A portrait of a volunteer officer of the Civil Service Battalion (Asâkir-i Mülkiye Taburu) from Thessaloniki, supposed to be Ali Rıza Efendi. However, when the photo was shown, Atatürk reportedly said: "He is not my father".[1] This portrait had been suggested by İlhan Sungu in his article titled "Atatürk'ün Babası Ali Efendi ve Mensup Olduğu Selânik Asakir-i Mülkiye Taburu"[2] and has commenced to be published as Ali Rıza's portrait in 1939.
The reconstructed house of Ali Rıza Efendi's family, in Kodžadžik, North Macedonia

Ali Rıza Efendi (1839–1888) was an official, and the father of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk and the husband of Zübeyde Hanım.

He was born in Selanik, (modern Thessaloniki in present-day Macedonia, Greece), back then the most important city in the Ottoman Empire in Europe after Constantinople/Istanbul. Ali Riza's family comes from Kodžadžik,[3][4] in Centar Župa Municipality near the border to Albania, today in North Macedonia, where there is a memorial house.[5] He is thought to be of local descent: Albanian or Slavic by some scholars such as Andrew Mango, Lou Giaffo, Ernst Jaeckh, etc.[6][7][8][9][10] However the village where his family was born still has Turkish majority population,[3] and Falih Rıfkı Atay, a journalist and close friend of Atatürk, claimed that he descended from Turks of Söke, in Aydın Province of Anatolia.[1][11] According to other historians such as Vamik D. Volkan, Norman Itzkowitz, Hasan İzzettin Dinamo, etc: Ali Rıza's ancestors were Turks, ultimately descending from Söke in the Aydın Province.[1][12][13][14][15][16]

He worked as a customs official and died in 1888 at age 49, when his son was 7 years old. At Mustafa's birth, Ali Riza hung his sword over his son’s cradle, dedicating him to military service. Most important, Ali Riza saw to it that his son’s earliest education was carried out in a modern secular school.[17] He left the poorly paying clerk's job to start a lumber business, but bandits set fire to his stock after extorting money from him. He attempted to rejoin the civil service without success. He started drinking heavily afterwards which may have contributed to his early death.[18]

References

  1. 1 2 3 Falih Rıfkı Atay, Çankaya: Atatürk'ün doğumundan ölümüne kadar, Betaş, İstanbul, 1984, p. 17. (in Turkish)
  2. ↑ Şevket Süreyya Aydemir, Tek Adam: Mustafa Kemal, Birinci Cilt: 1881 - 1919, 14th edition, Remzi Kitabevi, 1997, ISBN 975-14-0212-3, p. 32.
  3. 1 2 "Census of population and dwellings in Macedonia 2002" (PDF). p. 326. Retrieved 1 November 2013.
  4. ↑ Archived 2016-11-26 at the Wayback Machine ATATÜRK'ÜN BABA SOYU (KIZIL OĞUZ veya KOCACIK YÖRÜKLERİ)
  5. ↑ "Memorial house of Ataturk in Kodžadžik". Archived from the original on 2016-03-06. Retrieved 2019-09-23.
  6. ↑ Andrew Mango Atatürk: The Biography of the Founder of Modern Turkey, Overlook Press, 2002, ISBN 978-1-58567-334-6, p. 25; p.27. "Feyzullah's family is said to have come from the country near Vodina (now Edessa in western Greek Macedonia). The surname Sofuzade, meaning 'son of a pious man', suggests that the ancestors of Zübeyde and Ali Rıza had a similar background. Cemil Bozok, son of Salih Bozok, who was a distant cousin of Atatürk and, later, his ADC, claims to have been related to both Ali Rıza's and Zübeyde's families. This would mean that the families of Atatürk's parents were interrelated. Cemil Bozok also notes that his paternal grandfather, Safer Efendi, was of Albanian origin. This may have a bearing on the vexed question of Atatürk's ethnic origin. Atatürk's parents and relatives all used Turkish as their mother tongue. This suggests that some at least of their ancestors had originally come from Turkey, since local Muslims of Albanian and Slav origin who had no ethnic connection with Turkey spoke Albanian, Serbo-Croat or Bulgarian, at least so long as they remained in their native land., But in looks Ataturk resembled local Albanians and Slavs.[...] But there is no evidence that either Ali Riza or Zübeyde was descended from such Turkish nomads." page 28; "It is much more likely that Atatürk inherited his looks from his Balkan ancestors.[...] But Albanians and Slavs are likely to have figured among his ancestors."
  7. ↑ Lou Giaffo: Albania: Eye of the Balkan Vortex
  8. ↑ Jackh, Ernest, The Rising Crescent, (Goemaere Press, 2007), p. 31, Turkish mother and Albanian father
  9. ↑ Isaac Frederick Marcosson, Turbulent years, Ayer Publishing, 1969, p. 144.
  10. ↑ Richmond, Yale, From Da to Yes: understanding the East Europeans, (Intercultural Press Inc., 1995), 212.
  11. ↑ Vamik D. Volkan, Norman Itzkowitz, Ölümsüz Atatürk (Immortal Ataturk), Bağlam Yayınları, 1998, ISBN 975-7696-97-8, p. 37, dipnote no. 6 (Atay, 1980, s. 17).
  12. ↑ Vamik D. Volkan & Norman Itzkowitz, Ölümsüz Atatürk (Immortal Atatürk), Bağlam Yayınları, 1998, ISBN 975-7696-97-8, p. 37, dipnote no. 6 (Atay, 1980, s. 17)
  13. ↑ Cunbur, Müjgân. Türk dünyası edebiyatçıları ansiklopedisi, 2. cilt (2004), Atatürk Kültür Merkezi Başkanlığı: "Babası Ali Rıza Efendi (doğ. 1839), annesi Zübeyde Hanımdır, baba dedesi Hafız Ahmet Efendi, 14–15. yy.da Anadolu'dan göç ederek Makedonya'ya yerleşen Kocacık Yörüklerindendir."
  14. ↑ Kartal, Numan. Atatürk ve Kocacık Türkleri (2002), T.C. Kültür Bakanlığı: "Aile Selânik'e Manastır ilinin Debrei Bâlâ sancağına bağlı Kocacık bucağından gelmişti. Ali Rıza Efendi'nin doğum yeri olan Kocacık bucağı halkı da Anadolu'dan gitme ve tamamıyla Türk, Müslüman Oğuzların Türkmen boylarındandırlar."
  15. ↑ Dinamo, Hasan İzzettin.Kutsal isyan: Millî Kurtuluş savaşı'nın gerçek hikâyesi, 2. cilt (1986), Tekin Yayınevi.
  16. ↑ Mustafa Kemal Atatürk – memorial museum in village Kodzadzik in Municipality Centar Zupa Archived 2014-11-04 at the Wayback Machine.
  17. ↑ Ataturk Rebirth of a nation Lord Kinross
  18. ↑ Atatutk The rebirth of a nation Lord Kinross
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