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.
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.
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.
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.