Latife Usaki

Latife Uşaki was the wife of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the founder and first president of the Republic of Turkey, between 1923 and 1925. She was born in 1898 in Smyrna (now İzmir) to a wealthy and influential Turkish family. She received her education in Smyrna, Paris and London, where she studied law and languages. She was fluent in English, French, Spanish and German. She met Atatürk in 1922, when he stayed at her family's mansion in Göztepe as the commander-in-chief of the Turkish War of Independence. They married on January 29, 1923, after the death of Atatürk's mother, Zübeyde Hanım. Latife Uşaki was the first and only first lady of Turkey, and she played an active role in public life. She accompanied Atatürk on his trips and meetings, and supported his reforms for the modernization and secularization of Turkey. She was especially interested in the emancipation of women, and encouraged Atatürk to grant women the right to vote and to be elected. She also tried to persuade him to adopt a Western-style dress code and to give up smoking and drinking. However, their marriage was not happy, and they had frequent arguments over personal and political issues. They divorced on August 5, 1925, and Atatürk forbade her to use his surname or to speak about their relationship. Latife Uşaki lived the rest of her life in İzmir and Istanbul, in virtual seclusion. She never remarried, and remained silent about their marriage until her death in 1975 from breast cancer. She was buried in the Edirnekapı Martyr's Cemetery in Istanbul, next to her father. She left behind a diary that contained details of her life with Atatürk, but it was not published until 2005, after a legal dispute with her family. She also wrote a biography of Atatürk, but it was confiscated by the authorities and never recovered. Latife Uşaki is regarded as a pioneer of Turkish feminism and a symbol of the new face of Turkish women in the 1920s.