Hello everybody. Today, I will talk about the founder of Turkish Republic, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk.
Instead of giving historical knowledge, I want to talk about his personal life, and play some of his favorite songs.
Mustafa Kemal Atatürk was born in a three-story pink house in Thessaloniki in 1881. His father was Ali Riza Efendi, and his mother was Zübeyde Hanim. His grandfather, Hafız Efendi, settled in Kocacik, Macedonia in the 14-15th centuries. He spoke Turkish attentively and clearly. However, he pronounced some words with a Rumelian accent. He was interested in foreign languages. He studied French at the military school, and in the following years, he improved his French. He had a rich vocabulary in French. He loved to dance and always advised those around him to dance. The Waltz, which Atatürk loved very much, was one of the popular dances of that period. He played the horon in one of the Balkan Festivals held on December 2, 1936. Normally, it is hard for soldiers to get used to civilian clothes after many years of military service, but he easily adapted. He attached great importance to his outfits. He even designed his own suits. Atatürk was a person who loved nature very much. He admired the green, the flowers, and the trees. He had a mansion in Yalova. One day he went to the mansion, the employees said that the branch of the plane tree next to the mansion damaged the roof and the wall and asked for permission to cut it. Atatürk ordered the building to be moved a little forward on the tram rails, instead of cutting the branch of the plane tree. ”O heroic Turkish woman, you deserve to rise to the sky on the shoulders, not to be dragged on the ground.” ; Turkish women received equal civil and political rights during his presidency ahead of many other countries. 23 April National Sovereignty and Children’s Day is one of the public holidays in Turkey. He gifted April 23 to all the world’s children because of their importance in our future. He was found of sports. His favorite sport was wrestling. He regularly rode, swam, and played billiards. He presented the ‘Youth and Sports Day’; to the Turkish youth and showed the importance he gave to sports.
He read thousands of books. He was a real book lover. He even read books at the front. One day a Politian asked him: ”Did you go to Samsun by reading a book?” ; Atatürk replied: ”When I was a child, I was poor. When I received two pennies, I would give one penny of it to the book. If it was not so, I would not have done any of this. ”He gave great importance to education. Even in the most fragile periods of the National Struggle, he cared enough to hold an education congress and not cancel it. Despite the scarce resources of the country, he sent students abroad. If he had lived long enough, it was his biggest dream to go on a world tour and expand his studies on Turkish language and history.
Atatürk died at the Dolmabahçe Palace in Istanbul, on the 10 th of November in 1938, at 09:05 am. He was 57 years old. We had both sorrow and pride in his funeral; seventeen countries sent special representatives, and nine countries contributed with military units to the cortège. The whole country bid farewell to him in tears.
These are some details from Atatürk’s life. Thank you for listening to me.
Have a nice day.
