Founder of Modern Turkey:

Mustafa Kemal Ataturk

Main Life Accomplishments:

Mustafa Kemal established himself as a successful military commander while serving as a division commander in the Battle of Gallipoli of World War I. 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. His successful military campaigns led to the liberation of the country and the establishment of the Republic of Turkey. Mustafa Kemal implemented what are known as Atatürk's Reforms, which led to sweeping changes in the political, economic and cultural sphere of the Turkish nation and the drive to create a modern, democratic and secular state based on Western principles of governance shaped by Kemalist ideology. Mustafa Kemal reached his "peak of power" in the 1930s and was considered one of the great men of his epoch, which he openly declined by rejecting the idea of being placed in the company of Mussolini, whom he held in contempt, or Hitler, whom he regarded as mentally deranged.

 

Basics:

Born: Born 1881 in Ottoman city of Selânik (modern-day Thessaloniki, Greece)

Died: Died November 10, 1938 ( 57 years old) at Dolmabahçe Palace

Nationality:  Turkish

Fields:  Military, Politics

Main Accomplishments:  Famous Head of State from Turkey.

 

Chronology of Life Events:

1881

Birth of Mustafa
 

1893

He went to military schools in Selânik and Manastır
 

1895

Mustafa Kemal entered the military academy at Manastır
 

1905

He graduated as a lieutenant
 

1907

He attained the rank of captain and was posted to the 3rd Army in Manastır
 

1910

He took part in the Picardie army maneuvers
 

1911

He served at the Ministry of War.
 

Mar 6, 1912

He was appointed the commander of Derne.
 

1912
He returned to Istanbul
 

1913

He was appointed military attaché to Sofia,
 

1914

He was promoted to lieutenant colonel
 

Apr 25, 1915

He met the enemy in the hills, held them, and retook the high ground.
 

Apr 1, 1915

Mustafa Kemal was given the command of XVI corps of 2nd Army and sent to the Caucasus Campaign, with the rank of Brigadier General
 

Aug 28, 1918

He returned to Aleppo resumed the command of the 7th Army.
 

Nov 13, 1918
Mustafa Kemal returned to an occupied Istanbul
 

May 19, 1919
Mustafa Kemal stepped in Anatolia
 

1920

Mustafa Kemal promised to have a "direct government by the assembly
 

Sep 9, 1923

Mustafa founded the Republican People's Party
 

Aug 11, 1930
Mustafa Kemal decided to try a democratic movement once again

1937

Indications of Atatürk's worsening health started to appear
 

1938

He encountered serious illness while he was on a trip to Yalova
 

Nov 10, 1938

Atatürk died, at age 57
 

Jan 9, 1923

He married Latife Uşaklıgil
 

Early Life:

Atatürk was born in 1881 in the Ottoman city of Selânik (modern-day Thessaloniki, Greece), the son of a minor official who became a timber merchant. In accordance with the then-prevalent Turkish custom, he was given a single name, Mustafa. His father, Ali Rıza Efendi, was a customs officer who died when Mustafa Kemal was seven and it was left to his mother Zübeyde Hanım, to raise the young Mustafa.

When Atatürk was 12 years old, he went to military schools in Selânik and Manastır (present-day Bitola, Republic of Macedonia), centres of discontent towards the Ottoman administration. Mustafa studied at the military secondary school in Selânik, where the additional name Kemal ("perfection" or "maturity", not an uncommon name) was given to him by his mathematics teacher in recognition of his academic excellence.[5] Mustafa Kemal entered the military academy at Manastır in 1895. He graduated as a lieutenant in 1905 and was posted to Damascus under the command of the 5th Army. In Damascus, he soon joined a small secret revolutionary society of reform-minded officers called Vatan ve Hürriyet (Motherland and Liberty) and became an active opponent of the Ottoman regime. In 1907, he attained the rank of captain and was posted to the 3rd Army in Manastır. During this period he joined the Committee of Union and Progress, commonly known as the Young Turks. The Young Turks seized power from the Sultan Abdul-Hamid II in 1908, and Mustafa Kemal became a senior military figure.

In 1910, he took part in the Picardie army maneuvers in France, and in 1911, he served at the Ministry of War in Istanbul. Later in 1911, he was posted to the province of Trablusgarp (the present Libya) to participate in the defense against the Italian invasion. Following the successful defense of Tobruk on December 22, 1911, he was appointed the commander of Derne on March 6, 1912.

