Mustafa Kemal Atatürk's cult of personality

Common card · No. 341212

Atatürk's cult of personality, also referred to as Atatürk fetishism, was started during the life of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk and continued by his successors after his death in 1938, by members of both his Republican People's Party and opposition parties alike, as well as by himself, believing that he was "always right". It was established during his lifetime in order to popularize and cement his social and political reforms as a founder and the first President of Turkey. Atatürk's cult has been compared to the personality cults of the Soviet Union, and has also been referred to as "the most grotesque state-sponsored cult of personality outside North Korea". According to political scientist Mark A. Wolfgram "one can hardly have an honest conversation about his [Atatürk's] life in Turkey today, nor question the legacy of the Republic that he established". Widely considered a political religion "of grotesque proportions", the cult is noted by Erik-Jan Zürcher as being "by far the longest running...

Read on Wikipedia · Image Adam Jones, Ph.D., CC BY-SA 2.0