What outstanding personalities Kemal Ataturk did. Kemal Ataturk - the man who turned the history of Turkey around

Name: Mustafa Atatürk

Age: 57 years old

Height: 174

Activity: reformer, politician, statesman, military leader

Family status: was divorced

Mustafa Ataturk: ​​biography

The name of the first Turkish President Mustafa Kemal Ataturk is on a par with such history transformers as Gamal Abdel Nasser. For his native country, Ataturk is still a cult figure. The Turkish people owe this man the fact that the country followed the European path of development and did not remain a medieval sultanate.

Childhood and youth

It is believed that Ataturk came up with both his date of birth and his name. According to some sources, Mustafa Kemal's birthday is March 12, 1881; he later chose the commonly cited date of May 19 - the day the struggle for Turkish independence began - he later chose himself.

Mustafa Riza was born in the city of Thessaloniki in Greece, which at the time was under the control of the Ottoman Empire. Ali's father Riza Efendi and mother Zübeyde Hanım are Turkish by blood. But since the empire was multinational, Slavs, Greeks and Jews could have been among the ancestors.

At first, Mustafa's father served in customs, but due to poor health he quit and began selling wood. This field of activity did not bring in much income - the family lived very modestly. The father's poor health affected the children - of the six, only Mustafa and the younger sister Makbule survived. Later, when Kemal became head of state, he built a separate house for his sister next to the presidential residence.

Kemal's mother revered the Koran and vowed that if one of the children survived, she would devote her life to Allah. At the insistence of Zübeyde, the boy’s primary education turned out to be Muslim - he spent several years in the educational institution of Hafiz Mehmet Efendi.

At the age of 12, Mustafa persuaded his mother to send him to a military school, for a government existence. There, from a mathematics teacher, he received the nickname Kemal, which means “perfection,” which later became his surname. At school and the Manastir Military Higher School and the Ottoman Military College that followed it, Mustafa was known as an unsociable, hot-tempered, and overly straightforward person.

In 1902, Mustafa Kemal entered the Ottoman General Staff Academy in Istanbul, from which he graduated in 1905. During his studies, in addition to studying basic subjects, Mustafa read a lot, mainly works and biographies of historical figures. I highlighted it separately. He made friends with diplomat Ali Fethi Okyar, who introduced the young officer to the censored books of Shinasi and Namık Kemal. At this time, ideas of patriotism and national independence began to emerge in Mustafa.

Policy

After graduating from the academy, Kemal was arrested on charges of anti-Sultan sentiments and exiled to Syrian Damascus. Here Mustafa founded the Vatan party, which means “Motherland” in Turkish. Today, Vatan, having gone through some modifications, still stands on the positions of Kemalism and remains a significant opposition party in the political arena of Turkey.

In 1908, Mustafa Kemal participated in the Young Turk Revolution, which aimed to overthrow the regime of Sultan Abdul Hamid II. Under public pressure, the Sultan restored the 1876 constitution. But by and large, the situation in the country has not changed, no significant reforms have been carried out, and discontent among the broad masses has grown. Not finding a common language with the Young Turks, Kemal switched to military activities.

They started talking about Kemal as a successful military leader during the First World War. Then Mustafa became famous in the battle with the Anglo-French landing in the Dardanelles Strait, for which he received the rank of pasha (equivalent to general). Atatürk’s biography includes military victories at Kirechtepe and Anafartalar in 1915, successful defense against British and Italian troops, command of armies and work in the Ministry of Defense.

After the surrender of the Ottoman Empire in 1918, Kemal witnessed how yesterday's allies began to take away his homeland piece by piece. The disbandment of the army began. The call to preserve the integrity and independence of the country was heard. Ataturk noted that he would continue the fight until “he removes the enemy’s banners from the hearths of his grandfathers, while enemy troops and traitors are walking in Istanbul.” The Treaty of Sèvres, signed in 1920, which formalized the division of the country, was declared illegal by Kemal.

In the same 1920, Kemal declared Ankara the capital of the state and created a new parliament - the Grand National Assembly of Turkey, at which he was elected chairman of the parliament and head of government. The victory of Turkish troops in the Battle of Izmir 2 years later forced Western countries to sit down at the negotiating table.

In October 1923, a republic was proclaimed, the highest body of state power was the Majlis (Turkish parliament), and Mustafa Kemal was elected president. In 1924, after the abolition of the sultanate and caliphate, the Ottoman Empire ceased to exist.

Having achieved the liberation of the country, Kemal began to solve problems of modernizing the economy and social life, the political regime and the form of government. While still in military service, Mustafa went on numerous business trips and came to the conclusion that Turkey should also become a modern and prosperous power, and the only way to this is Europeanization. The reforms that followed confirmed that Ataturk adhered to this idea to the end.

