Mustafa Kemal Atatürk - Personal Life

Personal Life

Mustafa Kemal's name is associated with three women: Eleni Karinte, Fikriye Hanım and Latife Uşaklıgil. Little is known of Mustafa Kemal's relationship with Eleni, who fell in love with him while he was a student in Bitola, Macedonia (Manastır in Turkish) but the relationship inspired a play by the Macedonian writer Dejan Dukovski, later filmed by Aleksandar Popovski. Fikriye was a nominal cousin of Mustafa Kemal, though not related by blood (his stepfather Ragıp Bey's sister's daughter). Fikriye grew passionately attached to Mustafa Kemal; we are not sure of the full extent of his feelings for her but it is certain that they became very close after Fikriye divorced her Egyptian husband and returned to Istanbul; during the War of Independence, she lived with him in Çankaya, Ankara as his personal assistant. However, after the Turkish army entered Izmir in 1922, Mustafa Kemal met Latife while staying at the house of her father, the shipping magnate Muammer Uşakizade (later Uşaklı). Latife fell in love with Mustafa Kemal; again we do not know the extent to which this was reciprocated, but he was certainly impressed by Latife's intellect: she was a graduate of the Sorbonne and was studying English in London when the war broke out. On 29 January 1923 they were married. Latife was jealous of Fikriye and demanded that she leave the house in Çankaya; Fikriye was devastated and immediately left in a carriage. According to official accounts, she shot herself with a pistol Mustafa Kemal had given her as a present; however, there were rumours that she was murdered. The triangle of Mustafa Kemal, Fikriye and Latife became the subject of a manuscript by his close friend, Salih Bozok which remained unpublished until 2005. Latife was briefly and literally the face of the new Turkish woman, appearing in public in Western clothing with her husband. However, their marriage was not happy; after frequent arguments they were divorced on 5 August 1925. He never remarried.

During his lifetime, Atatürk adopted thirteen children: a boy and twelve girls. Of these, the most famous is Sabiha Gökçen, Turkey's first female pilot and the world's first female fighter pilot.

In his leisure time, he enjoyed reading and writing (books and a personal journal), horseback riding, chess, and swimming. He was also an avid dancer and enjoyed both the waltz and traditional zeybek folk dances.