Mustafa Kemal's Love for the Republic

This attachment to Gazi Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the founding leader of the Republic of Turkey, whom I have always deeply respected, is actually very much related to the admiration I have felt since my childhood for how he was able to stand out from those around him in those days and to establish today's modern Turkey with his magnanimous heart. 

Yes, little Mustafa entered the Thessaloniki Military School, the first of the military schools where he grew up, at the age of 12. When he graduated from the school at the age of 16 after four years of secondary education, he was now a young cadet and there was another change in his life. His mathematics teacher, Captain Mustafa Efendi, gave him his middle name, saying, "You are Mustafa and I am Mustafa, let me call you Mustafa Kemal from now on," partly because he wanted to set him apart from the other Mustafas in his class. 

He would now attend the Monastir Military High School as young Mustafa Kemal. This was the age of youth. He was also a successful student in secondary school, especially in mathematics, but the high school years were the years when he started to raise himself. At the same time, Mustafa Kemal completes high school in the city of Bitola, where he is separated from Thessaloniki, where he was born and raised. 

The fact that his teachers were members of the Union and Progress Party was one of the reasons why the students were familiar with national affairs at such a young age. This was also true for young Mustafa Kemal.

Moreover, in 1897, when Mustafa Kemal was only in the second grade, the Ottoman-Greek war broke out. 

In 1898, the young Mustafa Kemal successfully graduated from the Manastir Military Idadasi and now came to Istanbul and at the age of 18, on March 13, 1899, he started at the infantry department of the Military Academy.

He graduated in 1902 at the age of 21. Mustafa Kemal is now a young lieutenant.

On January 10, 1902, Mustafa Kemal continues his education by attending the Military Academy. In the meantime, he brought Young Turk newspapers and French-language newspapers from abroad and closely followed the affairs of the country with his friends, while continuing to prepare handwritten newspapers at the War Academy as he had done at the Military Academy. 

When İsmail Pasha, the Minister of Schools, learned about this situation and Ali Rıza Pasha, the Commander of the Academy, arrested Mustafa Kemal and his friends in a raid, it resulted in a verbal warning from the school commander.

On January 11, 1905, Mustafa Kemal graduated from the Military Academy as a staff captain at the age of 24 and was sent to the 30th Cavalry Regiment in Damascus for duty.

Mustafa Kemal's interest in reading, which had begun during his school life, would never end.

In these last periods of the Ottoman Empire, there were four currents of national thought.

Mustafa Kemal's youth was spent between these movements and his thinking in his later years was influenced by these four movements.

-Ottomanism

-Islamism

-Westernism

-Turkism

- OSMANLISM is a current of thought that dominated the first half of the Second Constitutional Monarchy. According to this understanding, in order to protect the integrity of the state, language, race and religion should not be discriminated and everyone should have the same rights and powers. Although this was a movement that was at the forefront of those who thought that if this was done, Ottoman unity would be realized and the state could be saved from collapse, this movement suffered a heavy blow with the loss of the Balkan Wars and the declaration of independence by non-Turkish minorities in the Balkans.

- ISLAMISM is a movement of thought that gained importance in the second half of the 19th century in order to preserve the integrity of the Ottoman Empire. Although it first emerged as a political idea, it was later advocated by literary figures and thinkers.

According to this movement, the only way to keep the remaining Ottoman society together was to rally around religious unity. The only solution is for Muslims living in the Ottoman lands to unite around the caliph. 

Mehmet Akif Ersoy, Mehmet Şemsettin Günaltay, Sait Halim Pasha, Cevdet Pasha, Şeyhülislam Musa Kazım Efendi, Hacı Zihni Efendi, Eşref Edip were the advocates of this movement.

- Westernism, on the other hand, is a movement that started with the Tanzimat and even before that with the reform movements and advocated the need to modernize in order to save the state. During the Tanzimat period, Namik Kemal, Şinasi and Ziya Pasha pioneered this movement in order to bring the Ottoman state to the level of western civilizations by following the cultural developments of the West through literature.

After the First Constitutional Monarchy, the leaders of westernization were the Young Turks. Mustafa Kemal also followed the Young Turks closely during his academic years.

In this period, Abdullah Cevdet, Baha Tevfik, Tevfik Fikret, Celal Nuri were among those who defended this movement. 

- The Turcism movement emerged with the aim of saving the Ottoman state, partly due to the failure of the Ottomanism and Islamism movements and influenced by the ethnic nationalism movements that had started outside. With the conditions and failures of the day, if every people revolts with the dreams of establishing their own state and succeeds, moreover, Muslims are also caught up in these movements and do not want to be a part of the Ottoman Empire, then we will establish the Great Turkish Empire with our compatriots in the same way, Turanism, also known as Turanism.

The Tanzimat period pioneers of this movement, which sprouted in the Tanzimat period, were Ahmet Vefik Pasha, Ali Suavi, Ahmet Cevdet Pasha and Şemsettin Sami.

Especially during the Greek War of 1897, Mehmet Emin Yurdakul's line "I am a Turk, my religion, my gender is great" in his poem "Going to the Battle" became the slogan of the Turkism movement.

The pioneer of this movement in later years was the "Turkish Association", which was founded in 1908 and published a magazine under its own name in 1911. 

This association was later replaced by the "Türk Yurdu" association, which was founded under the presidency of Mehmet Emin Yurdakul and published a magazine with the same name.

On March 12, 1912, young medical students came together and founded the journal Türk Ocağı. In 1913, "Halka Doğru" magazine is published. In addition, magazines such as "Yeni Mecmua, Türk Sözü, Milli Tetebbular Mecmuası" were also published.

With the magazine "Genç Kalemler" published by Ömer Seyfettin and Ali Canip, nationalism begins in literature.

Ziya Gökalp, who was initially a Turanist, later abandoned this extreme nationalist view, analyzed the Turkism movement in detail for the first time and made important contributions with his works before and after the Republic.

It was as a result of reading and synthesizing all the books Mustafa Kemal read in his youth and the works that were the products of these movements that the idea of the Republic was established in his mind. 

It is such a synthesis that it is neither fully Westernist, nor fully Islamist, nor Ottomanist, nor ethnic Turkist, that is, neither ethnic nationalist like other peoples outside. His is a synthesis of all of them. 

He summarized the synthesis himself in a single sentence later on. 

Happy is he who says "I am a Turk"!

Blessed is not the one who is Turkish, but the one who calls himself a Turk! In other words, to those who are aware that they are citizens of the Republic of Turkey. Blessed are those who love this homeland, this flag! Regardless of ethnic or religious affiliation! As long as he loves this homeland and flag!

The Republic of Turkey has already been ingrained in the mind of a genius like Mustafa Kemal as a result of being cooked and kneaded among these currents during his youth. 

Amidst all the difficulties, after the war, the country is in ruins, people are miserable!  And while all these four movements I mentioned above had their supporters in the parliament, he stood against all of them and despite all the objections, he announced the news to those around him on October 28, 1923 as follows:

"Gentlemen, tomorrow we will declare the Republic!

Because his love for his homeland was more than love for him. He realized in his youth that the only way for the state to survive forever was the sovereignty of the nation. 

For him, the Republic was a manifestation of his love for the homeland. 

This is such a love that neither sultanate nor property could be enough to tempt him. 

But he always thought of his country, not himself.

Even a real love for a woman couldn't replace his love for the Republic!

Long live the Republic! 

Long live the sovereignty of the nation!

Happy Republic Day!

Love and respect to everyone from Moscow.