In 1924, the Constitution of the Turkish Republic was adopted, which was in force until 1961, and a new Civil Code, in many ways similar to the Swiss one. Turkish criminal law took its foundations from Italian, and commercial law from German.

The secular education system is based on the idea of ​​national unity. It is prohibited to apply Sharia law in legal proceedings. In order to develop the economy, a law was adopted to encourage industry. As a result, in the first 10 years of the existence of the Turkish Republic, 201 joint-stock companies were created. In 1930, the Central Bank of Turkey was founded, as a result of which foreign capital ceased to play a dominant role in the country's financial system.

Ataturk introduced the European time system, Saturday and Sunday were declared days off. European hats and clothing were introduced by order. The Arabic alphabet has been converted to a Latin base. The equality of men and women is proclaimed, although in fact to this day men retain a privileged position. In 1934, old titles were banned and surnames were introduced. The parliament was the first to honor Mustafa Kemal with this honor, giving him the surname Ataturk - “father of the Turks” or “great Turk”.

It is a mistake to consider Kemal an apostate. It is more correct to talk about attempts to adapt Islam to everyday needs. Moreover, the Kemalists later had to make concessions: open a theological faculty at the university, declare the birthday of the Prophet Muhammad a holiday. Ataturk wrote:

“Our religion is the most reasonable and most perfect of religions. To fulfill its natural mission, it must be consistent with reason, knowledge, science, logic, our religion can fully meet these requirements."

Mustafa Ataturk was re-elected president three more times - in 1927, 1931 and 1935. During his leadership, Turkey established diplomatic relations with a number of states and received an offer to join the League of Nations. The geographical location of the country also added weight. Western European politicians already appreciated Turkey’s capabilities in establishing relations with the countries of the Near and Middle East.

At the initiative of Turkey, the Montreux Convention was approved, which has so far successfully regulated the passage of the Bosporus and Dardanelles, connecting the Black and Aegean Seas.

On the other hand, Ataturk's radical nationalist policies were marked by the imposition of the Turkish language, persecution of Jews and Armenians, and the suppression of the Kurdish insurgency. Kemal banned trade unions and political parties (with the exception of the ruling Republican People's Party), although he understood the shortcomings of the one-party system.

Ataturk outlined his account of the formation of Turkish statehood in a work entitled “Speech”. “Speech” is still published as a separate book; modern politicians use quotes to add color to their own speeches.

Personal life

The personal life of the first president of Turkey is no less stormy than the public one. Mustafa's first love was Elena Karinti. The girl came from a wealthy merchant family, and Kemal was studying at a military school at that time. The girl's father did not like the poor groom, and he hastened to find a more profitable match for his daughter.

During his military service, Kemal had to live in different cities, and everywhere he found female company. Among his friends is the organizer of the Sultan's receptions, Rasha Petrova, the daughter of the Bulgarian Minister of War Dimitriana Kovacheva.

From 1923 to 1925, Ataturk was married to Latife Ushaklygil, whom he met in Smyrna. Latife also belonged to a wealthy family and was educated in London and Paris. The couple did not have their own children, so they acquired 7 (in some sources 8) adopted daughters and a son, and also took care of two orphan boys.

Daughter Sabiha Gokcen later became the first Turkish female pilot and military pilot, son Mustafa Demir became a professional politician. Daughter Afet Inan is Turkey's first female historian.

What was the reason for the separation from Latife is unknown. The woman moved to Istanbul and left the city every time if Ataturk came there.

Death

Ataturk, like ordinary people, did not avoid entertainment. It is known that Kemal was addicted to alcohol; death from cirrhosis of the liver found him in Istanbul in November 1938.

After 15 years, the ashes of the first president were transported to the Anitkabir mausoleum. There is also a memorial museum where clothing, personal items, and photographs are exhibited.

Memory

• Schools, a dam on the Euphrates River and Turkey's main airport in Istanbul are named after Ataturk.
• There are Ataturk museums in Trabzon, Gazipasa, Adana, and Alanya.
• Monuments to the first president of Turkey were erected in Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Venezuela, Japan, and Israel.
• The portrait appears on the Turkish currency banknote.

Quotes

“Those who consider religion necessary to keep government on its feet are weak rulers; they keep people in a trap. Everyone can believe as they wish. Everyone acts in accordance with their conscience. However, this belief should neither contradict prudence nor violate the freedom of others."

“The only way to make people happy is to help bring them together in every possible way...”

"Life is a fight. Therefore, we have only two choices: win, lose.”

“If in childhood, out of the two kopecks I earned, I had not spent one on books, I would not have achieved what I have achieved today.”

