Christopher S.

Wilson,
Beyond Anıtkabır: The Funerary Architecture of Atatürk,
Ashgate, Farnham, Surrey, 2013, 162pp, £55.00
The dissemination of the Atatürk cult as the symbol to unify the Turkish nation was mobilized shortly
after the Turkish Republic was founded in 1923. With Atatürk’s death, this process only escalated, turning
the founder’s body into an immortal symbol of the nation;1 a symbol buried in the secular new capital of
the Republic, Ankara, and not Istanbul, the city associated with the Ottoman past. The present study,
based on Christopher S. Wilson’s dissertation from the Middle East Technical University in Ankara, is
about the representations of Atatürk “as seen in the examples of funerary architecture that have housed
his corpse since his death” (p. 3). In other words, architectural representations are used by the author as a
“lieux de mémoire”, to demonstrate how a highly politicized national memory for the young Republic of
Turkey with regard to Atatürk, the latter’s role in shaping the nation, and its history was constructed.
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).
After Istanbul, the remains of Atatürk were transported to Ankara where they were placed in a
catafalque commissioned from Bruno Taut, the prolific German architect who was forced out of
Germany after the Nazis gained power and found shelter in Turkey. Before that however, the remains
were placed in another impromptu yet dignified catafalque, in the Dolmabahçe’s Grand Ceremonial Hall,
for the people of Istanbul to pay their respects. The author offers a vivid and informative description,
evident throughout the book, of the architecture of the catafalques and the items that were placed around
them, which consisted of “a series of funerary symbols or tropes that continued through to most of the

1Nazlı Ökten, “Ölümsüz Bir Ölüm, Sonsuz Bir Yas: Türkiye’de 10 Kasim”, pp. 325-346, in Esra Özyürek (ed.),
Hatırladıklarıyla ve Unuttuklarıyla Türkiye’nin Toplumsal Hafızası, İletişim Yayınları, Istanbul, 2001
constructions and transfer conditions that followed” (p. 30). For example, the six torches behind Atatürk’s
coffin symbolized the six principles of Kemalism; the flag-draped coffin made Atatürk a property of the
nation; while the generals standing guard around the coffin made a statement about the role of the
Turkish Armed Forces (p. 31, 46). However, although the Dolmabahçe Palace presented the
memorialization of Atatürk as an individual, Taut’s catafalque presented the monumentalization of
Atatürk and the Turkish nation (p. 49). In other words, it marked the founder’s path to sacralization.
Similar to the situation in Istanbul, the coffin was publicly displayed in Ankara for the entire day and
night of 20th November. Most importantly, the author notes, referring in a way to ‘the stages of loss and
grief’, that the transfer to the Ethnographic Museum “was a transitional moment between the initial
reaction – shock – when hearing about Atatürk’s death 11 days earlier, and a final acceptance of his death”
(p. 52). The Ethnographic Museum that was chosen to house Atatürk’s temporary tomb, has been
classified as being in the “First National Style”, a label that has been given to those buildings that
attempted to represent a concept of Turkishness and the young Republic of Turkey. What is more
important though, in the memorialization of the founder of Turkey, is the removal of the items from the
museum that until that time had represented the identity of the nation, and their replacement with
Atatürk’s tomb that exemplified “the memory, history and identity of the Turks” by displaying the
founder and creator as a central exhibit (p. 58).
Wilson’s narration ends with the Anıtkabır, literally “memorial tomb”, of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk.
Atatürk’s coffin was transferred once more on a gun carriage, with all the glory and honours one could
expect. The author’s narration entails also the interesting background of the architectural competition,
which gives another dimension to the construction of the politicization of memory. As a matter of fact,
the architectural competition, as with the talks concerning the location of the monument, was the factors
that defined exactly the politicization process that would be depicted in the Anıtkabır monument.
Although Turkish architects were initially excluded from the competition, eventually, they were allowed to
participate, and a two-man Turkish team consisting of Emin Onat and Orhan Arda actually won the
competition. The Turkish team of architects managed to appeal both to the competition jury, who
favoured a more Westernized architecture, and to the editors of Arkitekt, a very prestigious and influential
architectural journal that promoted Turkish architects, and favoured Eastern and Islamic forms.
Anıtkabır is an architectural building classified as of the “Second National Style”, built on
Rasattepe (Observation Hill), which, at the time of the architectural competition for Anıtkabır, was a central
location in Ankara and could be seen from all parts of the city. It is a massive construction similar, and at
times, more grandiose, than other memorial tombs. The whole construction of Anıtkabır was a highly
politicized procedure, such that even the architects, “in order to legitimize their choice of stylistic models,
quote almost verbatim the history of Turkey and the Turkish people that had been proposed in the
Turkish History Thesis by the Turkish Historical Society” (p. 89). Indeed, any visitor to Anıtkabır
knowing the Kemalist historical narration, will come across architectural constructions and sculptures
depicting different stages of Turkish history, from the Turkish War of Independence to a soldier, a villager
and a student, symbolizing defense, productivity and education (p. 90), all significant elements of Turkish
history. Generally, the whole funerary process, and the architectural construction in particular, with the
ultimate stage of Ataturk’s sacralization, Anıtkabır, was constructed in such a way as to promote, preserve
and enshrine the Kemalist national identity, as envisioned by Atatürk himself and the ruling cadre after his
death.
In conclusion, perhaps the author should provide his theoretical account in such a way as to permeate
the main body of the study to a greater extent, and associate architectural with cultural and nationalism
studies in a more directly linked way. Apart from that, Wilson provides a highly interesting account of the
Turkish national identity process providing new insights, fresh interpretation, and new information, at
least for the non-Turkish readers, through a not-so-widely studied field, that of Turkish architecture,
providing in this way, a more than welcome addition to the already published studies of scholars such as
Sibel Bozdoğan and Gülrü Necipoğlu.