Atatürk’s Mausoleum and the Attached War of Independence Museum - Rocco Albano

Today we visited Atatürk’s Mausoleum and the attached WWI museum. We boarded a coach at 9:00am and on the way discussed the history of the Mausoleum and the legacy of Atatürk and the Turkish War of Independence. Atatürk is an incredibly important figure in Turkish history and is treated with a sort of reverence by the Turkish people unmatched for anyone else. In Izmir, we saw a massive 42-meter (138ft) tall relief of Atatürk’s head carved into the side of a mountain. Atatürk has so thoroughly captured the hearts and minds of the Turkish people through his legacy as the man who liberated Turkey from its oppressors and built the modern Turkish Republic through tireless toil. When he passed away on November 10th, 1938, at 9:05 the nation was tasked with the difficult decision of how to bury their immortal leader. While the government debated a plan, Atatürk’s body was held in the Ethnographic Museum. It was kept there until 1953, fifteen years after his death. To design Atatürk’s mausoleum, the Turkish government held a contest and one hundred and eleven architects from around the world submitted their ideas. The winning design was selected in 1940, with construction beginning that same year. 

Construction of the mausoleum complex took 13 years to complete and was complicated by the financial issues caused by the ongoing WWII and Great Depression. It was completed in 1953 and in that same year, Atatürk’s corpse was placed on the back of an artillery gun and brought to his final resting place. The mausoleum complex is a beautiful piece of architecture that uses symbolism to evoke the greatness and storied past of Turkey and the Anatolian Peninsula. Lions representing the Hittites line the path entrance to the museum. The Hittites placed statues of lions in their city as a showcase of power and a warning to enemies. The number of lions is significant as well, twenty-four, representing the twenty-four civilizations and nations that have lived in Anatolia. The mausoleum building itself contains much imagery as well. Two walls extending from either side of the staircase in front of the building are covered in carved reliefs of farmers, workers, doctors, nurses, and other individuals who were said to have made up the backbone of the Turkish Republic. These reliefs act as a tribute to the people of the new republic, and thanks for their contributions to the new nation. Atop these walls are ten large torches, five on each wall. The torches are designed in the Roman style, to evoke imagery of Ancient Rome and of the ceremonial lighting of the torches carried out by important figures to mark great victories or important ceremonies. The mausoleum itself is built in a Greek style. It resembles a Classical Greek temple, which would often be dedicated to a god through a shrine or idol built inside. Even the mausoleum’s ceiling is used as a part of the imagery. It’s decorated with a traditional 15th-century Turkish rug pattern. The 15th century marked the beginning of the Ottoman golden age with Mehmed II conquering Constantinople and turning the Ottoman state into an empire. These symbols are designed to evoke Anatolia's history, which led up to the new Turkish Republic and to attribute their greatness to Atatürk and the Turkish people. We have seen much of this imagery before on our trip as we’ve visited sites from the Greek, Roman, and Ottoman eras like Pergamon, Ephesus, and The Hagia Sophia respectively, and we’ve seen Hittite sculpture on display in the Museum of Anatolian Civilization.

The interior of the mausoleum is sparse, with only a plinth with a headstone, a wreath, and two large plaques on the side walls. The plaques on either wall contain two messages, one on each plaque. The plaque on the left wall upon entering the mausoleum is a message from Ismet Inönü which announces that Atatürk has been placed in the mausoleum, and addresses Atatürk, saying the entire nation owes him a debt for his devotion to the country. The plaque on the other wall is a message from Atatürk, his final message to the army. He talks about the Turkish military saying their record of victory began with the dawn of mankind and they have carried with them “the light of civilization.” Atatürk’s grave is marked by a plinth upon which sits a six-ton block of stone that acts as a headstone. There are no markings on the stone, it simply rests on top of the plinth in front of a large floor-to-ceiling window.

