Today's Zaman, Turkey
Aug 23 2012
Was Atatürk an Armenian?
ORHAN KEMAL CENGÄ°Z
The Radikal daily has started quite an interesting discussion about
the family origins of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the founder of the
Turkish Republic. Radikal reported, according to the forthcoming book
`From Mustafa to Kemal: Atatürk's Big Secret' by Fatih Bayhan, that
the family origins of Atatürk do not lie in Thessaloniki, as is
commonly believed, but instead in the eastern province of Malatya.
Bayhan claims that Atatürk's family immigrated to Thessaloniki from
Malatya.
According to this new version of his life, Atatürk's true father and
mother were people who lived in Malatya and Atatürk's acknowledged
mother, Zübeyde Hanım, was actually his aunt. The writer claims that
Atatürk was sent to Thessaloniki when his actual father died and was
adopted by Zübeyde Hanım when his mother died. The book is said to be
based on official governmental records and documents that are set to
be made public for the first time.
I do not want to bother you with all these details any more. This
allegation of course needs to be proven. However, I would not be
surprised if it turns out to be true. Much of history in Turkey is
based on so many lies and legends, all of which were created to deny
some fundamental facts in our past. Turkish official history `writers'
never hesitated to bend history according to the needs of our official
ideology and the state's so-called `higher interests.'
Malatya was one of the provinces which were heavily populated by
Armenians in the past. If this new version of Atatürk's origins is
true, the first question to come to mind is why the history writers
fabricated the well-known version of his life. Did they write the
official version to disassociate Atatürk from Anatolian Armenians? If
the new story is true, there must be a reason.
The facts of Turkish history are still surrounded by many taboos, some
of which have caused loss of life. You know how the tragic events
leading to the assassination of Hrant Dink began. He simply dared to
say that Atatürk's adopted daughter Sabiha Gökçen was indeed an
Armenian orphan. And this revelation was followed a lynching campaign
and he was killed after that.
Nowadays the walls around the taboos which surround our history seem
to be weakening. Ayhan Aktar keeps writing about some taboos in our
history. One of the stories he tells is about the Dardanelles wars.
According to Aktar, one of the heroes of this war was Cpt. Sarkis
Torosyan, a citizen of Armenian descent in the Ottoman Empire.
Torosyan's story is a heartbreaking one. Torosyan was a much-decorated
gunner wounded while defending the Dardanelles. He was later
transferred to the area where his family had been deported, modern-day
Palestine. There he discovered his sister in rags and heard his
fiancée was dying of tuberculosis. He learned that his parents had
been killed along the way. While he was defending his country to the
death, his family and loved ones had been forcefully evicted from
their homes.
This story is of course not written in any schoolbooks, nor is it
known by many people in Turkey. Some may think this story is just a
tiny detail in Turkish history, but I think it's a very significant
and important one. The real story of an Armenian captain who fought a
heroic war in the Dardanelles is a huge burden on the Turkish
conscience. This is because this one single event has the capacity to
bring up all of our painful memories about our long-lost neighbors and
about our past.
As I repeatedly said in this column before, people confront their past
by opening their hearts to the stories of others, by feeling the pain
and anguish they suffered -- a process which has already started in
Turkey and in which we have a very long way to go.
http://www.todayszaman.com/columnistDetail_getNewsById.action?newsId=290227
Aug 23 2012
Was Atatürk an Armenian?
ORHAN KEMAL CENGÄ°Z
The Radikal daily has started quite an interesting discussion about
the family origins of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the founder of the
Turkish Republic. Radikal reported, according to the forthcoming book
`From Mustafa to Kemal: Atatürk's Big Secret' by Fatih Bayhan, that
the family origins of Atatürk do not lie in Thessaloniki, as is
commonly believed, but instead in the eastern province of Malatya.
Bayhan claims that Atatürk's family immigrated to Thessaloniki from
Malatya.
According to this new version of his life, Atatürk's true father and
mother were people who lived in Malatya and Atatürk's acknowledged
mother, Zübeyde Hanım, was actually his aunt. The writer claims that
Atatürk was sent to Thessaloniki when his actual father died and was
adopted by Zübeyde Hanım when his mother died. The book is said to be
based on official governmental records and documents that are set to
be made public for the first time.
I do not want to bother you with all these details any more. This
allegation of course needs to be proven. However, I would not be
surprised if it turns out to be true. Much of history in Turkey is
based on so many lies and legends, all of which were created to deny
some fundamental facts in our past. Turkish official history `writers'
never hesitated to bend history according to the needs of our official
ideology and the state's so-called `higher interests.'
Malatya was one of the provinces which were heavily populated by
Armenians in the past. If this new version of Atatürk's origins is
true, the first question to come to mind is why the history writers
fabricated the well-known version of his life. Did they write the
official version to disassociate Atatürk from Anatolian Armenians? If
the new story is true, there must be a reason.
The facts of Turkish history are still surrounded by many taboos, some
of which have caused loss of life. You know how the tragic events
leading to the assassination of Hrant Dink began. He simply dared to
say that Atatürk's adopted daughter Sabiha Gökçen was indeed an
Armenian orphan. And this revelation was followed a lynching campaign
and he was killed after that.
Nowadays the walls around the taboos which surround our history seem
to be weakening. Ayhan Aktar keeps writing about some taboos in our
history. One of the stories he tells is about the Dardanelles wars.
According to Aktar, one of the heroes of this war was Cpt. Sarkis
Torosyan, a citizen of Armenian descent in the Ottoman Empire.
Torosyan's story is a heartbreaking one. Torosyan was a much-decorated
gunner wounded while defending the Dardanelles. He was later
transferred to the area where his family had been deported, modern-day
Palestine. There he discovered his sister in rags and heard his
fiancée was dying of tuberculosis. He learned that his parents had
been killed along the way. While he was defending his country to the
death, his family and loved ones had been forcefully evicted from
their homes.
This story is of course not written in any schoolbooks, nor is it
known by many people in Turkey. Some may think this story is just a
tiny detail in Turkish history, but I think it's a very significant
and important one. The real story of an Armenian captain who fought a
heroic war in the Dardanelles is a huge burden on the Turkish
conscience. This is because this one single event has the capacity to
bring up all of our painful memories about our long-lost neighbors and
about our past.
As I repeatedly said in this column before, people confront their past
by opening their hearts to the stories of others, by feeling the pain
and anguish they suffered -- a process which has already started in
Turkey and in which we have a very long way to go.
http://www.todayszaman.com/columnistDetail_getNewsById.action?newsId=290227