KEMAL AND LATIFE - ALONG THE SYMBOLS OF MARRIAGE AND DIVORCE

The Hungarian press published interviews with the wife of Kemal Pasha, Latife and the main stages of her life. The newspaper Az Esti Újság also described the story of the young woman's marriage.³⁷ In the interview Latife Hanim (Hanim = woman) was portrayed as a 19-year-old person who lived in England and France, speaks impeccably English and French, Western-minded, lively and more reminiscent of a French than an Anatolian woman. From the interview the author highlighted the next statement: “Even if I don't veil my face, she said with a smile, I'm a good Turkish lady ...” The author was skeptical about the image of the emancipated Turkish woman as “when they crossed her rooms, which were full of precious rugs, swords, spears, and daggers above the sofa that Latife stretched all along hung a saber of such rare shape and value. Next to the saber a chapter of the Qur'an was framed. ”

However, Kemal Pasha the companion of the interviewed dispelled any doubts in the reader. “In Europe they don’t know much about the situation of the Turkish woman.

Ninety percent of our women live in the villages, these women are constantly working with men. They are not hermetically sealed at all as lots of people think. Ten per cent of the women who live in the city really live such a secluded life. But it's just a bad habit, nothing else. So there will be no rebellion or revolution in making urban women classmates of men, involving them in national work, giving them a human life. Of course, this can only happen in a context in which the feminine and maternal professions fit perfectly.”

36 Budapeste Elciligi, U. No. 13580, H. No. 45.

37 Musztafa Kemal pasa felesége elmondja férjhezmenetele történetét. Az Est, Tuesday, March 13, 1923.p.4.

ULUSLARARASI EĞİTİM VE TARİH ARAŞTIRMALARI DERGİSİ (ETA JOURNAL)

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF EDUCATION AND HISTORY RESEARCH Yıl: 2, Sayı: 3, Aralık 2020, s.23-62.

As a symbol of the emancipated Turkish woman, Latife regularly wore menswear.

She was wearing a riding breech, high boots on her feet and spurs on her boots.

However, huge diamonds shone in her ears. As a propagandist, she has repeatedly stated that she wishes to take an active part in her husband's movement for the liberation of Turkish women.³⁸

Latife was mostly mentioned by the Hungarian press in connection with the breakdown of her short-lived marriage (1923-1925). Almost all newspaper considered the causes of the breakdown. According to the newspaper 8 Órai Újság the mysterious background of the divorce was interested both the Turkish and international public opinion even months later the divorce. In connection with the personality of Latife Hanum various combinations found credit. E.g. Latife Hanum was the richest girl in Smyrna who, when the liberating Turkish army marched into the great port city, broke through the crowd with enthusiasm and burrowed to Kemal Pasha. “I want to be your wife! She shouted blushing. I offer you my youth and my country my property!"

According to the legend, her dowry was more than sixteen billion. But the happy marriage didn’t last long and Latife Hanum couldn’t even enjoy the sympathy of the public opinion. The Turkish women hated and accused her of doing nothing for public affairs, and the liberation of the women was the work of Kemal Pasha alone. She constantly tormented Kemal Pasha and went so far as to arbitrarily open and read the letters of her husband.³⁹

There were those, who saw a parallel between Napoleon's and Josephine's marriage, and there were some who saw the reason for the dissolution of the marriage as

“the wife spoke ...”. According to the legend, “Once Pasha Kemal had a big lunch at his villa near Angora. All ministers were invited. Latife Hanum had quarreled with her lord before lunch because she wanted to serve a different kind of wine than the Pasha had ordered. She went upstairs to her room. Then she shouted, have those people left yet?

The guests were just getting ready and Kemal replied: now they are going and I will go with them. He didn't even come back. The next day he wrote a letter to Latife informing

38 Az Est, March 2, 1923. p.6.

39 Kemál pasa elvált feleségének regénye, 8 Órai Újság, May 22, 1926. p. 5.

her that he had started a divorce. The divorce proceeded quickly because there were still an old Turkish marriage law in force and it was enough for a man to simply declare that he no longer wants to live with his wife.” Pasha Kemal was probably glad that he had not yet repealed this old law⁴⁰, reported a few pro-government (Az Est, Esti Újság) newspapers analyzing the reasons of the divorce.

