Guide
The Atatürk Museum, also called the Museum of the Revolution, stands on Halâskârgazi Caddesi in the Şişli district of İstanbul. It is the house Mustafa Kemal Atatürk lived in, turned into a museum by the İstanbul metropolitan municipality in 1942.
Mustafa Kemal left the Syrian front at the end of the First World War and reached İstanbul on 13 November 1918. After staying a while at the Pera Palas he was the guest of his friend Salih Fansa at his house in Beyoğlu, and meanwhile rented the three-storey house built in 1908 by Osep Kasabyan on what is now Halâskârgazi Caddesi in Şişli.
He brought his mother Zübeyde Hanım and his sister Makbule, who were living at Akaretler, and settled them on the upper floor; he himself lived on the middle floor and his aide on the lower. In the days when İstanbul was under occupation he met here often with his companions, and he lived in this house until 16 May 1919, the day he left for Samsun.
When Mustafa Kemal settled in Ankara he brought his mother and sister to join him. The house in Şişli was bought in 1924 by Hasan Tahsin Uzer, a former governor and member of parliament for Erzurum, and a plaque was put up recording that Atatürk had lived in the building in 1919. The İstanbul municipality bought the building from Uzer in 1927 and began gathering objects, historical documents and mementoes connected with Atatürk here. It was turned into a museum in 1942, in the time of the governor and mayor Lütfi Kırdar, and opened on 15 June that year as the Museum of the Atatürk Revolution.
The building was repaired during the military government of 1960 at the instance of the mayor Refik Tulga. After a partial fire on 9 January 1962 it underwent another large-scale repair as the centenary of Atatürk's birth approached in 1981; the work was financed by Türkiye İş Bankası, and the decoration and arrangement were undertaken by the Turkish Touring and Automobile Association. The building was repaired in keeping with the manner of the 1910s, down to the door knockers and the glass, and reopened as the Atatürk Museum on 19 May 1981.
The museum shows photographs of Atatürk's life from his birth to his death, his clothing and the objects he used, documents on Atatürk and the reforms, and paintings of the War of Independence and of Atatürk himself. Among the important works are İbrahim Çallı's painting of Nikolaos Trikoupis surrendering his sword and a painting by Zeki Kocamemi.
Visit status for this record: open to visitors.
