He wasn’t called Ataturk until the Turkish parliament granted him that surname as an honorific. Translates to “father of the Turks”.
It’s kinda like hearing Washington being referred to as “father of the country” and going “lol, man named father of the country started a country. Lol writing bad!”
Edit: looks like PugJesus already acknowledged this, but I’ll still let my comment stand.
Daddy America
Explanation: Mustafa Kemal Ataturk is widely considered the founder of modern Turkiye - certainly the founder of the Turkish Republic.
“Ataturk” literally means “Father of the Turks”, though, to be fair, the name was bestowed on him AFTER he founded the republic.
Now 'at a turk!
Oooooh. For a moment I thought it’s because he did a good job and then people said Ataturk!
Also, he had an entire menagerie called Abdul.
A rare Python reference!
Fun Ataturk fact: dude would adopt “orphan” girls (quotes because some of these girls still had parents who voluntarily gave them up), raise them as his daughters, and then start fucking them as soon as they were old enough. And this made him not even close to being one of the worst people in Turkey, as he didn’t participate in the Armenian massacres (in fact he pushed the government to admit the crimes and punish the perpetrators).
Fun Ataturk fact: dude would adopt “orphan” girls (quotes because some of these girls still had parents who voluntarily gave them up), raise them as his daughters, and then start fucking them as soon as they were old enough.
If you don’t have a reliable source for this, it’s getting removed.Every biography of Ataturk I’ve readEDIT: Apparently not every one I’ve read is in agreement that Ataturk’s children were adopted as a political-cultural gesture to show the importance of supporting women, as feminism was a major and controversial platform of Ataturk’s ideology, and to burnish his image as a paternalistic authority figure.SECOND EDIT: The paragraph in the book in question is vague and can very easily be read as implying emotional dependency rather than molestation (and I still think that might be the intended implication rather than a sexual relationship), especially considering the formal prose and that it’s a very brief aside. It doesn’t point to any particular evidence, and all other accusations I’ve found in translated Turkish media likewise seem to be speculative based simply on the fact that Ataturk adopted girls and raised them in his house, and that he was close with his eldest adoptive daughter, who accompanied him as an unofficial first lady on state affairs (since he was divorced) and who worked closely with him on academic matters.
This seems like an accusation made in good-faith by the commenter and taken from a legitimate secondary source, but I remain personally disinclined to believe it unless there’s further evidence for it.
In the previously posted quote, I don’t believe the terms and phrases “harem”, “groom them”, “lover”, “he could use them as he chose”, and “wife and children became in effect one” give a vague impression of his relationships with his daughters. I find these hard to interpret as anything but describing an abusive sexual relationship.
I’m by no means an expert on this subject, but I found a few other segments from the biography that I believe contribute to the bigger picture of how he viewed young girls and women in general:
Thus the dining-rooms of the embassies and the clubs and the Ankara Palace Hotel hummed with the latest gossip about Atatürk’s public behaviour. No woman was held to be safe at his hands. Turkish mothers might indeed thrust their daughters at him (and Turkish husbands their wives), but Diplomatic mothers would hurry their daughters away from a party for fear he would invite them to his table.
Madame Kovatcheva, the wife of his friend the Minister of War, was a Macedonian, and Kemal’s growing association with her young daughter Dimitrina was assumed by the local gossips to have political undertones. In fact, it had a more romantic flavour. Kemal had never before come to know on close terms a young girl of good family and European refinement, and it was this that intrigued him in Dimitrina.
Asked once what qualities he admired most in a woman, he replied, ‘Availability.’
In the previously posted quote, I don’t believe the terms and phrases “harem”, “groom them”, “lover”, “he could use them as he chose”, and “wife and children became in effect one” give a vague impression of his relationships with his daughters. I find these hard to interpret as anything but describing an abusive sexual relationship.
It’s also written by an aristocrat in the 1960s whose tendency towards florid prose is apparent throughout. “Groom” as in “child grooming” was not in common usage until the 1980s or 90s, I feel obligated to note. Kinross often describes Ataturk in terms of power and how he used people, often with asymmetrically emotional relationships; in that context, and that of a man emerged from the literal Ottoman Empire, ‘harem’ is much less suggestive. It’s noted by Kinross at multiple points that Ataturk lacked a real family or emotional support for most of his adult life, and was a deeply lonely man, not on a romantic level, but on the level of human connection.
