According to Turkish sociologist Fatma Müge Göçek, the speech "officially adopted as the official Turkish national narrative and became sacralized by the state". Göçek stated that, because the law criminalizes insulting Atatürk, Turkish historians have been unable to analyze the speech critically. She said: "It is evident that the text commences the birth of the Turkish nation with 1919, removing in the process the demise of the Armenians in 1915 through state violence to the realm of Republican prehistory."