page_title: Mustafa Kemal Atatürk
section_title: Modernization efforts, 1931–1938
hierarchical_section_title: Mustafa Kemal Atatürk / Presidency / Domestic policies / Modernization efforts, 1931–1938
caption_attribution_description: Türkçe: Kemal Atatürk Türk Tarih Kurumu'nun kuruluşundaEnglish: Kemal Atatürk at the establishment of Turkish Historical Society
context_page_description: Kemal Atatürk was a Turkish field marshal, revolutionary statesman, author, and the founding father of the Republic of Turkey, serving as its first president from 1923 until his death in 1938. He undertook sweeping progressive reforms, which modernized Turkey into a secular, industrial nation. Ideologically a secularist and nationalist, his policies and theories became known as Kemalism. Due to his military and political accomplishments, Atatürk is regarded as one of the most important political leaders of the 20th century.
  Atatürk came to prominence for his role in securing the Ottoman Turkish victory at the Battle of Gallipoli during World War I. Following the defeat and dissolution of the Ottoman Empire, he led the Turkish National Movement, which resisted mainland Turkey's partition among the victorious Allied powers. Establishing a provisional government in the present-day Turkish capital Ankara, he defeated the forces sent by the Allies, thus emerging victorious from what was later referred to as the Turkish War of Independence. He subsequently proceeded to abolish the decrepit Ottoman Empire and proclaimed the foundation of the Turkish Republic in its place.
context_section_description: In 1931, Atatürk established the Turkish Language Association for conducting research works in the Turkish language (Türk Dil Kurumu). The Turkish Historical Society (Türk Tarih Kurumu) was established in 1931, and began maintaining archives in 1932 for conducting research works on the history of Turkey. On 1 January 1928, he established the Turkish Education Association, which supported intelligent and hard-working children in financial need, as well as material and scientific contributions to the educational life. In 1933, Atatürk ordered the reorganization of Istanbul University into a modern institution and later established Ankara University in the capital city.
  Atatürk dealt with the translation of scientific terminology into Turkish. He wanted the Turkish language reform to be methodologically based. Any attempt to "cleanse" the Turkish language of foreign influence without modelling the integral structure of the language was inherently wrong to him. He personally oversaw the development of the Sun Language Theory (Güneş Dil Teorisi), which was a linguistic theory which proposed that all human languages were descendants of one Central Asian primal language. His ideas could be traced to the work by the French scientist Hilaire de Barenton titled L'Origine des Langues, des Religions et des Peuples, which postulates that all languages originated from hieroglyphs and cuneiform used by Sumerians, and the paper by Austrian linguist Dr. Hermann F. Kvergić of Vienna titled "La psychologie de quelques elements des langues Turques" ("the psychology of some elements of the Turkic Languages"). Atatürk formally introduced the Sun Language Theory into Turkish political and educational circles in 1935, although he did later correct the more extremist practices.
  Saffet Arıkan, a politician who was the head of the Turkish Language Association, said "Ulu Önderimiz Ata Türk Mustafa Kemal" ("Our Great Leader Ata Türk Mustafa Kemal") in the opening speech of the 2nd Language Day on 26 September 1934. Later, the surname "Atatürk" ("father of the Turks") was accepted as the surname of Mustafa Kemal after the adoption of the Surname Law in 1934.
  Beginning in 1932, several hundred "People's Houses" (Halkevleri) and "People's Rooms" (Halkodaları) across the country allowed greater access to a wide variety of artistic activities, sports, and other cultural events. Atatürk supported and encouraged the visual and the plastic arts, which had been suppressed by Ottoman leaders, who regarded depiction of the human form as idolatry. Many museums opened, architecture began to follow modern trends, and classical Western music, opera, ballet, and theatre took greater hold in the country. Book and magazine publications increased as well, and the film industry began to grow.
  Almost all Qur'ans in Turkey before the 1930s were printed in Old Arabic. However, in 1924, three Turkish translations of the Qur'an were published in Istanbul, and several renderings of the Qur'an in the Turkish language were read in front of the public, creating significant controversy. These Turkish Qur'ans were fiercely opposed by members of the religious community, and the incident impelled many leading Muslim modernists to call upon the Turkish Parliament to sponsor a Qur'an translation of suitable quality. With the support of Atatürk, the Parliament approved the project and the Directorate of Religious Affairs appointed Mehmet Akif (Ersoy) to compose a Qur'an translation, and the Islamic scholar Elmalılı Hamdi Yazır to author a Turkish language Qur'anic commentary (tafsir) titled Hak Dini Kur'an Dili (The Qur'an: the Tongue of the Religion of Truth). However, it was only in 1935 that the version of Yazır's work read in public found its way to print. In 1932, Atatürk justified the translation of the Qur'an by stating how he wanted to "teach religion in Turkish to Turkish people who had been practising Islam without understanding it for centuries." Atatürk believed that the understanding of religion and its texts was too important to be left to a small group of people. Thus, 
caption: In 1931, during the establishment ceremony of the Turkish History Institution. Atatürk is standing with Afet İnan (on his left) and Yusuf Akçura (first from the left).
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