Atatürk and Galatasaray

Efforts to impose an alleged partiality toward a particular team in regard to Atatürk, the founder of our Republic, have remained fruitless in the face of historical facts. Very few persons in the history of nations have earned leadership stature and taken their place in the annals of national experience. To remove such leaders from the historical context to which they belong on the basis of oral history rather than documented facts, deliberately transporting them into the realm of a desired group or community is a distortion. Leaders, with the characteristics that have placed them in history, are above individuals, groups or communities. A defense of the opposite view, besides providing no benefit to individuals or communities, has the potential of opening irreparable wounds in the social conscience. Acting in the awareness of this, genuine leaders exhibit great sensitivity in this respect and refrain from participating in organizations that do not embrace the whole of society and of which they are not a founder or a part of. We must acknowledge with the same sensitivity that Mustafa Kemal Atatürk is among the foremost historical personalities for which this holds true.

Concrete references to Atatürk's relationship with the Galatasaray community can be traced to his visits to Galatasaray High School on December 2, 1930, January 28, 1932 and July 1, 1933. In the words of the exceptional and veteran journalist Metin Toker, who passed on recently:

"No other high school received as much attention from Atatürk... Galatasaray has always been not only ‘Turkey’s window to the west’ but one of the milestones of secularism, one of the most important reforms that Atatürk initiated.

Just as the Military Academy, War Academy and the Academy of Political Science are not mundane educational institutions, Galatasaray cannot be considered an average high school."

Universal love

The Galatasaray community’s universal love for Atatürk has been strikingly expressed in the lines written by Celalettin Som, School No. 956:

"I was in the 7th grade at Galatasaray High School. The classroom was situated as the first classroom after the principal’s office, right across the stairs, looking out on the front courtyard. We used to be able to hear all the street noises from Beyoğlu. Our first class was French. Our teacher Monsieur M. Journé was in front of the class... All of a sudden, all was silent... From the depths of that deep quiet, we heard a sound that was like the shrieking of a tram’s iron wheels turning sharply on the tracks in front of the school... M. Journé stopped his lesson and put his hands to his head and started to cry! The date was November 10, 1938 and the time was 5 after 9:00 o’clock... ATATÜRK had died." Yes, this was the universal love felt for a statesman that now truly belonged to the ages.

The first visit to Galatasaray High School

In 1930, there was a considerably dynamic political and social atmosphere in Turkey and around the world. On November 18, Atatürk started out on a tour around the country and when he returned to Istanbul, he visited and inspected various schools. In the government’s official publication, Ayın Tarihi (History of the Month), these visits were described as follows (Volumes 23-24, No. 79-81, pp 6630-6631):

"December 3, 1930: His Excellency President Ghazi left the palace by automobile at 2 o’clock and visited the Military Academy, the Academy of Political Sciences, and the War Academy… From there, he went to Galatasaray High School. (...) He signed the guest book at the Galatasaray High School library and then sat a while in the principal’s office, where he discussed with the principal the general status of the school and its students. He attended the spelling, art and language classes and received extensive information from the school principal..."

Now, after this dry and objective information obtained from the state archives, let us turn to the pen of a short story writer from Galatasaray, a paragon of contemporary Turkish literature, a playwright and humorist who has, in addition to his extraordinary story-telling workmanship, crowned our literature with the skills of fine irony and observational prowess. Let us allow Haldun Taner’s narrative to take us to the same scene of the visit described above:

The Oriental indulgence in Legend

"We were in either the eighth or ninth grade. That must have been 1930 or 1931. There was great panic and a rush in the air. The walls were being painted, dilapidated sections were being plastered over. It turned out that the Ghazi Pasha was coming. In each class, the administration was handing out three copies to each student of Afet Hanım’s Civics textbook, which was still in the process of publication. The students were all in a stir, saying to each other, ‘Oh, if he’d only come to our classroom.’ Meanwhile, the teachers were in their own muddle, exclaiming, “I hope to God he doesn’t come to our classroom.” (...) I look at Atatürk—he’s in one of the poses so familiar to us in his portraits. He has two fingers of his left hand in the pocket of his vest, his head is a little bent downward, and he’s looking up through his frowning brows at the principal with that famous gaze of his, listening to the headmaster’s words.. Why is it that we Orientals like to exaggerate everything and turn it into legend? I’d heard it from so many dignified people—‘It’s impossible to look into his eyes,’ they would say. ‘Absolutely impossible. You can look up at him as far as the level of his chin, but when you come to his eyes, it’s like two powerful projectors penetrating into you, like being electrocuted, you go into a daze and you don’t know what hit you.’ I’d heard all this and now I was so scared I couldn’t bring my head up to look at his face. All I could see was his watch chain, his vest, the two fingers of his left hand in his vest, his starched turndown collar, and maybe a tiny bit of the tip of his chin... That was all. But I was just a kid, the devil tempted me and I dared myself to look up. There I was, looking at him, and there were no projectors, no daze, I was perfectly able to look at him. So was the principal and so was the teacher.