Beneath the mausoleum is a museum dedicated to the Turkish War for Independence. The entrance to the museum is a small door on the right side of the Mausoleum, and the exit is a door on the left. The museum is built in a tunnel stretching under the Mausoleum and Victory Square. Entering the museum you would think it was dedicated to Atatürk rather than the War of Independence. The first three rooms of the museum feature a collection of the belongings of Atatürk. Glass display cases are filled with his swords, hats, clothes, and other personal effects. Moving into the museum you pass through a hallway flanked on both sides by a life-size diorama of the Battle of Çhanakkale. Famous paintings and photos of the war were assembled into scenes by artists and then used to create a model of what the war would have looked like on the front lines. As you walk, the vibrant imagery is accompanied by a cacophonous soundtrack of guns, horses, swords, cannons, and patriotic music all layered on top of each other. The scenes are designed to look and feel intense and create a sense of action and by extension heroic portrayal of Ottoman and Revolutionary forces. We had visited Çhanakkale a few days prior, and so many of the settings looked familiar, although this time what had been empty trenches and scenic vistas were now covered in soldiers, guns, artillery, and barbed wire.

Moving further into the Museum led to a painting gallery. The walls were covered in portraits of different scenes and figures, although many of the pictures were, unsurprisingly, portraits or depictions of Atatürk. They showed him leading troops into battle, liberating cities from the Greeks, giving speeches to his men, and humbly speaking with ordinary people. Two notable pictures were positioned across from each other on the right side of the gallery. One was a painting of the Greek military attacking innocent civilians in Izmir, and another painting directly across from it depicted Atatürk leading victorious Turkish troops into the city of Izmir. The Greeks were the enemy of the Turks during the War of Independence. After Greece wound up on the winning side of WWI, it claimed Turkey’s Aegean territories and much of its western coastline as its own. Greek soldiers were sent into the cities to enforce their claims, and most of the Turkish War for Independence was pushing them out. After the war ended the Turkish government led by Atatürk sent all Greeks living in Turkey to Greece, and all Turks living in Greece back to Turkey. Over one million Grees living in western Turkey became refugees overnight. Many families were given just over a week to pack up everything they had and move to a different country with which they had no association. 

Moving further into the museum individual alcoves lining the halls represent different ways in which Atatürk reformed the nation after the war. Topics range from banks and industry to fashion and music. Each alcove had two display cases on the side with documents and photos detailing the ways the nation changed after the war, and a large metal relief sculpture depicting a scene related to the reforms. After gaining power, Atatürk reformed the country in major ways such as creating a new alphabet for the Turkish language and making simple changes such as promoting western fashion. Many of his reforms were put in place to improve Turkish lives and strengthen the nation, but also to westernize Turkey and move them away from its Ottoman past. The Ottomans in the last days of the empire were known as the “sick man of Europe” and were treated with contempt and scorn. The Turks were not taken seriously by the nations of Europe so reform was needed as competition and to appeal to their sensibilities. Notably absent from the nearly exhaustive list of Atatürk’s actions after the war are many of his questionable decisions, which we learned about through readings such as creating an opposition party in 1924 and shutting it down less than a year later in 1925, or the massive purges he conducted in 1926 executing hundreds of people. It makes sense that these events and things like them are not mentioned in the museum given its near reverential treatment of Atatürk, but it’s still important to note that while Atatürk did implement many successful reforms, he wasn’t a perfect leader.

Finally, the hallway leads into a small room, designed as a replica of Atatürk’s office, with a figure of the man sitting at a desk, working on a stack of papers. The hall continues through the gift shop and out into Victory Square. Touring Atatürk’s Mausoleum was an incredible experience that allowed us to take in the extraordinary architecture and amazing museum while also giving us an opportunity to learn about how architecture and museum spaces can be used to present a narrative about people, places, and events. It’s important when visiting a museum to take in the information presented, but also the way in which it is presented. Museums are not perfect and unbiased sources of information, and can and should be subject to critical examination, just like any other information source. I thoroughly enjoyed this stop on our journey and so far it’s been one of my favorite things we’ve had the opportunity to do for this course. Even while sitting and chatting during our free time this evening, we continued the conversations about the museum including our thoughts, feelings, and interpretations of things we saw. Today was an incredibly fun and memorable day in what has been a very fun and memorable course!

(A photo of The Mask of Atatürk, the massive relief sculpture we saw in Izmir)