MAISON-MÉMORIAL ALI-RIZA-EFENDI

This memorial (Спомен-Куќа на Али Риза Ефенди/Spomen-Kuḱa na Ali Riza Efendi, Ali Rıza Efendi Anı Evi) was built in 2014 on the supposed site of the family home of Ali Rıza Efendi (1839-1888), the father of Mustafa Kemal, known as Atatürk (c. 1881-1938), who founded the Republic of Turkey in 1923. The site therefore has a certain historical importance for the authorities in Ankara. The Turkish Cooperation and Development Agency (TIKA) financed the work and organized the museography. The small complex comprises two beautiful corbelled houses: an annex and the main dwelling. Both are in the traditional Ottoman style of the region, made of stone and wood... but also with a lot of concrete and modern materials. Five rooms retrace the lives of Atatürk's grandparents, using mannequins, rare period objects and lots of copies of photos, documents, costumes and so on. It's all very kitsch, and accompanied by panels with explanations in English.

The Atatürk myth. According to the official Turkish theory, the original house was destroyed after the departure of the Ottomans in 1912. It would have belonged to Ali Riza Efendi's parents, Kızıl Hafız Ahmet Efendi and Ayşe Hanım. Originally from Karaman, in present-day Turkey, they later moved to Thessalonica, today in Greek Macedonia, in the 1830s. It was in this city that Ali Riza Efendi was born in 1839. While one room shows little Ali playing with his sister, there is no evidence that he ever came to Kodžadžik/Kocacık. He spent his life in Thessalonica. He married Zübeyde Hanım (1856-1923), with whom he had five children, including Mustafa Kemal, and died there at the age of 41, having worked as a customs officer and gone bankrupt in the timber trade. None of this is well explained here. Turkish historians also claim that the site chosen for the reconstruction of the house is the wrong one. This is hardly surprising, given that the Turkish authorities have altered the details of Atatürk's biography in order to build up their myth. In Thessaloniki, for example, the house of Ali Riza Efendi, known as "Atatürk's birthplace", is very popular with Turkish tourists. But this large villa (which also houses a Turkish consulate) is itself a reconstruction. The "Father of the Turks" was not born here, but in another part of the city. The exact date of Atatürk's birth is not known either.