Nothing Escapes these Eyes

Although words like projector and lightning are literary concoctions, I must say that his gaze did not resemble anyone else’s. His eyes looked at something but it was as if they were looking deep into the depths of that object. That day, standing there, my first perception in my little kid’s mind was that nothing could ever escape those eyes. This man could not be fooled, he could not be tricked. He could never be prey to demagogy or unnecessary talk. This man was someone altogether different, who didn’t need to learn anything because he already knew it all and whatever he didn’t know he could somehow sense it (...) As Atatürk was about to leave the school, the recess bell rang and all of us spilled out into the yard. After saying a few words to his entourage, the late Atatürk dived into the crowd of students. All of us started walking, Atatürk in the middle, his retinue trailing behind, toward the main gates of the schools, which had been opened wide. Atatürk walked among us, in the midst of a crowd of children, some of whom were walking sideways, crab-style, just to be able to see his face better. He had his hands in his pockets and walked proudly, smiling at us as he went. There were thousands of curious people waiting at the gates. The police were having a hard time restraining the crowds that had flowed over into the streets. In the buildings across the school, there were maybe ten, possibly twenty heads looking out from each window. A wild burst of applause broke out as soon as Atatürk appeared. We added to the applause as Atatürk climbed into his automobile (...) That night, during roll call in study hall, it was discovered that two of our smart-aleck friends had snuck out with the day students in that confusion and run away from school. I don’t remember whether the school administration punished them or not. We can say that those lucky guys got the chance to go out on the town and walk around Beyoğlu in celebration of that historical day. And that wasn’t too much to expect, was it?"

Second Visit

Mustafa Kemal honored Galatasaray High School with a second visit on Thursday, January 28, 1932, when he stopped by while he was riding down Beyoğlu in his automobile. He watched a performance that was taking place in the school’s historical Tevfik Fikret Hall and complimented the students who had taken part in the show. Niyazi Ahmet Banoğlu has described this visit in his book "Atatürk'ün İstanbul'daki Hayatı" (Atatürk’s Life in Istanbul).

Third Visit

Atatürk's third visit to Galatasaray High School was on July 1, 1933. On this occasion, the Ghazi personally sat in on the middle school History-Geography-Civics baccalaureate exams and asked questions. Coming to the school with a retinue that included Presidential Secretary Hikmet Bayur, First Aide-de-Camp Celal, Aides Şükrü Bey and Cevdet Bey and Instructor Afet Hanım, Atatürk had gone first to the Principal’s room amidst a round of applause and after talking with the headmaster Tevfik Bey and the schoolteachers about the school, had gone straight to the room where the examination was taking place.

From İlhan E. Postacıoğlu's memoir, we learn that the student being examined when the Ghazi walked into the room was Bandırmalı Ahmet (Ahmet from Bandırma). After him, Osman Okyar, the son of the founder of the Liberal Republican Party, Fethi Okyar, was next to be admitted into the exam room. When Osman Okyar came out of the room, it quickly spread through the ranks of the students that Atatürk had sent his regards to Osman’s father, a piece of news that was very enthusiastically received. Some of the questions Atatürk asked the students of Galatasaray High School were: What was the name of the first war Attila fought with the Romans? What is the difference between the Treaty of Sèvres and the Treaty of Lausanne? Questions about the Hittites, comparing statism and individualism, our railways policies, the Battle of Manzikert, religion and secularism, the Spanish peninsula, the Armistice of Mudanya, the first contacts of Turkey with the Byzantines, referendums and voting, and other similar topics. The exams continued until the late hours of the evening and Atatürk left Galatasaray High School feeling very satisfied. The headmaster at the time, Tevfik Ararat, explains his impressions in these words:

"July 1, 1933 was the biggest day that Galatasaray High School had ever experienced. That day, His Excellency the Ghazi stayed at our institution for five-and-a-quarter hours, and obliged us by attending the first semester History-Geography-Civics graduation examination, personally examining nine of our students. From here on, Galatasaray High School will commemorate this unforgettable day every year by always holding the same exams of the same semester on the anniversary of that day."