Today, without exaggeration, every Turkish schoolchild knows the name of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk. He is revered by both the older and younger generations. It was this man who, in just 15 years of his reign, managed to create a strong, developed and modern Turkey - the way we know it today. Let's take a closer look at the biography of this great Turkish reformer and find out what deeds he became famous for throughout the world.

Gazi Mustafa Kemal Pasha was born in 1880 in the city of Thessaloniki (today's Greece) into a poor family. Mustafa did not know the exact day of his birth and later chose May 19 as the date of the start of the struggle for Turkish independence. The mother really wanted Mustafa to be brought up in the traditions of Islam and study the Koran, and the father dreamed of giving his son a modern education. As a result, having never come to an agreement on this issue, Mustafa’s parents sent him to a nearby school, and at the age of 12 (4 years after his father’s death), Mustafa of his own free will entered a preparatory military school. It was here that for his academic success he was given a middle name - Kemal, which means “perfection”. But Mustafa Kemal received the surname Ataturk (“father of the Turks”) much later - in 1934, at the suggestion of parliament.

Mustafa Kemal was fluent in German and French, loved art in all its forms, but at the same time, from childhood, he was distinguished by a strict, capricious and even somewhat stubborn character. He was used to achieving his goals and speaking the truth face to face, for which he subsequently made many enemies.

Mustafa graduated from the military school in Macedonia, the Ottoman Military College in Istanbul and the Ottoman General Staff Academy. Immediately after graduating from the academy, he survived arrest and exile. But this did not break the spirit of the future reformer and only, on the contrary, inspired him to new achievements.

Mustafa Kemal served in Syria and France, and during the First World War he took an active part in military operations - he commanded Turkish troops at the Battle of Canakkale, prevented the success of British forces during the landing in Suvla Bay, was the leader of the 7th Army and successfully defended against attacks English troops. After the end of hostilities, he returned to Istanbul and joined the Ministry of Defense.

The post-war period was the most difficult for the Ottoman Empire. At this moment, it was Mustafa Kemal who determined the main ways to save the fatherland. One of Ataturk’s most famous statements was: “Full independence is possible only with economic independence.” This is exactly what he tried to achieve for the citizens of his country.

In order to talk about all the reforms of Mustafa Kemal, two articles are not enough. But we will still try to at least briefly introduce you to the reforms that were carried out in Turkey during the reign of Ataturk. In just 15 years, the Sultanate was abolished in the country and the Republic was proclaimed, a reform of hats and clothing was carried out, an international system of time and measurement was introduced, women were given equal rights with men, a new Civil Code was adopted and a transition to a secular system of government was made, adopted a new Turkish alphabet, university education was streamlined, private enterprise in agriculture was encouraged and the outdated taxation system was abolished, a huge number of successful industrial and agricultural enterprises were created, an extensive network of roads was built throughout the country, and much more.

It is difficult to believe that one person was able to make such a colossal leap in the development of the entire country and make changes in absolutely all areas, creating a strong and united country. It so happened that Mustafa Kemal did not have his own children, but he had 10 adopted children and an 11th child - his Turkey.

Ataturk died at the age of 57 from cirrhosis of the liver. Until his last days, he worked for the benefit of the country, and bequeathed part of his inheritance to the Turkish societies of linguistics and history. The great reformer was buried on November 21, 1938 on the territory of the Ethnography Museum in Ankara. And 15 years later, his remains were reburied in the Anitkabir mausoleum built for Ataturk.

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 of 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 valuable territorial gains mainly at the expense of 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 Atatürk’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 Aishe 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, and a special law protects the reputation, honor and dignity of the former leader. Any insufficiently respectful mention of him in a public place risks a long prison term.
“Turkish society is not ready to accept Ataturk for who he really was,” says Turkish citizen H... Several years ago, letters, diaries and memoirs of the leader’s ex-wife, Latifa, with whom he lived for several years, were first published in Turkey , 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 with Russian emigrants from Russia, loved to dance, drank a lot, mostly strong alcoholic beverages, 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 bedtime stories about his 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?

Recently, information about the Armenian or Kurdish origin of the founder of the Turkish Republic, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, has again begun to actively circulate in Turkey. 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 their 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.” The Russian Bolshevik government 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, where, according to them, the first arsonists came.”
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 an armistice 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 Treaty of Lausanne (1923) was signed in Lausanne, ending the war and defining the modern borders of 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"

Even those who have never been to Turkey have probably heard the name of one of its legendary historical leaders, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk. Well, those who regularly fly to Turkish resorts have long been accustomed to seeing his portraits at literally every step: at the police station, in the post office, in bank premises, in shops and schools. In honor of Ataturk, every city, every village in Turkey has a street named after him, an airport, a stadium, cultural centers, numerous squares, parks, and educational institutions are named after him. Almost all the rooms and hotel rooms where Ataturk ever stayed have been turned into museums. His image appears on all banknotes, and his sweeping, recognizable signature with an elegant, almost heraldic, monogram adorns even cars, cups, souvenirs and is sold in the form of stickers for everyone who wants to pay tribute to the Great Reformer.

