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 which 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 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).Mavi Boncuk |
Book | Beyond Anitkabir: The Funerary Architecture of Atatürk The Construction and Maintenance of National Memory By Christopher S. Wilson
ISBN 9781138274877
Book Description
There have been five different settings that at one time or another have contained the dead body of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, organizer of the Turkish War of Independence (1919-1923) and first president of the Republic of Turkey. Narrating the story of these different architectural constructions - the bedroom in Dolmabahçe Palace, Istanbul, where he died; a temporary catafalque in this same palace; his funeral stage in Turkey’s new capital Ankara; a temporary tomb in the Ankara Ethnographic Museum; and his permanent and monumental mausoleum in Ankara, known in Turkish as ’Anitkabir’ (Memorial Tomb) - this book also describes and interprets the movement of Atatürk’s body through the cities of Istanbul and Ankara and also the nation of Turkey to reach these destinations. It examines how each one of these locations - accidental, designed, temporary, permanent - has contributed in its own way to the construction of a Turkish national memory about Atatürk. Lastly, the two permanent constructions - the Dolmabahçe Palace bedroom and Anitkabir - have changed in many ways since their first appearance in order to maintain this national memory. These changes are exposed to reveal a dynamic, rather than dull, impression of funerary architecture.
Author Biography
Christopher S. Wilson teaches architecture and design history at the Ringling College of Art and Design in Sarasota, Florida, USA.
Reviews
'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 Anitkabir in Ankara. Wilson offers a highly interesting account of the Turkish national identity process providing new insights, fresh interpretation, and original information, at least for the non-Turkish readers, through a not-so-widely studied field, that of Turkish architecture...' Changing Turkey in a Changing World 'The visual content of the book is remarkable. It includes not only historical photographs of the different funeral processions, mourning ceremonies and related buildings from 1938 to 1953, but also original drawings of the competition entries. Wilson also provides four self made maps that illustrate the historical paths of the funeral processions in Istanbul and Ankara. With his discussion of the actual routes versus possible alternatives, he is able to add a new and fascinating spatial dimension to the analysis of the processions as rituals'. H-Soz-u-Kult (H-Net)
'Wilson.’s book is a timely addition to an interesting subfield of Turkish studies, the study of memory in republican turkey'. Turkish Review