Ismet Inönü: The Making of a Turkish Statesman

Atatürk (1880-1938) is one of the most renowned individuals of his time, and rightly so, for he founded the modern state of Turkey and created one of the very few ideologies not just to endure the century but to have considerable successes to its credit. Turks celebrate his accomplishments to his day, with his face of the money and on portraits throughout the country. His legacy is especially powerful in the military officer corps; according to one account, "It would not be an exaggeration to say that cadet-officers hardly spend an hour without mentioning his name." Even in English, many volumes of biography celebrate his life.

But what of his No. 2, Ismet Inönü (1884-1973)? Inönü served Atatürk as the chief of staff who helped win his most decisive battles (against the Greeks), as diplomat in his most important treaty (Lausanne, 1923), as prime minister during his entire presidency (1924-38), and then as his successor as president (1938-50), later to return again to power as prime minister (1961-65). In a first-class biography, Heper (a professor at Bilkent University in Ankara) performs the important service of recalling this key figure's life from the wrongful obscurity into which it has fallen. Heper finds there is much to admire in his biographee, calling him a pragmatist, an optimist, and a "statesman par excellence." He particularly praises the intelligent and realistic way Inönü guided the country from Atatürk's benevolent despotism to a multi-party democracy whose first election he lost and thereupon gracefully went into the opposition; indeed, Inönü went so far as to call his defeat his "greatest victory"). Heper quotes one assessment that Turkey has undergone three revolutions this century, a national one led by Atatürk, a democratic one led by Inönü, and an economic one led by Turgut Özal; he then adds that Inönü's role was larger than this implies, having had a direct hand in the first and having helped to pave the way for the third. He deserves this excellent biography.

Related Topics:  History, Turkey and Turks receive the latest by email: subscribe to daniel pipes' free mailing list This text may be reposted or forwarded so long as it is presented as an integral whole with complete information provided about its author, date, place of publication, and original URL.