On top of that, Kinross’s biography is one of the English language sources on Ataturk, and if it was meant (or interpreted at the time of release) as an accusation of molesting his daughters, considering how the Turkish government tends to react to such things, I suspect there would be much more controversy around the book itself. I also suspect that it would be an accusation passed around much more often by Islamists who despise Ataturk if it had any substance, as his widely-speculated bisexuality so often is.
“Lover” is the most suggestive term used, and sparked me to spend some two hours searching through sources, English and (translated, as I don’t speak it) Turkish for any other accusations of a similar sort. Only his eldest adoptive daughter comes up as a potential lover in any serious treatments, and even then as fairly fringe speculation largely predicated on the fact that they lived in the same house and she acted as his ‘first lady’ at affairs of state, itself not unusual. The British embassy at the time notes the rumor in internal correspondence, but dismisses it - and the Brits were hardly Ataturk’s biggest friends.
I’m biased, and like I said, it certainly can be legitimately read that way. But it’s also not as cut-and-dry as you suggest here.
I’m by no means an expert on this subject, but I found a few other segments from the biography that I believe contribute to the bigger picture of how he viewed young girls and women in general:
That Ataturk had a reputation as a womanizer, especially earlier in life, is not in question; only whether he had sexual relationships with his daughters. Also, that first quote, I believe, is presented in the book to contrast his reputation with the reality, isn’t it?
Sorry, I hope it didn’t sound like I posted those additional quotes as direct evidence of abuse towards his daughters. Instead, I only thought they helped paint a bigger picture of his behavior around women and young girls in general. They seem to support the beginning of the original quote, “adolescents attracted and interested him”, and made that paragraph feel more like a conclusion of common themes, rather than a random aside.
As for your question about the contrasting quote, I agree. This seems to be intended to show that these relationships with young girls wasn’t always about sexual fulfillment. However, I believe it was telling that such a disclaimer was needed, and that this reputation was considered the general consensus of other aristocrats at the time.
Also, I won’t argue against the label of “womanizer”; however, I don’t believe that term should be used in the context of “young girls”. Just as I don’t believe we should give a pass to US founding fathers owning slaves just because it was common at the time, I don’t believe we should give pass to those who took advantage to young girls from a position of power, even in a time when it may have been a social norm for a grown man to marry a young teenage girl. In modern times, we wouldn’t consider such a person a womanizer, but instead, a pedophile.
I can’t say for certain whether such a person, with a reputation for being a “womanizer” of young girls, would take advantage of the girls in his care. However, I don’t believe it is a far leap to come to that conclusion based on the original quote and the supporting evidence of his character.
Sorry, I hope it didn’t sound like I posted those additional quotes as direct evidence of abuse towards his daughters. Instead, I only thought they helped paint a bigger picture of his behavior around women and young girls in general.
No, no, I get it, man, nothing but respect. If Ataturk was a sexual abuser, that should be zeroed in on, and context is important, both ways. Just because I lean towards Ataturk not being a physical/sexual abuser doesn’t mean that I think your position is illegitimate.
Hell, for example, I would say that Ataturk being an abuser wouldn’t be completely out of left-field - I once heard it said that the man betrayed everything and everyone except Turkiye. He had one real friend for the last 20 years of his life, and had an amazing talent for getting close to people, getting what he (politically) needed out of them, and then cordially thanking them and cutting ties. He was an immensely callous, ruthless, and somewhat self-centered person, and having someone he could ‘control’ totally would not be out-of-character.
At the same time, Ataturk’s legitimate appreciation for children, education, and women’s rights - all at a time and in position when he had no obligation to, and in the last case, was a major political liability - I feel puts weight on the less-abusive interpretation of the original quote. That he wasn’t noted as particularly close with most of the daughters he adopted (only the youngest and eldest he was close to, if memory serves) also leans towards, I think, him seeing them as ‘projects’ and giving his rootless social life a sense of normality and emotional stability (regardless of the stress that puts on an orphan child who is probably acutely aware that they’re lucky to have gotten a wealthy and powerful patron to ‘play house’) rather than a target for sexual abuse.