DATA:

• Born in 1881 in the family of a customs official in the city of Thessaloniki (now Greece), on the territory of the Ottoman Empire.
• He graduated from the military school and the General Staff Academy.
• He established himself as a decisive and courageous military leader on the fronts of the Turkish army and Tripoli (1911-1912), the Second Balkan War (1913) and the First World War.
• In 1915 he forced the Entente troops to recognize the Dardanelles as impregnable.
• In 1919 he led the national liberation movement against the dismemberment of Turkey by Entente troops.
• In 1920, the Grand National Assembly of Turkey convened, proclaiming itself the government of the country.
• 1923 - the final collapse of the Ottoman Empire, the formation of the Republic of Turkey, the election of Mustafa Kemal as president of the new state.

An outstanding commander, hero of the struggle for independence, Mustafa Kemal was awarded the surname Ataturk (“father of the Turks”) for his brilliant military victories and numerous reforms carried out during his presidency. He is one of those figures who not only was an active participant in historical events, but was also their direct creator, managing to prove to Turkey and the whole world that the country’s history does not end with the collapse of the empire.

Having become the sovereign ruler of the ancient country at the age of just over 40, Mustafa Kemal began to carry out a very difficult task - modernizing Turkish society, introducing it to the achievements of European civilization, culture, science and technology. He naturally believed that only such a Turkey would be considered by the great world powers. However, despite the enormous popularity brought to him by military and diplomatic victories, he had to act very carefully, since it is not easy to force people to abandon their previous way of life, sanctified by religion and traditions.

The full real name of the first president of Turkey is Gazi Mustafa Kemal Pasha. His military career began in childhood: military school, at the age of 20 - the Higher Military School of the General Staff, after - the Ottoman Military Academy in Istanbul. During the years of Mustafa Kemal's military training, the cruel, merciless regime of Abdul Hamid established itself in the country, which practically suppressed the constitutional movement, ordering the death of the author of the first Turkish constitution, Midhat Pasha, and created a well-functioning mechanism of general surveillance, denunciations and persecution of progressive sections of society. Economic stagnation, political lack of rights, the dominance of foreign capital, and the disintegration of the regime gave rise to a desire among progressive youth, especially military school cadets, to find a way out of this situation. The revolutionary spirit haunted the future president and his comrades. Even during their studies, they founded the secret society “Vatan” (“Motherland”), but after Mustafa Kemal joined the Young Turks, whose main goal was to replace the Sultan’s autocracy with a constitutional system. To understand how Mustafa Kemal became Atatürk, you need to remember what the Ottoman Empire was like at the time of his birth. In the old days, in the 15th-16th centuries, especially during the time of Suleiman the Magnificent, it was the strongest state in the world. Turkey and the Ottoman possessions included, for example, such modern countries as Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, part of Saudi Arabia, Palestine, and Jordan. Before the fall of the Ottoman Empire, Turkey was an extremely multi-ethnic country in which Turks were a minority. But from the end of the 17th century, it increasingly suffered defeats, the territory of the Ottoman Empire was gradually shrinking, and key areas began to be attacked.

Ironically, in the year of Mustafa Kemal's birth, the Ottoman Empire declared itself financially bankrupt. By the beginning of the 20th century, during Ataturk’s youth, it had already been defeated in the Russian-Turkish war, as a result of which Romania, Serbia, and Bulgaria gained independence from the Ottomans. And now it turned out that the Turks still had a territory in which the bulk of the population was made up of Turks, but military intervention by Greek and British troops was carried out on it. It was precisely to fight this intervention that Mustafa Kemal raised the Turkish people.

The main immediate task of the Kemalists was to fight the Entente’s occupation of “Turkish” lands and the de facto regime of capitulation that persisted. Having brought the demoralized soldiers into combat readiness, Ataturk gathered troops throughout Turkey to repel the interventionists. Mustafa Kemal's charisma fascinates the Turks, and they are ready to die for him. As a result of the struggle for the independence of Turkey, he not only led the Turkish troops, defeated the Entente army, but also actually ended the history of the Ottoman Empire. On October 29, 1923, a new state appeared on the maps - the Republic of Turkey, led by Mustafa Kemal.

Immediately after the war, Ataturk began to implement reforms. The Sultan's monarchy had already been replaced by a presidential republic, but he understood that political reform alone could not do it. Modernization required a change in the entire traditional way of life, and ultimately in the mentality of the Turks.

