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Life will come to a standstill on Monday across Türkiye as people observe a minute of silence on the hour Mustafa Kemal Atatürk passed away 87 years ago. Elsewhere, thousands of visitors are expected to descend to Anıtkabir, the mauseloum in Ankara of founding the father of modern Türkiye.
The legacy of the man credited with rebuilding the homeland for Turks after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire is everywhere in Türkiye with people still feeling deep gratitude to the first president of the Republic of Türkiye.
President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan will join other politicians and dignitaries to pay their respects to Atatürk on Monday at Anıtkabir, while commemoration ceremonies will be held in every corner of the country and Turkish missions abroad. Erdoğan will later attend an event to commemorate Atatürk at a public institution bearing late leader’s name, which works for preserving Türkiye’s cultural, language and historic heritage.
Atatürk, already an accomplished Ottoman officer, crammed many more accomplishments in his short life that ended at the age of 57. But in his own words, his greatest achievement was the foundation of the Republic of Türkiye. This new republic rose on the ashes of a collapsed empire and created a new country now known as Türkiye. It was with Atatürk’s efforts as leader of the National Struggle and the War of Independence in the wake of World War I that made Türkiye an example of postwar recovery as the “Great War” and a preceding period partitioned remnants of the Ottoman Empire.
Overcoming a rough childhood, including dropping out of school and losing his father at the age of 7, Atatürk, then simply known as Mustafa, finally found his calling in a military career when he was enrolled in military school in his hometown Thessaloniki, now a city in modern-day Greece. After graduation from a military academy as staff captain, Atatürk began a new life, which took him to many fronts the Ottomans fought in the empire’s last years, from Damascus to North Africa. He brushed with death in several occasions during his military career and almost lost an eye when he was injured in one battle in 1912 in Libya. Three years later, he reportedly escaped death when his pocketwatch was struck by shrapnel during the Gallipoli campaign where he commanded Ottoman forces in western Türkiye.
In 1926, Atatürk this time escaped from an assassination attempt when one such plot was uncovered early.
Nevertheless, it was a disease that would ultimately kill him. Attributed to his longstanding drinking and smoking habits, Atatürk was diagnosed with cirrhosis of liver in his latter years. In the months preceding his death, he was largely confined to bed in Dolmabahçe Palace in Istanbul and died there. His will was a burial in Ankara which he turned into the capital of modern Türkiye from a former Ottoman province far from empire’s capital Istanbul. His body was transferred to a temporary resting place at an Ankara museum on Nov. 21, 1938, and remained there until 1953 until the completion of Anıtkabir.
Remembering Atatürk
Atatürk’s death is still a vivid memory for nonagenarians. Halil Ibrahim Inan is among them. Now 99-years-old, the man lives in a caring home in western city of Izmir. He was 14-years-oId when the founding leader passed away. “I saw my mother crying that day and asked her what happened. She said ‘our father Atatürk’ died. She was not the only one crying that day. The entire village was crying,” Inan recounted.
Abdurrahman Başaran was in the fourth grade the day Atatürk died. “Teachers gathered us outside the school and told us ‘The Father’ died. It was an emotional day, not just for us but entire country. When I returned home from school, my parents were crying too. Since then, every Nov. 10 is an unbearable pain for me,” Başaran told Anadolu Agency (AA) on Sunday. “There won’t be a man like him,” he added.