Also, it would be a very curious thing for Ataturk to opt for adoption when he was… well, effectively a dictator with infinite power and infamous charisma and good looks. If he wanted children, there were other quieter avenues; if he wanted young women, he already had his theoretical pick. What’s the sense of that approach? Such exposure seems unwise, especially when you’re the most prominent man in all of Turkiye and an infamous drunk, and keeping the kids in your household where numerous staff and visitors regularly are. There are any number of other quieter ways to abuse children, unfortunately, as recent modern events have highlighted.
I still think the evidence points towards him adopting the children, as mentioned originally, as political-cultural projects. He gets to burnish his ‘fatherly’ reputation to the nation, he pushes forward his projects of women’s prominence, education, and women’s education, and have the satisfaction of ‘directing’ someone to ‘fulfill’ their potential. As he once famously said, “Why should I not bring [people] up to my level?” As an additional boon, he gets to play family without most of the hard emotional or physical work - he continues his life of staying up all night, politiking, drinking hard, working on a dozen different government projects at once, but gets to pretend to be a fulfilling father to orphan girls who are probably already pretty independent and parentified and willing to play along with a national hero’s craving for the long-lost sensation of a family life.
It’s hardly wholesome, but also a far cry from sexual abuse.
As for your question about the contrasting quote, I agree. This seems to be intended to show that these relationships with young girls wasn’t always about sexual fulfillment. However, I believe it was telling that such a disclaimer was needed, and that this reputation was considered the general consensus of other aristocrats at the time.
If memory serves, the line about ambassadors hurrying their daughters away is elaborated on in a context that makes it clear that such women were often married or of marriagable age, in the tradition of a longer ‘at-home’ residence for upper-class women of the period, rather than children or girls in the midst of puberty. The sexual ‘purity’ of women was a major concern for patriarchal cultures of the period, after all. The reputation that I believe is being referenced, then, is his reputation as a womanizer - that he might ‘dishonor’ your adult daughter or your wife with his cunning charms - not that he was believed to be a predator of children.
The quote which contrasts the paragraph, again, if memory serves, highlights, again, that many of these women were already married, but also that to him it was a flirtatious game more than anything, not necessarily always resulting in any sort of liason, with the quote noting that he didn’t even go through the ‘game’ with women who he believed had husbands who would be jealous - doubtfully out of concern for his own safety, considering his immense power and nonchalance towards pissing powerful people off in other contexts. It probably made him feel charismatic and desirable, as many habitually flirtatious folk feel when people respond positively to them.
They seem to support the beginning of the original quote, “adolescents attracted and interested him”, and made that paragraph feel more like a conclusion of common themes, rather than a random aside.
I absolutely agree about the point about womanizer not being used for pedophilic or hebephilic behavior. My use of ‘womanizer’ was only in reference to Ataturk’s broader reputation in those quotes.
Ataturk is repeatedly noted as believing children and education were important, which feels, again, to my reading, as a continuation of a nonsexual interest.
Unfortunately, the author being an old aristocrat who isn’t addressing the issue in unambiguous terms, and only (potentially) addressing this issue in a single paragraph means that it’s not clear if that’s what he’s accusing Ataturk of, on top of it being unclear if it’s true. Again, for all the previous reasons, I don’t believe that that is what the accusation is, and I don’t believe Ataturk was a sexual abuser with the evidence I currently have, but I absolutely acknowledge that your position is valid.
Also, as a note, the line about Dimitrina as a Macedonian’s “young daughter” is in reference to a ~20 year-old woman, I believe.
Ataturk: The Rebirth of a Nation by Patrick Kinross.
Ataturk: The Rebirth of a Nation by Patrick Kinross.
One small problem - I own and have read that book, and have it on my Amazon account as an ebook no less, and to my recollection it says nothing of the sort and in fact speculates on Ataturk’s possible impotency during the 20s and 30s from venereal disease contracted during his younger years.
Do you have a rough idea of what page this accusation is on?
EDIT: Another user pointed out the paragraph. It’s an aside, but it arguably makes the accusation. I apologize for my hostility.
