Dolmabahçe Palace · Thursday, 10 November 1938

It was five past nine.

Since that day, the clock in his room has shown the same time. A life stopped that morning. The march of a nation did not.

Back to Thessaloniki

Fifty-seven years before that morning, it had all begun in a port city.

A child was born. No one wrote down his birthday.

Fifty-seven years · six periods

Let us walk through a life, in the order it was lived.

Each period is told in its own colours, its own photographs, its own words. Enter a period; at its end, the door to the next one awaits you.

  1. IA child in Thessaloniki
  2. IIThe young officer
  3. IIIGallipoli (Çanakkale)
  4. IVCollapse and resolve
  5. VThe National Struggle
  6. VIThe Republic
First period · 1881 – 1899

A child in Thessaloniki

A port city facing the sea, a house that lost its children one by one, a boy left fatherless at a young age. Against his mother’s wishes, he chose for himself to become a soldier; his teacher gave him the name “Kemal”.

  • The house where he was born
  • Şemsi Efendi School
  • Rapla Farm
  • The name Kemal
  • Manastır (Bitola)
Second period · 1899 – 1914

The young officer

A staff officer trained at the Harbiye military academy; exile because of a handwritten newspaper, a secret society in Damascus. He fought in the desert of Tripolitania; soon afterwards, the city of his birth was lost.

  • Harbiye
  • Damascus
  • The Action Army
  • Tripolitania
  • The loss of Thessaloniki
  • Sofia
Third period · 1915 – 1916

Gallipoli

A lieutenant colonel who, one morning at Arıburnu (Anzac Cove), rushed forward without waiting for orders. At Conkbayırı (Chunuk Bair), a pocket watch stopped the shrapnel that struck his chest. Çanakkale was not breached.

  • 25 April
  • 57th Regiment
  • Conkbayırı
  • Anafartalar
  • The pocket watch
Fourth period · 1916 – 1919

Collapse and resolve

The fronts collapsed, the empire surrendered. When the occupation fleet dropped anchor off Istanbul, according to his aide-de-camp, he said to those beside him in a firm and resolute voice: “They will go just as they came.” And he made the decision of his life.

  • Muş and Bitlis
  • The Syrian front
  • Mudros
  • Istanbul under occupation
  • The steamer Bandırma
Fifth period · 1919 – 1922

The National Struggle

From Samsun to Ankara, from the congresses to the Assembly, from İnönü to Sakarya, from the dawn at Kocatepe to İzmir. Three years in which a nation rose to its feet again.

  • Samsun
  • Amasya
  • Erzurum · Sivas
  • 23 April
  • Sakarya
  • The Great Offensive
Sixth period · 1923 – 1938

The Republic

A hundred-and-one-gun salute, a new capital, a new alphabet, women winning the right to vote and to be elected. In fifteen years, the face of a country changed.

  • 29 October
  • The Alphabet Reform
  • Nutuk (The Speech)
  • Women’s rights
  • The Tenth Anniversary
  • Atatürk
Along the way

To know him more closely

In his own handHis letters, notes, telegrams. Lines from his own pen. Those who knew himComrades-in-arms, writers, those close to him: the memories of people who saw him up close. The people in his lifeHis mother, his sister, his comrades-in-arms, his adopted children. Day by dayFrom 1881 to 1938, a detailed timeline of fifty-seven years. His voiceListen to the Tenth Anniversary Speech of 29 October 1933, in his own voice. In his footstepsPlaces you can visit today: from Thessaloniki to Anıtkabir.
Dolmabahçe Palace · 10 November 1938, 09:05

He was fifty-seven years old.

He had been ill for months. Even in his last days, he asked about the affairs of the country. On Thursday morning, at five past nine, in the palace room facing the sea, he closed his eyes.

As his body was borne from Istanbul to Ankara, people waited along the way, day and night. Fifteen years later, on 10 November 1953, he was moved to his resting place at Anıtkabir.

“My humble body will surely one day turn to dust, but the Republic of Turkey will endure forever.”

Statement to the Anadolu Agency after the İzmir assassination attempt · June 1926
Dolmabahçe Palace
1938Dolmabahçe
His body being carried from Dolmabahçe, 19 November 1938. Source: SALT Research
Every year · 10 November · 09:05

A country stands still for one minute.

Sirens sound, cars stop, people stand still where they are.
You too, now, wherever you are, stay with him for a minute.

Since that morning, — years and — days have passed.The march of a nation did not stop.And the Republic he founded still stands.

How happy is the one who says, “I am a Turk!”

Ne mutlu Türk’üm diyene! · Tenth Anniversary Speech · 29 October 1933
The last page of Nutuk (The Speech) · 20 October 1927

Address to the Youth

O Turkish Youth! Your first duty is to preserve and to defend, forever, Turkish independence and the Turkish Republic.

This is the sole foundation of your existence and your future. This foundation is your most precious treasure. In the future, too, there will be ill-wishers, at home and abroad, who will want to deprive you of this treasure. If one day you are compelled to defend independence and the Republic, you will not stop to weigh the possibilities and circumstances of the situation you are in before rushing to your duty!

(…)

O child of the Turkish future! Even in these conditions and circumstances, your duty is to save Turkish independence and the Republic! The strength you need is present in the noble blood in your veins!

Mustafa Kemal Atatürk