It is commonly said that Ataturk’s main merit was the construction of a modern state on a Western model, that the ultimate goal was the creation of a national state according to advanced European standards. But not everyone literally understands what is behind this common phrase and what transformations the young country has gone through. The reforms carried out by the “father of the Turks” today can be called unprecedented; not a single leader of an eastern state has actually managed to repeat them to such an extent. Mustafa Kemal himself can only be compared to Peter I in terms of his personality and role in the history of the country.

“A person’s wealth lies in the morality of his personality.
Successes in the military sphere cannot give the same results as reforms in the field of economics, everyday life and culture.”
Mustafa Kemal Ataturk.

Books and entire scientific studies have been written about the years of Ataturk’s reign, but even a cursory list of the changes, military and civil reforms that he successfully carried out in the country is simply amazing. After the liquidation of the Ottoman Empire, first of all, the caliphate and Sharia are abolished. Instead of the rule of the sultans and sharia, the sacred law of the Muslims, Mustafa Kemal introduced a Western-style legal system. In 1926, a new Civil Code was adopted, which established liberal secular principles of civil law. The Code was rewritten from the text of the Swiss Civil Code, then the most advanced in Europe. The Italian Criminal Code and the German Commercial Code were also introduced.

The provisions of private law concerning marriage, inheritance, etc. were changed. Polygamy was prohibited. Islam has become a private matter for everyone, the orders of dervishes are banned, equality of rights between men and women has been introduced, by the way, for the first time in the Islamic world. He considered European dances, which he himself loved very much, as a symbol of the introduction of people in general, and women in particular, to Western civilization. In just a dozen years, Turkey has changed, women teachers, doctors, lawyers, etc. appeared. In 1934, Turkish women received voting rights, which was unheard of for an eastern country. The old judicial law was replaced by a new Constitution, a new Code of Laws. Religion is separated from the state - Ataturk considered it necessary for Islamic religious leaders to deal exclusively with matters of faith and literally “not meddle” in state affairs. The state should also not interfere in matters of faith. Lands and real estate belonging to religious orders and Muslim monasteries were confiscated and transferred to the state. Religious schools were liquidated, and state secular educational institutions were created in their place, where the teaching of religion was prohibited. Education became subordinate to the Ministry of Education. Thanks to these reforms, Türkiye quickly became a truly secular state.

Mustafa Kemal began his visible Europeanization with a small but very characteristic thing. He took up arms against the fez, a headdress that had by that time become a symbol of the Turks and Islamic orthodoxy. First, he abolished the fez in the army, then he himself appeared in a hat, which terribly shocked his fellow citizens. As a result, Ataturk declared wearing a fez a crime.

The language reform of Mustafa Kemal was also subordinated to the same goal of planting a new patriotism from scratch - he abolished the Arabic script and created a new literary Turkish language and alphabet. The President personally traveled around the country, teaching the people the new written language, for which he received another nickname - “the first teacher of the republic.” It was the language reform, and not the proclamation of a republic or the granting of voting rights to women, that some researchers consider Atatürk’s “most revolutionary transformation.” Thanks to the introduction of a single language, all Turks, regardless of gender, origin or income level, for the first time felt like a single nation.

But Ataturk goes further. A law is passed, thanks to which the citizens of the country received surnames. It’s hard to believe, but until 1934, every Turk had only a name and a nickname associated with the position. Now Akhmet the grocer has become Akhmet the Grocer, and Islam the postman has become Islam the Postman. You could also choose any surname from lists posted in public places. The president's services were appreciated, and in accordance with the Law on Surnames, on November 24, 1934, the parliament assigned Mustafa Kemal the surname Ataturk, which means “father or ancestor of the Turks,” and a special law prohibited any other citizen of the country from bearing this surname.

This is interesting:
On April 26, 1920, Ataturk turned to Lenin for help. Vladimir Ilyich offers help to Turkey if it, in turn, recognizes the sovereignty of Soviet Russia and gives up disputed cities in the south. Ataturk agrees to all conditions. The Bolsheviks returned to Turkey the cities of Kars, Artvin and Ardahan, and 60 thousand Turkish prisoners of war, 10 thousand interned soldiers, in full weapons and ammunition. The Turks recognized Russia's right to own Batum. In accordance with the agreement, the Russian government during 1921 placed at the disposal of the Kemalists 10 million rubles in 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 and “ a large amount of other military equipment." In the composition of the monument to the Republic in Istanbul, behind Ataturk you can see the figures of Frunze and Voroshilov.
On November 10, 1938, Mustafa Kemal died. His childhood friend and constant adjutant Salih Bozok approaches the deceased, hugs him for the last time and quickly goes into the next room, where he shoots himself in the chest. His death was announced, but Salih Bozok survived. The bullet passed a few centimeters from the heart.

