Ataturk and the City in North Macedonia that Helped Form Him

In Ankara, it is the building of the first parliament in which the Grand National Assembly of Turkey was founded on April 23, 1920. Today, it serves as the War of Independence Museum. A visit to Anitkabir, where the Ataturk mausoleum is located, is a must when visiting the Turkish capital.

A few years ago, I visited Samsun, a city that holds special significance in Turkish history. Not far from Samsun is the town of Amasya, where Ataturk issued the Amasya Declaration signalling the start of the Turkish War of Independence.

Photo by Hamza Karcic

From Selanik to Bitola

Besides Istanbul, Ankara and Samsun, to retrace the significant steps in Ataturk's early life, one must visit the Balkans. In fact, two cities in this region are important.

One is Selanik, today's Thessaloniki, where he was born in 1881 and spent his formative years. The house where Ataturk was born, now part of the compound of the Turkish Consulate, is a museum popular with Turks from Turkey and elsewhere.

The other, less well-known city, is Bitola, the importance of which is described in Ataturk: The Biography of the Founder of Modern Turkey by the late Andrew Mango. Bitola is known as Manastir in Turkish and was an important centre in the Ottoman Balkans. It also had a rail connection to Ataturk's birthplace of Selanik.

Mango writes that after finishing preparatory school in his hometown, Ataturk enrolled in the Manastir military high school and studied there from 1896 to 1899. This school introduced future officers to the lessons of history. Ataturk was good at maths and developed an interest in French language and political thought. In the years that followed, he improved his French language skills and read French works.