New Journal Entry #6

[Mark Kligman]

I decided that I will use a voice recorder to document my artifacts since I want to hear how well I am capable of pronouncing my Turkish as if I am a listening to myself through somebody's perception, not my own. The reason for that is because I want to work on the foundation of my pronunciation while I am still beginning to learn the language and not further on when it would be too late to easily fix or adjust it. Therefore through recording my artifacts on a voice recorder I will be able to go back and change anything I am not satisfied without wasting too much time, such as I would if I were to be recording on a video recorder. Regarding the history of Turkey I learned a vast amount but I regarded the most prominent part of Turkish history to be the occupation of some parts of the country by the Allies in the aftermath of World War I that prompted the establishment of the Turkish National Movement under the leadership of Mustafa Kemal, a military commander who had distinguished himself during the Turkish War of Independence. By September 18, 1922, with his help the occupying armies were expelled. On November 1, the newly founded parliament formally abolished the Sultanate, thus ending 623 years of Ottoman rule. The Treaty of Lausanne of July 24, 1923, led to the international recognition of the sovereignty of the newly formed "Republic of Turkey" as the successor state of the Ottoman Empire, and the republic was officially proclaimed on October 29, 1923, with a new capital of Ankara. Mustafa Kemal became the republic's first President and subsequently introduced many radical reforms. The Turkish parliament presented Mustafa Kemal with the surname "Atatürk" which means Father of the Turks in 1934.