The Turkish Embassy in Budapest also wrote about comparing Kemal to Napoleon in its official report. The summary cites an article of the liberal Jewish newspaper Az Újság in its May 16, 1937 issue. This article was the first in a biographical series of Otto Ernst comparing Atatürk’s career with the oeuvre of Napoleon Bonaparte. He describes in a symmetrical way the two brilliant careers, the War of Independence, thousands of reforms, their foreign and domestic policy, their private life in general, pointing out that the President of the Turkish Republic deserves the name Atatürk, the father of the Turks.⁴¹

Latife, as a symbol of the Turkish woman was not long-lived. In my opinion, this could be due to the wife's autonomous personality and on the other hand her luxury-loving lifestyle, which was difficult to incorporate into the equalizing, working, Soviet-style educated, but at the same time disciplined woman ideal. Sabiha Atatürk, the foster daughter of the head of state was much more compatible with the leaders idea, who became the officially appointed leader and symbol of Turkish women’s education.

The transformation of the ideal Turkish women was executed following the example and guidance of Sabiha Atatürk. The organization she was responsible for was almost unparalleled in the whole world. This organization was responsible for women’s education, maternity protection, women’s physical education, and more. In Turkey, these actions had not only social or economic significance. They served to free Turkish women from old prejudices, raising the woman as a free, self-conscious co-worker partner of the man. The Turkish leader met Sabiha at one of the most critic and crucial

moments of his eventful life.

Kemal Atatürk had an accident during the twenty-two-day battle of Sakhar. The doctors

40 Az Est, August 5, 1925. p.10.

41 Budapeste Elciligi, May 20, 1937. U. No. 15651, H. No.181.

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INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF EDUCATION AND HISTORY RESEARCH Yıl: 2, Sayı: 3, Aralık 2020, s.23-62.

ordered him to stay in bed, but out there in the field raged a battle in which the Turks fought the Greeks for twenty-two days and which decided the fate of the whole war.

Kemal ignoring his fever, got up and led his team in the troops. He bandaged himself at the relief every night and the bandage was always done by peasant girl Sabiha. When the battle ended with a decisive victory of the Turks, Kemal took the girl with him to his new headquarters in Ankara, raised her and the simple peasant girl became the first lady in Turkey. Sabiha studied abroad for years, replacing what she had missed in her childhood with unheard willpower and quick perception. In a year or two she took an exam of the curriculum of girls lyceum, then spent more time at American and French universities. Later she studied social assistance work and women’s education, while also learned to fly and took a pilot exam. After completing her studies she returned home to Turkey and took over the role that Kemal Atatürk intended for her.

Sabiha's personality and behavior was totally compatible with the state ideology of the time. An excellent example of this was her behavior, when she was wearing a headscarf. Sabiha and her companion from young girls shown an example in public areas immediately after the law was passed. They were the first, who appeared with uncovered faces on the streets of Istanbul and Ankara. The people got very surprised, when they saw Sabiha and her girlfriends were in swimsuits at public swimming competitions or participated in light gray pants in sailing competitions. At noon, in the afternoon, in the evening, demonstrative performances filled their program, but in the mornings, they made social work. Sabiha showed, what she learned abroad. Under her leadership, the first girls’ high schools were built, and social activities began to improve the situation of Turkish women. Nationwide she organized the maternal and infant protection, breastfeeding mothers, household and cooking courses. In the meantime she did not neglect her pilot science either. She flew once or twice a week, and a few years later organized a pilot school for women. Sabiha Atatürk attended 10-12 year old girls in her pilot school and trained them as pilots in three to four years. Organized the first

women's flying school in Istanbul “Turkey is already ahead of the European ladies in the field of women's emancipation”.⁴²

3.2. SIGNS OF THE EMANCIPATION OF THE TURKISH WOMEN IN