Thanks to these and many other reforms, Ataturk managed to stabilize the country's economy. Türkiye has ceased to lag behind the leading powers and has stopped shrinking in size. Moreover, part of the territories lost under the terms of the Peace of Sèvres was returned. Ankara began to look quite decent compared to other world capitals, although ten years earlier the parliament building was lit by kerosene stoves and heated by “potbelly stoves,” and the Western press wrote sarcastically about “this village,” where it was a shame to send ambassadors.

By the early 1930s, Türkiye had transformed. It not only kept pace with Europe, but in some ways even overtook it. When Western countries were mired in the Great Depression, the Turkish economy, thanks to Kemalist government policies, experienced a real boom.

Having predicted a world war in 40-41, Ataturk bequeathed the Turks not to join it. At the end of February 1945, Turkey declared war on Germany as a formal procedure, but in fact the Turks carried out the last will of their first president and did not participate in the war.

Ataturk, who had been suffering from cirrhosis of the liver for a long time, died on November 10, 1938 in Istanbul, in the Dolmabahce Palace. His body was temporarily interred near the building of the Ethnographic Museum in Ankara, but after the completion of the Anıtkabir Mausoleum, Atatürk’s remains were transferred with a grand burial ceremony to the place of his last and eternal resting place.

In today's Turkey, there are still laws in force that prohibit defaming or insulting the name of Ataturk, which is still surrounded by extraordinary honor and worship. The country's population, with the exception of religious extremists, continues to idolize him.

“Of all types of glory, Ataturk achieved the highest - the glory of national revival”
General de Gaulle (Golden Book of the Mausoleum)

Today, the country, which we are accustomed to know as an economically developed, progressive, modern secular state, owes its current status entirely to this “architect of the new Turkey” - a famous politician, founder and first president of the Republic of Turkey, a brilliant military general, a man of outstanding mentality Mustafa Kemal Ataturk. Of course, there were always dissatisfied critics who argued that he was a real dictator and a destroyer of traditions, but even they admitted that it was unlikely that another form of government was possible for Turkey at that time. The country had to be brought out of the crisis and wars, and the Turks had to return pride in their Fatherland and nation. Mustafa Kemal did it so brilliantly that the result remains to this day, and is literally visible in the eyes of every resident of the country who proudly hangs his portrait or the Turkish flag on their balcony. 75 years have passed since the death of Ataturk, but Mustafa Kemal is still revered like no other political figure of the 20th century.

How did the reforms in Turkey, rightly associated with the name of the great Kemal Ataturk, begin? Turkey survived the First World War, the occupation of part of the territory, the war of liberation against the invaders, the fall of the Young Turks and the final liberation from the Sultan's regime, the collapse of the empire. The Ottoman Empire was a state ravaged by war and internal contradictions. As a result of the war, Turkey lost almost all of Eastern Anatolia, Mesopotamia, Syria, and Palestine. Nearly three million men were drafted into the army, leading to a sharp decline in agricultural production. The country was on the verge of collapse. The victorious allies attacked the Ottoman Empire like hungry predators. It seemed that the war had dealt a mortal blow to the Ottoman Empire, which had long been known as the “Great Power of Europe.” It seemed that each of the European countries wanted to snatch a piece of it for themselves. The terms of the truce were very harsh, and the allies entered into a secret agreement to divide the territory of the Ottoman Empire. Great Britain, moreover, did not waste any time and deployed its military fleet in the harbor of Istanbul. At the beginning of the First World War, Winston Churchill asked:

“What will happen in this earthquake to scandalous, collapsing, decrepit Turkey, which does not have a penny in its pocket?”

During these years, an understanding of the need to create a new Turkey began to take shape. The spokesman for these interests was Mustafa Kemal37.

Mustafa Kemal was born in Thessaloniki in Greece, on the territory of Macedonia. At that time, this territory was controlled by the Ottoman Empire. His father was a middle-ranking customs official, his mother a peasant woman. After a difficult childhood spent in poverty due to the early death of his father, the boy entered a state military school, then a higher military school and, in 1889, finally the Ottoman Military Academy in Istanbul. There, in addition to military disciplines, Kemal independently studied the works of Rousseau, Voltaire, Hobbes, and other philosophers and thinkers. Even at school, for his success in studies, he was called by his middle name - Kemal (valuable, impeccable). In 1905 he graduated from the General Staff Academy in Istanbul, after which he was sent to serve with the rank of captain in Damascus38.

