Beyond Anitkabir: The Construction and Maintenance of National Memory

By: Christopher S. Wilson

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Synopsis: There have been five different settings that at one time or another have contained the dead body of Mustafa Kemal AtatÃ¼rk, 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 DolmabahÃ§e 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 AtatÃ¼rk’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 AtatÃ¼rk. Lastly, the two permanent constructions - the DolmabahÃ§e 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.