Portal:Turkey/Selected biography/Archive

30/08/2007 - 17/10/2007 (Aşık Veysel Klasikleri)
Aşık Veysel Şatıroğlu (October 25, 1894 – March 21, 1973), also known as just Aşık Veysel, was a Turkish minstrel and highly regarded poet of the Turkish folk literature. He was born in the Sivrialan village of the Şarkışla district, Sivas, on October 25, 1894 and died on March 21, 1973. He was an ashik, a poet, songwriter, and a bağlama and saz virtuoso, the prominent representative of the Anatolian ashik tradition in the 20th century. He was blind for the most of his lifetime. His songs have usually sad tunes, often talking about inevitability of death.

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13/08/2007 - 30/08/2007 (Mustafa Kemal Atatürk)
Mustafa Kemal Atatürk (1881 – November 10, 1938) Mustafa Kemal established himself as a successful and extremely capable military commander while serving as a division commander in the Battle of Gallipoli. Afterwards he had fought with distinction on the eastern Anatolian and Palestinian fronts, making a name for himself during World War I. Following the defeat of the Ottoman Empire at the hands of the Allies, and the subsequent plans for its partition, Mustafa Kemal led the Turkish national movement in what would become the Turkish War of Independence. Having established a provisional government in Ankara, he defeated the forces sent by the Entente powers. His successful military campaigns led to the liberation of the country and to the establishment of the Republic of Turkey.

Mustafa Kemal then embarked on a major programme of reforms, in the political, economic and cultural aspects of life in Turkey with the perspectives defined in the Kemalist ideology, which sought to create a modern, democratic and secular nation-state. Read more >>

06/08/2007 - 13/08/2007 (Suleiman the Magnificent)
Suleyman I (سليمان Sulaymān, Süleyman; formally Kanuni Sultan Süleyman in Turkish) (November 6, 1494 – September 5/6 1566), was the tenth and longest‐serving Sultan of the Ottoman Empire, reigning from 1520 to 1566. He is known in the West as Suleiman the Magnificent and in the Islamic world, as the Lawgiver (in Turkish Kanuni; القانونى, al‐Qānūnī), deriving from his complete reconstruction of the Ottoman legal system. Within the empire, Suleiman was known as a fair ruler and an opponent of corruption. As well as being a capable goldsmith and distinguished poet, Suleiman was also a great patron of artists and philosophers, overseeing the golden age of the Ottoman Empire's cultural development. Read more >>

18/10/2007 - 01/05/2008 (Piri Reis)


Admiral Piri Reis (about 1465 – 1554 or 1555), born Hadji Muhiddin Piri Ibn Hadji Mehmed, was a Turkish admiral(Reis) and cartographer who is the most famous for his highly accurate maps of various regions of the world at that time. His service in the Ottoman navy included the First Battle of Lepanto(Zonchio), the Second Battle of Lepanto, and several successful expeditions against various enemies such as Egypt, Spain, Rhodes, and Portugal. He presented his created maps to Suleiman the Magnificent in book form. Living to the age of 90, he was beheaded in Egypt after refusing to lead another expedition against Portugal. Many examples of his works can be found in many of the world's museums.