At the age of 20, Mustafa Kemal was sent to the Higher Military School of the General Staff. The military profession chosen by Kemal was of great importance for his overall political development. Economic stagnation, political lack of rights, the dominance of foreign capital, and the disintegration of the regime gave rise to a desire among progressive youth, especially military school cadets, to find a way out of this situation. If not revolutionary, then at least liberal ideas penetrated into educational institutions from the West, combined with the enormous influence of Turkish enlighteners of the 19th century. - progressive writers and poets Ibrahim Shinasi, Namık Kemal, Ziya Pasha, Tevfik Fikret and others - developed patriotic feelings and national identity among young students. An important role in this process was played by the fact that in feudal Turkey the army was the only consistently centralized part of the state organism. The military intelligentsia was the first to act as a spokesman for the interests of the still nascent national bourgeoisie. Representatives of the military intelligentsia were also the first participants in underground circles, which later joined the secret Young Turk organization “Unity and Progress”39.

During his studies, Kemal and his comrades founded the secret society "Vatan". "Vatan" is a Turkish word of Arabic origin, which can be translated as "homeland", "place of birth" or "place of residence". The society was characterized by a revolutionary orientation.

And the reason was that the empire experienced an economic, political and military crisis. Abdul-Hamid II (1876-1909) sat on the Sultan's throne - despite his opposition to any reforms, he was forced to introduce a constitution in December 1876, but extremely limited its effectiveness. The Ottoman Empire was proclaimed as a single state, not subject to dismemberment. This situation came into conflict with the national liberation movement in all regions of the empire40. Repeated uprisings were suppressed with monstrous cruelty by the commanders of the troops, who adhered to the official doctrine that considered all subjects of the Sultan, regardless of nationality and religion, as members of one society. During the Russian-Turkish war of 1877-1878. Turkey suffered a number of major defeats and was forced to recognize the complete independence and autonomy of Serbia, Montenegro and Romania under the Berlin Treaty. Bulgaria and Eastern Rumelia. England, under the pretext of helping Turkey, occupied Cyprus, Austria-Hungary occupied Bosnia and Herzegovina. In 1881, France captured Tunisia, a former colony of Turkey, and in 1882, England occupied Egypt. In the year of Mustafa’s birth, the Ottoman Empire declared itself financially bankrupt and, according to the Sultan’s Muharrem Decree, agreed to the creation of the Office of the Ottoman Public Debt, into whose jurisdiction a portion of state revenues was transferred to foreigners41. Turkey had lost its independence in foreign policy affairs and in the international arena now acted not as a subject, but as an object of policy of the great powers, who were preparing to divide the inheritance of the “Bosphorus patient”.

Kemal, unable to achieve mutual understanding with other members of society, left Vatan and joined the Committee of Union and Progress, which collaborated with the Young Turk movement (a Turkish bourgeois revolutionary movement that aimed to replace the Sultan's autocracy with a constitutional system). Kemal was personally acquainted with many key figures in the Young Turk movement, but did not participate in the 1908 coup.

Kemal's independent position and his popularity in the army worried the leadership of the Young Turks. In an effort to somehow distance him from the government and at the same time reward him for his assistance in restoring Young Turk rule, the authorities sent him to France in the summer of 1909. France made a huge impression on the young officer and contributed to his desire to adopt the best achievements of the West. During the period of the Tripolitan and Balkan wars (1911-1913), Kemal came to the conclusion that it was impossible to preserve the multinational Ottoman Empire in its previous form, and at the same time became convinced of the effectiveness of the partisan movement. When World War I broke out, Kemal, who despised the Germans, was shocked that the Sultan had made the Ottoman Empire their ally. However, contrary to his personal views, he skillfully led the troops entrusted to him on each of the fronts where he had to fight. Thus, at Gallipoli, from the beginning of April 1915, he held off British forces for more than half a month, earning the nickname “Savior of Istanbul.” This was one of the rare victories of the Turks in the First World War. It was there that he told his subordinates: “I am not ordering you to attack, I am ordering you to die!” It is important that this order was not only given, but also carried out. In 1916, Kemal commanded the 2nd and 3rd armies, stopping the advance of Russian troops in the southern Caucasus. In 1918, at the end of the war, he commanded the 7th Army near Aleppo, fighting the last battles with the British and knowing full well that Turkey had lost the war42.

At the end of the First World War, there was a real danger of the disappearance of Turkey as a state. However, the Turkish people were able to revive their power from the ashes, turning away from the Sultan and making Mustafa Kemal their leader. The Kemalists turned military defeat into victory, restoring the independence of a demoralized, dismembered, devastated country.

Sent to Anatolia in 1919 to quell the unrest there, he instead organized an opposition and launched a movement against numerous “foreign interests.”43 He formed a Provisional Government in Anatolia, of which he was elected president, and organized a united resistance to the invading foreigners. The Sultan declared a "holy war" against the nationalists, especially insisting on the execution of Kemal.

When the Sultan signed the Treaty of Sèvres in 1920 and handed over the Ottoman Empire to the allies in exchange for maintaining his power over what remained, almost the entire people went over to Kemal's side. After Kemal's army marched towards Istanbul, the Allies turned to Greece for help. After 18 months of heavy fighting, the Greeks were defeated in August 192244.

