MUSTAFA KEMAL ATATURK (1881 - 1938)
Statesman, founder of modern Turkey.
The sick man of Europe was Turkey with the Ottoman-rule having come to a perpetuation of excesses and rights of a few. In its decline it fought off all attempts from within and the outside threats to set itself right; Kemal Ataturk founded the Turkey’s national party at the end of WWI. And in 1920 a provisional government elected him president of Turkey and gave him a chance to restructure the country and bring it up-to-date. For his reforms he had the cooperation of a large majority of his people.
The founder of modern Turkey won fame as the defender of Galipoli. After the first World War he served as a leader for Turks, who wished to resist Allied plans to divide and subject their country and Greek’s attempt to occupy a part of it. He remade the Turkish army and defeated the Greeks and deposed the Sultan. He made a treaty with the Allies (Lausanne 1923) which recognized the independence of his people. Out of the Ottoman empire, the nation state of Turkey was born. He ruled the state as president for the rest of his life and remoulded it. He westernised the country, replaced the islamic law by western law, emancipated women, abandoned Arabic for the Latin alphabet. He abolished the caliphate. A remarkable man he was.
compiler:benny