I just downloaded the book from Anna’s Archive, and after a quick search, found this on page 853:
Adolescents attracted and interested him, and when the girls reached the age when they sat regularly at table he began to take notice both of their charms and their talents. None of them was exceptionally pretty; nor had they the graces of women of the world. But they provided him with the ideal ‘harem’. They were in his power, thanks to their youth and their dependence on him. He could groom them and mould them and guide them in the direction he wanted them to follow. He could use them as he chose – and when he no longer chose, could ‘wean’ them and launch them into marriage or into a career. For the girls themselves, so ambivalent a father-lover-schoolmaster relationship might create certain psychological stresses. But for Kemal it provided the family background he needed, one from which irksome ties of blood were missing, and in which wife and children became in effect one.
Hm. It seems that’s the paragraph doesn’t continue into (or come from) any broader explanation, which might be why it failed to make an impression on me back when I read it. I’ll have to look into the accusation for the sake of being able to have an informed opinion on it.
All the same, that is a legitimate source, and I can definitely confirm that that quote is in my copy, so the comment remains.
It’s wild that Kinross seemed to think this was all OK because the girls were ugly.
For the girls themselves, so ambivalent a father-lover-schoolmaster relationship might create certain psychological stresses. But for Kemal it provided the family background he needed, one from which irksome ties of blood were missing, and in which wife and children became in effect one.
This is an aside? Lol “certain psychological stresses”. One could just as easily describe it as a whitewashing. But good for Kemal, he got what he needed!
I mean, yes, it is literally an aside just before the end of the chapter.
If true, it’s abhorrent. But I’m disinclined, for reasons stated above, to think it’s true at this point in time.
Can I hear some more examples of Games Workshop writing? Is it like naming a space marine Diddy and making him diddle people?
There used to be an inquisitor named Obiwan Sherlock Clouseau.
Also the vehicles Land Raider and Land Speeder are called so because they were discovered by a magos named Arkhan Land and not because they are land vehicles.
Wait are you fucking serious. That’s way bad
I don’t think I get this. His surname also reflects the use of some of the technologies he discovered?
It’s basically shortened from Land’s Raider and Land’s Speeder.
Although IMO the real reason is to make the names more copyrightable. GW has been making attempts to copyright the names of things in their universe. They attempted to copyright “space marine” (IIRC) and failed. Since “Land Raider” is a generic name that anyone could use, by saying that it’s named after this character in their universe they can perhaps claim copyright. But this is just my naive opinion, I am not a copyright lawyer.
Okay THAT’S pretty insidious. I didn’t know they were doing actual copyright trolling. No, your opinion is pretty accurate. That’s what that strategy is called
That’s why these days they’ve been trying to push more specialised names for units.
Marines became Intercessors, Eldar (actually from LOTR) became Aeldari, Imperial Guard became Astra Militarum, etc.
The Ultramarine space marine chapter are colored ultramarine, but the lore reason for their name is because they’re from the Ultramar planet.
One of the space marine chapter heads is called Lion El’Johnson. He leads the Dark Angels, and is named after Lionel Johnson, the nineteenth-century English poet who was the author of “The Dark Angel.”
Lol Ultramar is a hilarious name to give a planet. I want to be a fly on the wall during that first conversation “trust me, naming it this will make a bajiollion sense in the future. It’ll pay off”. Unless it was the other way around, then “hmmmmm yes I see this place is green and fertile to become a home for us Ultra Marines. And since it is our home we shall call it-” “I THINK WE SHOULD CALL IT YOUR GRAVE” *standard warhammer violence noises*
Angron is the leader of the World Eaters Legion. He has Butcher’s Nails in his brain, which causes him constant pain and agony, making him angry all the time.
Ferrus Manus (Latin, literally, ‘Iron Hand’) is the leader of the Iron Hands Legion. His Legion replaces parts of their body, like hands, with metal/cyborg parts out of a religious devotion to metal.
Anything to do with the Space Wolves, who name every wolfin’ thing they have after some manner of wolf.
Okay yeah that is some Hideo Kojima shit
Imagine if George Washington was called Larry Buttfuque.
I hear it’s snowing in Buttfuque DC right now.
Thomas “Negro Lap Dance” Jefferson
Here, have one: ü
