Ali Rıza Efendi (1839–1888) was an official, and the father of

Mustafa Kemal Atatürk Mustafa Kemal Atatürk ( 1881 – 10 November 1938) was a Turkish field marshal and revolutionary statesman who was the founding father of the Republic of Turkey, serving as its first President of Turkey, president from 1923 until Death an ...

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 The Ottoman Empire (), also called the Turkish Empire, was an empire, imperial realm that controlled much of Southeast Europe, West Asia, and North Africa from the 14th to early 20th centuries; it also controlled parts of southeastern Centr ...

in Europe after

Constantinople Constantinople (#Names of Constantinople, see other names) was a historical city located on the Bosporus that served as the capital of the Roman Empire, Roman, Byzantine Empire, Byzantine, Latin Empire, Latin, and Ottoman Empire, Ottoman empire ...

Istanbul Istanbul is the List of largest cities and towns in Turkey, largest city in Turkey, constituting the country's economic, cultural, and historical heart. With Demographics of Istanbul, a population over , it is home to 18% of the Demographics ...

. Ali Rıza's family comes from

Kodžadžik Kodžadžik (; ), is a village in the municipality of Centar Župa, North Macedonia. Name A former Ottoman fortress existed at the location of Kodžadžik before the end of the first half of the 15th century. Scholars such as Smiljanić and Had ...

, in Centar Župa Municipality near the border to

Albania Albania ( ; or ), officially the Republic of Albania (), is a country in Southeast Europe. It is located in the Balkans, on the Adriatic Sea, Adriatic and Ionian Seas within the Mediterranean Sea, and shares land borders with Montenegro to ...

, today in

North Macedonia North Macedonia, officially the Republic of North Macedonia, is a landlocked country in Southeast Europe. It shares land borders with Greece to the south, Albania to the west, Bulgaria to the east, Kosovo to the northwest and Serbia to the n ...

, where there is a memorial house. He is thought to be of local descent: Albanian or Slavic by some scholars such as Andrew Mango, Lou Giaffo, Ernst Jaeckh, etc. However the village where his family was born still has Turkish majority population, and Falih Rıfkı Atay, a journalist and close friend of Atatürk, claimed that he descended from Turks of Söke, in

Aydın Province Aydın Province () is a Provinces of Turkey, province and Metropolitan municipalities in Turkey, metropolitan municipality of southwestern Turkey, located in the Aegean Region. Its area is 8,116 km2, and its population is 1,148,241 (2022). T ...

Anatolia Anatolia (), also known as Asia Minor, is a peninsula in West Asia that makes up the majority of the land area of Turkey. It is the westernmost protrusion of Asia and is geographically bounded by the Mediterranean Sea to the south, the Aegean ...

. According to other historians such as Vamık D. Volkan, Norman Itzkowitz, Hasan İzzettin Dinamo, etc: Ali Rıza's ancestors were Turks, ultimately descending from the Turkic nomads called Yörüks of Söke in Aydın Province. 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 Rıza hung his sword over his son’s cradle, dedicating him to military service. Most important, Ali Rıza saw to it that his son’s earliest education was carried out in a modern secular school. 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.''Atatutk The rebirth of a nation'' Lord Kinross

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Efendi, Ali Riza 1839 births 1888 deaths People from Thessaloniki 19th-century civil servants from the Ottoman Empire Mustafa Kemal Atatürk Turks from the Ottoman Empire