Tarih (History)

A simplified history of pieces of post-Republic Turkey that interest me- terribly butchered by an amateur:

After defeat in World War I, the lands of the Ottoman Empire were divided amongst the Allied powers. The Treaty of Sèvres gave much Turkish-speaking territory to France and Greece. It was then that the Empire's only victorious leader, Mustafa Kemal, gathered up enough forces to thrash the Greeks in the Greco-Turkish War(1923) to win Turkey's independence. Once secure as President of the Republic of Turkey, Mustafa Kemal instituted a wide range of cultural reforms, effectively "Westernizing" the country:

• Banning men from wearing the fez


• Forcing the adoption of surnames (Mustafa himself took the name Atatürk, "father Turk")


• Lifting the religious/Islamic ban on alcohol


• Banning Kurdish language education


• Various other changes, including calendars, alphabets, abolishing the Caliphate, etc.

After the death of Atatürk, the young Republic found itself electing its own leaders for the first time. Whenever the nation strayed too far from its founding ideals, the military branch staged a coup d'etat: in 1961, 1971, and 1980. Even more recently, Turkey has applied for entrance into the European Union. While it has grown much as a nation, Turkey's human rights record, international relations, and unstable economy have called into question its qualifications. However, Turkey has been working to improve these conditions, and membership in the EU may further help their efforts.

Material summarized from Stephen Kinzer's Crescent and Star and Wikipedia:Turkey.