PDF Dosyası - Ankara Üniversitesi Kitaplar Veritabanı

The most difficult of the Turkish losses to understand and explain ispersonal-psychological and social loss. It is impossible to quantify sorrowfor the dead, the anguish of seeing villages and homes destroyed, orthe fear that you and your children will soon die of starvation. Yet, nextto death itself, it was most likely the worst of ali the losses.One simple statistic (Table Five) can help explain part of the Turk'ssocial loss. The table illustrates the proportion of adult women to men inthree war-torn provinces (Ottoman boundaries), as recorded in the fırstRepublican census. In a normal population, the numbers of men andwomen would be similar. Both because they were fihters and becausetheir enemies singled them out for death, Turkish males died at a greaterrate than Turkish females. This left behind vvomen without husbands, fathers,brothers, and sons~women alone in a traditional society in vvhichthis had been largely unknown. The social burden and psychological stateof these vvomen can only be guessed. This is not, hovvever, the worst ofthe "psychological" anguish suffered by the Turks. That must have beenthe sorrow of children without parents, and of parents who watched theirchildren die.Strangely, the destruction of Anatolia is seldom considered as partthe history of the leadership Mustafa Kemal Atatürk. The perilous state ofthe Turks whom he led surely had a great effect on his leadership. ThoseTurks were in many vvays a different people than they had been in Ottomantimes. They were living in new places, with new neighbors, oftenfrom different lands. Not only the old political system was gone, but theold buildings, the old businesses, the old farms, even the old families.People who have suffered so much are likely to either withdraw almostcatatonically into their old ways, hugging to themselves what little is leftof their old happiness, or with the right leadership they can become opento change, knovving that change is needed if the disasters are not to be repeated.Indeed, they are likely to welcome change if they trust the authorof change. Atatürk's leadership meant that the Turks accepted necessarychange.It is impossible to properly appreciate the real difficulties facingAtatürk and his success in meeting them unless one understands the desolatestate of Turkey at the beginning of the Turkish Republic. The taskthat faced the survivors of the wars was immense. The success of theTurkish people and of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk is thus ali the more impressive.Atatürk did not simply take a land and change its politics, nordid he only take a poor land and make it richer. He took a destroyed landand built it anew. He took a broken land and made it whole. Knowing theterrible state of the land he rebuilt can only lead to an amazed respect forMustafa Kemal.It can be said, of course, that others suffered during the war years.Greeks, Armenians, and others also suffered. They also went on to reju-513