Mustafa Kemal Atatürk

In Turkey insulting Atatürk's memory is a criminal offence, and the country stops for a minute's silence every 10 November. Abroad he has been admired as a secular moderniser, by figures from the Shah of Iran to Habib Bourguiba. Armenians, Greeks from Anatolia and many Kurds remember the founding of the republic through expulsions, population exchange and suppressed revolts, and the question of the Armenian genocide that preceded his rule shapes how his state is seen. Inside Turkey, political Islam has offered its own revisionist reading.