Atatürk, Mustafa Kemal

Atatürk, Mustafa Kemal (1881-1938), Turkish soldier, nationalist leader, and statesman, who founded the republic of Turkey and was its first president (1923-1938). The name Atatürk (Father Turk) was bestowed upon him in 1934 by the Grand National Assembly as a tribute for his unique service to the Turkish nation. Atatürk was born on March 12, 1881, in Salonica (Thessaloníki) in Greece, the son of a minor official who became a timber merchant. When Atatürk was 12 years old, he went to military schools in Salonica and Monastir, centres of anti-Turkish Greek and Slavic nationalism. In 1899 he attended the military academy in İstanbul, graduating as staff captain in January 1905.

Because of his activities in the secret Young Turk movement against the autocratic government of the Ottoman Empire, of which Turkey was the central part, Atatürk was posted to Syria, in virtual exile. There he founded the secret Fatherland and Freedom Society (1906). Transferred to Salonica the following year, he joined the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP) that carried out the Young Turk revolution in July 1908. He was not, however, in the inner circle of the CUP and therefore played no role in the actual revolution.

Atatürk fought (1911-1912) in Libya against Italy and was promoted to major in November 1911. He organized the defence of the Dardanelles during the Balkan Wars (1912-1913) and was military attaché in Bulgaria in October 1913. During World War I, in which Turkey sided with Germany, Atatürk made his military reputation in the Gallipoli Campaign (1915), where he played a crucial role in repelling the Allied invasion. He then served in the Caucasus and Syria, where he was given command of a special army group just before the armistice was signed in October 1918. Returning to İstanbul, he watched in anxiety as the victorious Allied powers prepared to partition Anatolia.

A Greek army occupied İzmir on the Anatolian coast on May 15, 1919, conducting massacres of the local population. Atatürk, who had been appointed inspector of the Third Army in Anatolia, reached Samsun on May 19. He immediately set about uniting the Turkish national movement and creating an army for defence. First, however, the nationalists had to wage a struggle against the Ottoman sultan's regime in İstanbul, which seemed willing to allow the dismemberment of the national territory. By 1920 the İstanbul government had been discredited for acquiescing to the Allied occupation of the capital and signing the Treaty of Sèvres, which recognized Greek control over parts of Anatolia. Atatürk, meanwhile, had set up a provisional government in Ankara in April 1920. After initial setbacks, he won decisive battles against Greek forces at Sakarya (August 1921) and Dumlupinar (August 1922), reoccupying İzmir in September.

Having dealt with the external threat, Atatürk could turn to the internal one posed by the conservative forces around the sultan. The sultanate was abolished on November 1, 1922, and the republic proclaimed on October 29, 1923, with Atatürk as president. He founded the People's party (renamed Republican People's party in 1924) in August 1923 and established a single-party regime that, except for two brief experiments (1924-1925 and 1930) with opposition parties, lasted until 1945.

Atatürk created a modern and secular state, using his great prestige and charisma to introduce a vast programme of reforms. These included abolishing the caliphate, which embodied the religious authority of the sultans, and all other Islamic institutions; introducing Western law codes, dress, and calendar; using the Latin alphabet; and removing (1928) the constitutional provision naming Islam as the state religion. By 1931 the ideology of the regime, known as Kemalism or Atatürkism, was articulated and defined by six principles: republicanism, nationalism, populism, statism, secularism, and revolutionism. In 1919 Atatürk had been first among equals, but by 1926 he had eliminated all political rivals, using an alleged assassination conspiracy as the excuse. Thereafter, although he ruled as an autocrat, his regime was in fact based on an alliance of the civil and military bureaucracy, the newly developed bourgeoisie, and the landowners.

Atatürk's principal aim had been to save his people from humiliation and to transform Turkey into a modern, 20th-century nation. He pursued this aim with total determination and political finesse. Perhaps his most essential trait was his political realism; it enabled him to carry out his reforms without disastrous adventures and allowed Turkey to live at peace with its neighbours. Atatürk died in İstanbul on November 10, 1938.