Hi folks, in this repeat episode of the podcast, I thought we look back at a very important figure in the history of the Middle East and Europe, and a very important set of events, and that is the collapse of the Ottoman Empire.

It's defeat after centuries. During those centuries, it had,

for much that time, dominated the Balkans. It had dominated the Middle East. And its collapse,

its partition, the internal upheavals of the 1920s, while they echo to this day. It's such important context what's going

on right now in present day Israel, Palestine, