the military successes of the Kemalists against the Armenians, and subsequently the Greeks, was the significant financial and military assistance provided by the Bolshevik government of the RSFSR from the autumn of 1920 until 1922. Already in 1920, in response to Kemal’s letter to Lenin dated April 26, 1920, containing a request for help, the government of the RSFSR sent the Kemalists 6 thousand rifles, over 5 million rifle cartridges, 17,600 shells and 200.6 kg of gold bullion.
When the agreement on “friendship and brotherhood” was concluded in Moscow on March 16, 1921, an agreement was also reached to provide the Angora government with free financial assistance, as well as assistance with weapons, according to which the Russian government allocated 10 million rubles to the Kemalists during 1921. gold, more than 33 thousand rifles, about 58 million cartridges, 327 machine guns, 54 artillery pieces, more than 129 thousand shells, one and a half thousand sabers, 20 thousand gas masks, 2 naval fighters and “a large amount of other military equipment.” Russian government The Bolsheviks in 1922 made a proposal to invite representatives of the Kemal government to the Genoa Conference, which meant actual international recognition for the VNST.
Kemal’s letter to Lenin dated April 26, 1920, read, among other things: “First. We undertake to unite all our work and all our military operations with the Russian Bolsheviks, with the goal of fighting the imperialist governments and liberating all the oppressed from their power. “In the second half of 1920, Kemal planned to create a Turkish Communist Party under his control - to obtain funding from the Comintern; but on January 28, 1921, the entire leadership of the Turkish communists was liquidated with his sanction. The main Turkish communist Mustafa Subhi and his closest associates were executed - it seems they were drowned in the Bosphorus.
GREECO-TURKISH WAR
According to Turkish tradition, it is believed that the “National Liberation War of the Turkish People” began on May 15, 1919 with the first shots fired in Izmir against the Greeks who had landed in the city. The occupation of Izmir by Greek troops was carried out in accordance with the article of the 7th Armistice of Mudros. Until August-September 1921, luck favored both sides, but the outcome of the war was decided by the General Offensive of the Turks and the victory over the Greeks at Domlupınar (now Kütahya. Mustafa Kemal was awarded the title of “gazi” and the rank of marshal.
On August 26, the Greek positions were broken through, and the Greek army actually lost its combat effectiveness. On August 30, Afyonkarahisar was taken, and on September 5, Bursa. The remnants of the Greek army flocked to Izmir, but there was not enough fleet for evacuation. No more than a third of the Greeks managed to evacuate. The Turks captured 40 thousand people, 284 guns, 2 thousand machine guns and 15 aircraft. About a million people on both sides were left homeless.
On September 9, Kemal, at the head of the Turkish army, entered Izmir; the Greek and Armenian parts of the city were completely destroyed by fire; the entire Greek population fled or was destroyed. Kemal himself accused the Greeks and Armenians of burning the city, as well as personally the Metropolitan of Smyrna Chrysostomos, who died a martyr’s death on the very first day of the Kemalists’ entry: the commander Nureddin Pasha handed him over to the Turkish crowd, which killed him after cruel torture. (Chrysostom is now canonized.)
On September 17, 1922, Kemal sent a telegram to the Minister of Foreign Affairs, which proposed the following version: the city was set on fire by the Greeks and Armenians, who were encouraged to do so by Metropolitan Chrysostom, who argued that burning the city was the religious duty of Christians; the Turks did everything to save him. Kemal said the same thing to the French admiral Dumenil: “We know that there was a conspiracy. We even found that Armenian women had everything they needed to set fire... Before our arrival in the city, in the temples they called for the sacred duty of setting the city on fire.” French journalist Berthe Georges-Gauly, who covered the war in the Turkish camp and arrived in Izmir after the events, wrote: “It seems certain that when the Turkish soldiers became convinced of their own helplessness and saw how the flames consumed one house after another, they were seized with insane rage and they destroyed the Armenian quarter, from where, according to them, the first arsonists appeared.”
Kemal is credited with words allegedly spoken by him after the massacre in Izmir: “Before us is a sign that Turkey has been cleansed of Christian traitors and foreigners. From now on, Türkiye belongs to the Turks.”
Under pressure from British and French representatives, Kemal eventually allowed the evacuation of Christians, but not men between 15 and 50 years old: they were deported to the interior for forced labor and most died.
On October 11, 1922, the Entente powers signed a truce with the Kemalist government, which Greece joined 3 days later; the latter was forced to leave Eastern Thrace, evacuating the Orthodox (Greek) population from there.
On July 24, 1923, the Lausanne Peace Treaty (1923) was signed in Lausanne, ending the war and defining modern borders Turkey in the west. The Treaty of Lausanne, among other things, provided for an exchange of populations between Turkey and Greece, which meant the end of the centuries-old history of the Greeks in Anatolia. In October, the Kemalists entered Istanbul, evacuated by the Entente.
Based on materials
foreign,
incl. Turkish press
Prepared for the newspaper "New Time"
Mustafa Kemal Ataturk (1881-1938), 1st President of the Turkish Republic from 1923
An educated officer, leader of the national liberation struggle in Turkey, the first President of the Turkish Republic, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, did not know his birthday. He chose the date himself - May 19. On this day in 1920, the struggle for Turkish independence began. Having united patriotic forces around himself, Ataturk sought to turn the country onto the path of transformation, wanted to turn it into a developed state of the European type.
The collapse of the Ottoman Empire began immediately after the end of the First World War (1914-1918). The Empire took part in hostilities on the side of Germany. The war led to the defeat of both Germany and the Ottoman Empire itself. In 1920, in France, the Entente countries signed the Treaty of Sèvres with the government of Sultan Turkey. By the time it was signed most Turkey was occupied by the troops of the great powers. Mustafa took an active part in these events.
