wilson review

8/13/2019 Wilson Review

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Christopher S. Wilson, Beyond Anıtkabır: The Funerary Architecture of Atatürk , Ashgate,Farnham, Surrey, 2013, 162pp, £55.00

The dissemination of the Atatürk cult as the symbol to unify the Turkish nation was mobilized

shortly after the Turkish Republic was founded in 1923. With Atatürk‟s death, this process

only escalated, turning the founder‟s body into an immortal symbol of the nation;1 a symbol

buried in the secular new capital of the Republic, Ankara, and not Istanbul, the city associated

with the Ottoman past. The present study, based on Christopher S. Wilson‟s dissertation from

the Middle East Technical University in Ankara, is about the representations of Atatürk “as

seen in the examples of funerary architecture that have housed his corpse since his death” (p.

3). In other words, architectural representations are used by the author as a “lieux de

mémoire”, to demonstrate how a highly politicized national memory for the young Republic

of Turkey with regard to Atatürk, the latter‟s role in shaping the nation, and its history was

constructed.

The book narrates and demonstrates very eloquently the interesting (hi)story of the

transportation and location of the remains of the founder of Turkey, starting from the

Dolmabahçe Palace in Istanbul to Anıtkabır in Ankara. The whole journey can be divided into

two parts: the first one entails the two places in the Dolmabahçe Palace, Istanbul, associated

with his death: the bedroom where he died and the Grand Ceremonial Hall used for the public

viewing of his body. The second part entails the three features of his funeral: the transfer of

his body from Istanbul to Ankara, the official catafalque used for his state funeral in Ankara,

and the transfer from this catafalque to a temporary tomb in The Ethnographic Museum,

Ankara.

The author argues that the death of Atatürk changed the place of the Dolmabahçe Palace in

the collective memory of the Turkish people, that is from a former Ottoman palace to the place where Atatürk died, and therefore a place which became associated with the young

Turkish Republic. The authors‟ argument makes perfect sense if one considers the Turkish

ruling cadre‟s efforts to eternalize Atatürk through the alleged stopping of the bedside clock

in the bedroom of the Dolmabahçe Palace, in wh ich Mustafa Kemal passed away “as if the

clock itself has given up the will to live” (p. 26). The Dolmabahçe Palace marks for the author

1 Nazlı Ökten, “Ölümsüz Bir Ölüm, Sonsuz Bir Yas: Türkiye‟de 10 Kasim”, pp. 325-346, in Esra Özyürek (ed.), Hatırladıklarıyla ve Unuttuklarıyla Türkiye’nin Toplumsal Hafızası, İletişim Yayınları, Istanbul, 2001


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also “[the] representation of the man Atatürk – the individual – instead of being a

representation of the Turkish nation as manifested in the persona Atatürk” (p. 27).

After Istanbul, the remains of Atatürk were transported to Ankara where they were placed in a

catafalque commissioned from Bruno Taut, the prolific German architect who was forced out

of Germany after the Nazis gained power and found shelter in Turkey. Before that however,

the remains were placed in another impromptu yet dignified catafalque, in the Dolmabahçe‟s

Grand Ceremonial Hall, for the people of Istanbul to pay their respects. The author offers a

vivid and informative description, evident throughout the book, of the architecture of the

catafalques and the items that were placed around them, which consisted of “a series of

funerary symbols or tropes that continued through to most of the constructions and transfer

conditions that followed” ( p. 30). For example, the six torches behind Atatürk‟s coffin

symbolized the six principles of Kemalism; the flag-draped coffin made Atatürk a property of

the nation; while the generals standing guard around the coffin made a statement about the

role of the Turkish Armed Forces (p. 31, 46). However, although the Dolmabahçe Palace

presented the memorialization of Atatürk as an individual, Taut‟s catafalque presented the

monumentalization of Atatürk and the Turkish nation (p. 49). In other words, it marked the

founder‟s path to sacralization.

Similar to the situation in Istanbul, the coffin was publicly displayed in Ankara for the entire

day and night of 20th November. Most importantly, the author notes, referring in a way to „the

stages of loss and grief‟, that the transfer to the Ethnographic Museum “was a transitional

moment between the initial reaction – shock – when hearing about Atatürk‟s death 11 days

earlier, and a final acceptance of his death” (p. 52). The Ethnographic Museum that was

chosen to house Atatürk‟s temporary tomb, has been classified as being in the “First National

Style”, a label that has been given to those buildings that attempted to represent a concept ofTurkishness and the young Republic of Turkey. What is more important though, in the

memorialization of the founder of Turkey, is the removal of the items from the museum that

until that time had represented the identity of the nation, and their replacement with Atatürk‟s

tomb that exemplified “the memory, history and identity of the Turks” by displaying the

founder and creator as a central exhibit (p. 58).

Wilson‟s narration ends with the Anıtkabır, literally “memorial tomb”, of Mustafa KemalAtatürk. Atatürk ‟s coffin was transferred once more on a gun carriage, with all the glory and


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honours one could expect. The author‟s narration entails also the interesting background of

the architectural competition, which gives another dimension to the construction of the

politicization of memory. As a matter of fact, the architectural competition, as with the talks

concerning the location of the monument, was the factors that defined exactly the

politicization process that would be depicted in the Anıtkabır monument. Although Turkish

architects were initially excluded from the competition, eventually, they were allowed to

participate, and a two-man Turkish team consisting of Emin Onat and Orhan Arda actually

won the competition. The Turkish team of architects managed to appeal both to the

competition jury, who favoured a more Westernized architecture, and to the editors of

Arkitekt , a very prestigious and influential architectural journal that promoted Turkish

architects, and favoured Eastern and Islamic forms.

Anıtkabır is an architectural building classified as of the “Second National Style”, built on

Rasattepe (Observation Hill ), which, at the time of the architectural competition for

Anıtkabır, was a central location in Ankara and could be seen from all parts of the city. It is a

massive construction similar, and at times, more grandiose, than other memorial tombs. The

whole construction of Anıtkabır was a highly politicized procedure, such that even the

architects, “in order to legitimize their choice of stylistic models, quote almost verbatim the

history of Turkey and the Turkish people that had been proposed in the Turkish History

Thesis by the Turkish Historical Society” (p. 89). Indeed, any visitor to Anıtkabır knowing

the Kemalist historical narration, will come across architectural constructions and sculptures

depicting different stages of Turkish history, from the Turkish War of Independence to a

soldier, a villager and a student, symbolizing defense, productivity and education (p. 90), all

significant elements of Turkish history. Generally, the whole funerary process, and the

architectural construction in particular, with the ultimate stage of Ataturk‟s sacralization,

Anıtkabır, was constructed in such a way as to promote, preserve and enshrine the Kemalistnational identity, as envisioned by Atatürk himself and the ruling cadre after his death.

In conclusion, perhaps the author should provide his theoretical account in such a way as to

permeate the main body of the study to a greater extent, and associate architectural with

cultural and nationalism studies in a more directly linked way. Apart from that, Wilson

provides a highly interesting account of the Turkish national identity process providing new

insights, fresh interpretation, and new information, at least for the non-Turkish readers,through a not-so-widely studied field, that of Turkish architecture, providing in this way, a


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more than welcome addition to the already published studies of scholars such as Sibel

Bozdoğan and Gülrü Necipoğlu.

wilson review

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