He returned to Istanbul following the outbreak of the Balkan Wars in October 1912. During the First Balkan War, he fought against the Bulgarian army at Gallipoli and Bolayır on the coast of Thrace, and played a crucial role in the recapture of Edirne and Didymoteicho during the Second Balkan War. In 1913 he was appointed military attaché to Sofia, partly to remove him from the capital and its political intrigues, and was promoted to lieutenant colonel in 1914.
 

Wife Background:

1898 at Izmir, died 1975 in Istanbul.

She was born in 1898 in İzmir, where she received her high school education. In 1921 she was in Europe attending law schools in Paris and London. When she arrived back at Turkey, the Independence War was still not over. On September 11, 1922, when she heard that Atatürk was in İzmir leading the Turkish Army, she went to the headquarters and offered him the opportunity to stay in her family mansion in Göztepe for security reasons. Atatürk was pleased to accept, and so their relationship started.

They got married on January 29, 1923, when Atatürk arrived in İzmir just after his mother's death. However, the relationship did not last long. After an incident during their East Anatolia trip in the summer of 1925, they divorced on August 5, 1925. Lâtife Uşaklıgil lived in İzmir and in İstanbul until her death in 1975. She never remarried, and remained silent about their relationship throughout her life. Her family recently rejected proposals to publicize her diary which includes Lâtife's and Atatürk's letters to each other.
 

Father Background:

Ali Rıza Efendi was the father of Atatürk and the husband of Zübeyde. He was born in Thessaloniki and worked as a customs official. He died in 1887 when his son was 6 years old. He was originally from DebarAlthough he is thought by some to be of Albanian origin, other sources claim that he was of Turkish descent, or that this can only be a matter for surmise.
 

Mother Background:

Zübeyde Hanım, born 1857, died January 14, 1923 (aged 66)

Zübeyde Hanım was the mother of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the founder of the Republic of Turkey. Her name is Zübeyde but Hanım is a respectful way of saying Mrs. and is almost always added after her name. Kemal's father, Ali Rıza, died when Mustafa Kemal was six years old, making her parental influence dominant. Zübeyde Hanım was born in Salonika, then part of the Ottoman Empire, in 1857.

She was born as the only daughter of the Hacısofular family with two brothers. Hacı, in Turkish, refers to those Muslims who have made the pilgrimage to Mecca. Sofular is the plural of Sofu, which means a religious devotee. Thus, it is to be assumed that some important person or people in Zübeyde Hanım's background had made the pilgrimage to Mecca and that her family had deep religious roots.

Her education was basic and only consisted of learning to read and write. But this was considered a high educational level when compared with that of the majority of women throughout the empire. The idea that, "Girls don't need to read," was widespread, and therefore families were reluctant to have their daughters be educated. Because she could read and write, she was nicknamed Zübeyde Molla (someone knowledgeable and teaches other people, in particular, a teacher of theology) by some people.

Zübeyde Hanım was a religious woman and was so tied to her faith as a result of her upbringing that she wanted her son Mustafa to go to Mahalle Mektebi, a school that teaches the Qur'an, to be educated.

Zübeyde Hanım's first marriage was to Ali Rıza Efendi. With her dark blonde hair, deep blue eyes and fair skin, she won the admiration of Ali Rıza, a border guard who insisted he would only marry a blue-eyed blonde woman. His older sister arranged this marriage - as was the tradition at that time. Zübeyde Hanım was in her early teens and 20 years younger than her husband. Their first child was Fatma, then Ömer and Ahmet were born, but they all died in early childhood. Mustafa, later to become Atatürk, was born in 1881, followed by his sister Makbule in 1885. They had a sister Naciye, born in 1889, whom they lost because of tuberculosis in childhood.

After her husband's death when she was 27, Zübeyde Hanım and her two children lived for a period with her brother, Hüseyin, who was the manager of a farm outside Salonika.

Her second marriage to Ragıp Bey, who had four children from his ex-wife, angered Mustafa. He thought his mother did not respect the memory of his dead father,habitually called her a deragotory form of calling people who married twice and he offended his mother and Ragıp Bey in his behavior towards them.

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