Mustafa was born in the Greek city of Thessaloniki, then under the control of the Ottoman Empire, into the family of Ali Ryza Efendi. After his father's death, he entered military school and became an exemplary officer. For his academic success, he was given a middle name, Kemal, which means “valuable.” He spoke French and German languages, loved literature, painting, music, dancing, but had a stern character.
Mustafa had the opportunity to serve in Syria, in France, and in 1911 he transferred to Istanbul and participated in various military operations. During the First World War, Mustafa took an active part in military operations, including the Dardanelles in 1915. He then held senior positions in the Ministry of Defense.
After the end of the war, the Ottoman army was to be disbanded. Under these conditions, Mustafa took an active part in the political life of Turkey and organized several congresses in the name of saving the independence of the people. After the occupation of Istanbul by British troops in 1920, Kemal convened the Grand National Assembly of Turkey (GNT) in Ankara, and the liberation war of the Turkish people soon began. In 1922, Mustafa Kemal took part in the recapture of the city of Smyrna from the Greeks. Having taken the city, the Turks went on rampages, started fires, destroyed Christians... Ancient Greek Smyrna became Turkish Izmir.
In July 1923, the Treaty of Lausanne was signed in Lausanne, ending the war and defining the modern borders of Turkey. In October of the same year, the Entente abandoned Istanbul and the Kemalists entered the city. The Republic of Türkiye was immediately proclaimed, and Mustafa Kemal was elected its first president. In 1934, the parliament gave him the surname Ataturk, which means “father of all Turks”, or “great Turk”. He was a nationalist and sought to subordinate national minorities to the Turkish way of life and beliefs, discriminating against anyone who tried to defend their identity.
Ataturk did a lot for the development of Turkey. Thanks to his efforts, a law was created that encouraged industry. To create production facilities, he allocated free of charge land plots, exempted entrepreneurs at first from taxes on land and profits. The creation of agricultural cooperatives was encouraged. By the end of the 1920s, over 200 joint stock companies, landless peasants received land, foreign banks began to operate. Türkiye was turning into a secular state. Ataturk carried out reforms: he introduced international measurement systems and a calendar, women received equal rights with men.
In 1938, doctors discovered he had cirrhosis of the liver. Despite his illness, he continued to perform his duties and died in Dolmabahce Palace, the former residence of the Turkish sultans in Istanbul. In 1953, his remains were reburied in the Anitkabir mausoleum, specially built in Ankara.
“I am happy when I say that I am Turkish!” Kemal Ataturk.
Mustafa Kemal was born in Greece in Thessaloniki in 1881. His exact date of birth is not known. Some sources indicate March 12, others - May 19. The first date is considered official, and he chose the second himself after the start of the struggle for Turkish independence. The real name of the great Turkish reformer is Mustafa Riza. He added the nickname Kemal to his name while studying at a military school for his knowledge in mathematics. Mustafa received the title Ataturk - father of the Turks - after being recognized as the national leader of the state.
Mustafa's family are customs officials. At the time of Mustapha's birth, Thessaloniki was under Turkish rule and suffered from severe oppression by the new government. Mustafa's father and mother were Turks by blood, but the family may have ancestors of Greeks, Slavs or Tatars. In addition to Mustafa, the family had three more children. Two brothers died in infancy, and a sister lived to adulthood.
The boy received his primary education at a Muslim school, then at the age of 12 he went to a military school. The young man's character was quite difficult. He was known as a rude, hot-tempered and straightforward person. Mustafa was an active and independent child. Having virtually no contact with his peers and his sister, Mustafa preferred to remain alone. He did not listen to the opinions of others and did not compromise. In the future, this greatly affected his career and life. Mustafa Kemal made many enemies.
Political activities of Mustafa Kemal
While studying at the Ottoman Academy of the General Staff, Mustafa was fond of reading books by Voltaire and Rousseau. Studied biographies of outstanding historical figures. It was then that patriotism and nationalism began to emerge in him. As a cadet, Mustafa showed interest in the Young Turks, who advocated Turkish independence from the Ottoman sultans.
After completing his studies, Mustafa Kemal organized several secret societies that fought corruption in the Turkish government. For his activities, he was arrested and exiled to Damascus, where he founded the Watan party. This party is currently one of the most influential organizations in Turkey.
In 1908, Mustafa took part in the Young Turk Revolution. The Constitution of 1876 was restored, but no major changes occurred in the country. Kemal switched to military activities.
Military career of Mustafa Kemal
Mustafa Kemal showed himself as a talented commander and military leader during the First World War. For the battle with the Anglo-French landing in the Dardanelles he received the rank of pasha. In Kemal's military career, the victories of 1915 in the battles of Kirechtepe and Anafartalar stand out. His work in the Ministry of Defense is also noteworthy.
After the end of the First World War, the state began to disintegrate into separate territories. Mustafa made a call to preserve the unity of the country, and in 1920 he created a new parliament - the Grand National Assembly of Turkey. At the first meeting, Mustafa Kemal was elected head of government and chairman of parliament. In October 1923, Mustafa became president of the Turkish Republic.
As President of Turkey, Kemal carried out many reforms to make the state more modern. He advocated changing the education system, improved social structure, restored Turkey's economic independence.
Personal life
The official wife of Mustafa Kemal was Latifa Uşaklıgil. However, the marriage lasted only two years. According to Ataturk’s supporters, the woman interfered in her husband’s affairs, which was the reason for the divorce. Mustafa did not have his own children. He took in foster children - 8 daughters and 2 sons. The daughters of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk became an example of freedom and independence of Turkish women. One of the daughters became a historian, the other became the first woman pilot in Turkey.
