This paper will examine the life of Mustafa Kemal, later known as Kemal Ataturk ("Father of the Turks"). The first part of the paper will describe his life in general, including his childhood and his military record in the Balkan Wars and the First World War. The second part of the paper will examine his political ideas which led to the revolution which established him as leader of Turkey. The third part of the paper will discuss the changes he brought to Turkish society and the method in which they were brought about.
Mustafa Kemal was born in 1881 in the town of Salonika in Macedonia, a Balkan provinces controlled by Turkey. His family would have been considered lower-middle class by the standards of the day: his father, Ali Riza, started as a minor clerk in a Turkish government office and later attempted, unsuccessfully, to establish himself as an independent businessman in the lumber trade. Ali Riza died when Mustafa was seven years old. Mustafa inherited his blue eyes and unusually fair features from his mother, Znbeyde, who was of a devout Muslim peasant family. Most biographers have agreed that Mustafa's mother was one of his main influences throughout his life, triggering both devotion and conflict. At the same time, some have suggested that Mustafa spent his life trying to reconcile the idealized image of his father as an independent and adventurous businessman with the reality of his father's ultimate business failure.
Znbeyde wished her son to be educated in a traditional Muslim school; Ali Riza wished for Mustafa to be given a Western education. He compromised with his wife by sending Mustafa to a Muslim school, knowing that his strong-willed son would not last very long there. Indeed, young Mustafa came into conflict with the clerical instructors at the school and Ali Riza pulled him out of the school and sent him to a private secular school, without any objections from Znbeyde. After the death of his fath...