This established the Republic of Turkey, and Mustafa Kemal became the country’s first president.
MUSTAFA KEMAL ATATURK SERIES
The Great National Assembly-the new Turkish parliament-engaged in a series of battles with Greek and Armenian forces until Mustafa signed the Treaty of Lausanne on October 29, 1923. In 1919, Ataturk organized resistance to these forces, and when the Treaty of Sèvres was signed at the end of World War I, divvying up the Ottoman Empire, Mustafa Kemal demanded complete independence for Turkey. He made a name for himself as the commander of the 19th Division, where his bravery and strategic prowess helped thwart the Allied invasion of the Dardanelles in 1915, and received repeated promotions until the Armistice of Mudros ended the fighting in 1918.Īlthough the battles had ended, the treaty gave the Allies the right to occupy forts that controlled major waterways, as well as any territory that might pose a threat to security. During the second Balkan War he became chief of staff before being posted at the Turkish embassy in Bulgaria. He fought against Italy in the Italo-Turkish War in 1911 and from 1912-1913 he fought in the Balkan Wars. From 1909 to 1918, Mustafa Kemal held a number of posts in the Ottoman army. He participated in the Young Turk Revolution of July 1908, which successfully deposed Sultan Abdülhamid II. He graduated in 1905.Īs a young man, Mustafa Kemal became a member of the Young Turks, a revolutionary movement of intellectuals. There, his mathematics teacher gave him the name Kemal-meaning "perfection"-because he excelled in academics. When he was 12 years old, Mustafa was sent to the military academy in Istanbul. Mustafa Kemal Ataturk was born simply "Mustafa" on March 12, 1881, in Salonika, in what was then the Ottoman Empire (his birthplace is now known as Thessalonika, in modern-day Greece). He was elected its first president and ushered in reforms that modernized Turkey. Ataturk led the Turkish War of Independence and signed the Treaty of Lausanne in 1923, which made Turkey a republic. As a young man he was involved with the Young Turks, a revolutionary group that deposed the sultan in 1909.
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Mustafa Kemal selected the name Ataturk for his surname Ataturk means, "Father of the Turks" or "Father of the Turkish Nation".Ītaturk died in 1938 and his presence is still felt across Turkey today.Mustafa Kemal Ataturk was born in 1881 in the former Ottoman Empire. Only one name was not allowed to be chosen and that was Ataturk. For centuries many people in Turkey were recognized by their given names because the unit of community was based on small villages and clans the uniqueness of given names minimized the need for last names.
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In 1934 it was decreed by the General National Assembly (of which he was president) that every citizen must choose surnames. One of the last reforms centered on family names.
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He spent the next decade pushing reforms to modernize the country. In 1923 he became the first president of the Republic of Turkey. After the war, from the years 19, Mustafa Kemal led a national uprising (the Turkish War of Independence) against the last Ottoman sultan and the Greeks which laid the foundation of the new Turkish State. Other say he adopted the name after the radical nineteenth century poet Namik Kemal.ĭuring World War I he led three Ottoman divisions in the defense of the Dardanelles and he was instrumental in the Ottoman defeat and expulsion of the Allied Forces.
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Some say it was because of his exceptional mathematically abilities or because it was a nickname given to him by his mathematics teacher. During his time at a military secondary school he adopted the name Kemal which means "The Perfect One". The founder of modern Turkey, Ataturk, was born in Salonika (now the Greek city of Thessaloniki) in the Ottoman Empire in 1881 with the given name Mustafa.