Atatürk's revolution: caliphate, alphabet and secular state
The new republic abolishes the caliphate, closes Sufi lodges, adopts European law and the Latin alphabet and gives women the vote, reshaping Turkish life from the top down.
- Turkey: A Modern History (4th edition) — Erik J. Zürcher, I.B. Tauris (2017)
- Atatürk: An Intellectual Biography — M. Şükrü Hanioğlu, Princeton University Press (2011)
- Atatürk: The Biography of the Founder of Modern Turkey — Andrew Mango, John Murray (1999)
- Caliphate — Encyclopaedia Britannica
Mustafa Kemal and his circle believed the empire had fallen because it had failed to modernise, and that Turkey could only survive by becoming fully part of “contemporary civilisation”, which to them meant Europe. Between 1924 and his death in 1938 they carried out a revolution from above.
- Atatürk: An Intellectual Biography — M. Şükrü Hanioğlu, Princeton University Press (2011)
- Turkey: A Modern History (4th edition) — Erik J. Zürcher, I.B. Tauris (2017)
Religion out of the state
In March 1924 the caliphate, held by the Ottoman dynasty for four centuries, was abolished and the family exiled. Religious courts and schools were closed, and religion was placed under a state directorate, the Diyanet. In 1925 Sufi lodges were shut and the fez was banned in favour of the brimmed hat. In 1926 the Swiss civil code replaced Islamic family law, banning polygamy and giving women equal rights in divorce and inheritance. Islam was removed as the state religion in 1928, and “laicism” was written into the constitution in 1937.
- Turkey: A Modern History (4th edition) — Erik J. Zürcher, I.B. Tauris (2017)
- Caliphate — Encyclopaedia Britannica
- Atatürk: An Intellectual Biography — M. Şükrü Hanioğlu, Princeton University Press (2011)
A new language
In 1928 the Arabic-based Ottoman script was replaced, almost overnight, with a Latin alphabet; Kemal toured the country with a blackboard teaching it. A Turkish Language Association purged many Arabic and Persian words. From 1932 the call to prayer had to be recited in Turkish, a rule reversed in 1950.
- Turkey: A Modern History (4th edition) — Erik J. Zürcher, I.B. Tauris (2017)
- Atatürk: The Biography of the Founder of Modern Turkey — Andrew Mango, John Murray (1999)
New citizens
Women gained the vote in local elections in 1930 and in national elections in 1934, and eighteen women entered parliament in 1935. Under the 1934 Surname Law every family had to choose a surname; parliament gave Mustafa Kemal the name “Atatürk”, “Father of the Turks”.
- Turkey: A Modern History (4th edition) — Erik J. Zürcher, I.B. Tauris (2017)
- Kemal Atatürk — Encyclopaedia Britannica
The cost
This was a one-party state under the Republican People’s Party. Opposition was suppressed, and a Kurdish-Islamic revolt led by Sheikh Said in 1925 was crushed and used to close the press and opposition. In Dersim in 1937–38 the army killed thousands of Kurdish Alevis and deported thousands more.
- A Modern History of the Kurds — David McDowall, I.B. Tauris (2004)
- Genocide in Kurdistan? The Suppression of the Dersim Rebellion in Turkey (1937–38) and the Chemical War against the Iraqi Kurds (1988) — Martin van Bruinessen, University of Pennsylvania Press (in G. Andreopoulos, ed., Genocide: Conceptual and Historical Dimensions) (1994)
- Turkey: A Modern History (4th edition) — Erik J. Zürcher, I.B. Tauris (2017)
- Atatürk: The Biography of the Founder of Modern Turkey — Andrew Mango, John Murray (1999)
A great liberation that freed Turks from religious obscurantism and made them a modern, Western, self-confident nation, with rights for women decades ahead of much of the world.
- Atatürk: The Biography of the Founder of Modern Turkey — Andrew Mango, John Murray (1999)
- Atatürk: An Intellectual Biography — M. Şükrü Hanioğlu, Princeton University Press (2011)
An authoritarian revolution imposed by a narrow elite that cut Turks off from their Islamic and Ottoman heritage, banned the call to prayer in Arabic and humiliated the pious.
- Turkey: A Modern History (4th edition) — Erik J. Zürcher, I.B. Tauris (2017)
- The New Sultan: Erdogan and the Crisis of Modern Turkey — Soner Cagaptay, I.B. Tauris (2017)
Turkification left no room for Kurdish identity; revolts such as Sheikh Said's in 1925 and Dersim in 1937–38 were crushed with great loss of life.
- A Modern History of the Kurds — David McDowall, I.B. Tauris (2004)
- Genocide in Kurdistan? The Suppression of the Dersim Rebellion in Turkey (1937–38) and the Chemical War against the Iraqi Kurds (1988) — Martin van Bruinessen, University of Pennsylvania Press (in G. Andreopoulos, ed., Genocide: Conceptual and Historical Dimensions) (1994)
Why it matters today
The reforms created the Turkey of secular schools, Latin letters and Western dress, and the argument about them is still the central fault line in Turkish politics. Secular Turks see them as the foundation of a modern, free country; many religious conservatives, and Kurds, experienced them as an assault on their faith and identity. The two halves of Turkey often remember these years very differently.