Subsequently, he said: “While in Istanbul, I could not imagine that misfortunes could awaken our people so much and in such a short time.” He began to hold congresses of “Societies for the Defense of Rights.” A major political event was his speech at the opening of the Erzurum Congress on July 23, 1919. The most important of the fundamental provisions contained in it concerned the issues of the indivisibility of the country and its right to independent existence, the primacy of Anatolia in relation to Istanbul and the need to convene a national assembly and form government “based on the nation”45.

Then in September, at the All-Turkish Sivas Congress, national patriotic organizations - Societies for the Protection of Rights - that arose in various regions of Anatolia and Rumelia, approved the principle of national sovereignty. Thus, a fundamentally new concept of power began to be put into practice: power does not come from the Creator and belongs not to his viceroy - the monarch, but to the people. However, the idea of ​​a republic was still far from being accepted, and Mustafa Kemal understood this. Most of the participants in this congress could not yet imagine the further development of events without the participation of the Sultan's power.

The Sivas Congress united all the Societies into a single organization - the Society for the Defense of the Rights of Anatolia and Rumelia and elected its governing body

A representative committee of 16 people (headed by Kemal) as an independent government, opposing itself to Istanbul. The committee stated that the goal of the movement is “the unification of all Muslim citizens in the struggle for the integrity of the Ottoman homeland, the inviolability of the high sultanate and caliphate, and the independence of the nation.” The Committee also acquired powers based on the protection of the independence and indivisibility of the country within the boundaries of the Mudros Truce, and the demand for the resignation of the government of Ferid Pasha46.

At this congress, Kemal completed the development of the foundations of a national program, which had begun in Erzurum, later formalized under the name

National vow. These events went down in history as the beginning of the Kemalist revolution.

Mustafa Kemal and his comrades well understood the country's true place in the world and its true weight. Therefore, at the height of his military triumph, Mustafa Kemal refused to continue the war and limited himself to holding what he believed to be Turkish national territory.

The formation of the state system of the new Turkey went through several stages. As Turkey's military and international position strengthened, Kemal's position in the Majlis also strengthened. The first victory over the interventionists near the village of Inenu in January 1921 allowed Kemal to consolidate in the Law on Basic Organizations the principle of national sovereignty and the unconditional supreme power of the Majlis. In response to attempts to challenge this position, Kemal vigorously declared: “The nation has acquired sovereignty. And she acquired it through rebellion. The acquired sovereignty is not, for any reason or in any way, given back or entrusted to anyone else. To take away sovereignty, you need to use the same means that were used to acquire it. On August 5, 1921, the VNST appointed Kemal as supreme commander with unlimited powers.

But on November 1, 1922, the VNST adopted a law on the separation of secular power from religious power and the liquidation of the sultanate. Mehmed VI fled abroad. This was a historic victory over feudal reaction. Kemal publicly argued that objectively events had already led the people to understand the need to overthrow the sultanate. But now we need to go further, turn Turkey into a modern country and move in step with civilization.

Subsequent legislative acts, which completely completed the transformation of the state system, fell to the lot of the second Majlis, where the right-wing opposition was much weaker. October 29, 1923

Following the ratification of the Treaty of Lausanne, the Majlis proclaimed Turkey a republic, and on March 3, 1924 the caliphate was abolished.

Kemal's understanding of the principle of national sovereignty included a new interpretation of the Turkish national idea. Kemal’s nationalism was much more progressive than the pan-Ottoman and pan-Muslim quasi-nationalism of the “new Ottomans” or the Turkism of the Young Turks. Kemal clearly limited Turkism from the doctrine of pan-Turkism, which was close to it in its social roots, but, in essence, anti-national. In Kemal's understanding, Turkism is nothing more than Turkish nationalism within the borders of Turkey, but it is purely Turkish, different from Ottoman or Islamic. "Nation,

He said, “it changed the age-old forms and even the essence of the relationships established between the people belonging to it... The nation united its sons not by the ties of religious doctrine, but by belonging to the Turkish nationality.”

The defense of the gains of the Kemalist revolution had to be carried out, of course, by the Kemalist party. Kemal, as the recognized leader of the Turkish people, also remained the main conductor of all further reforms, so that a long series of bourgeois reforms all proceeded under the auspices and on the initiative of Kemal. Having found the long-awaited peace, Türkiye delved into internal affairs. Kemal steadfastly fought off all attacks on him personally and his policies. Having become the country's president on October 29, 1923, he was then invariably re-elected to this post every four years. Usually he announced his desire to address the nation on a particular issue.

“I am confident,” he said, “that my work and actions have won the trust and love of my people.”