HISTORY OF TURKISH REPUBLIC

Over the centuries, the Turks established many independent states and developed their own civilizations, in different parts of Asia and Anatolia. The Ottomans created the greatest and most powerful state in Turkish history. At the beginning of the 20th Century, the Ottoman Empire collapsed and after the National War of Independence, today’s Turkish Republic took its place among the independent and modern states of the contemporary world. When the Allied Powers occupied and partitioned Anatolia after World War I, Mustafa Kemal, later surnamed as Atatürk (1881-1938), mobilized the Turks in Anatolia into a cohesive resistance force. The Turkish Nation started its War of Independence in 1919, under the leadership of Mustafa Kemal as Atatürk. He and his followers rejected the partition of the country and drove the opposing forces out of Anatolia.After a ictorious defence of the homeland for four years, the Treaty of Lausanne was signed with the Allies on July 23, 1923, which approved Mustafa Kemal’s governmental sovereignty over Turkey’s present borders. At this historical point, Turkey became internationally recognized as an independent state and on October 13, 1923; Ankara was declared as the capital city of newly independent Turkey.The Turkish Grand National Assembly proclaimedthe Republic on October 29, 1923 and Atatürk, the founder of the Turkish Republic, was elected as the Republic’s first president.He claimed that the military victory was not sufficient and that it had to be followed by profound economic, political, social and cultural reforms aimed at the modernization of Turkey.On the other hand, the ultimate goal of Atatürk’s thinking was to make contributions to universal peace, happiness and prosperity.