Mustafa Kemal Atatürk: Founding father of Modern Turkey

The world’s first hat revolution took place in Turkey in 1925. On November 25 of that year, the parliament passed a law that made it mandatory for all men to wear Western-style hats in public places; all civil servants had to wear them, and no other type of hat would be allowed.

Mustafa Kemal Atatürk (1881-1938) was an army officer who founded an independent Republic of Turkey out of the ruins of the Ottoman Empire. He then served as Turkey’s first president from 1923 until his death in 1938, implementing reforms that rapidly secularized and westernized the country. Under his leadership, the role of Islam in public life shrank drastically, European-style law codes came into being, the office of the sultan was abolished and new language and dress requirements were mandated. But although the country was nominally democratic, Atatürk at times stifled opposition with an authoritarian hand

During 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. After the war, from the years 1919 and 1923, 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.

He spent the next decade pushing reforms to modernize the country. One of the last reforms centered on family names. In 1934 it was decreed by the General National Assembly (of which he was president) that every citizen must choose surnames. 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. Only one name was not allowed to be chosen and that was Ataturk. Mustafa Kemal selected the name Ataturk for his surname; Ataturk means, “Father of the Turks” or “Father of the Turkish Nation”.

On November 10, 1938, Atatürk, who never had any children, died in his bedroom at the Dolmabahce Palace in Istanbul. He was replaced by İsmet İnönü, prime minister during most of Atatürk’s rule, who continued his policies of secularization and westernization. Even though Atatürk retains iconic status in Turkey today—in fact, insulting his memory is a crime—Islam has reemerged in recent years as a social and political force.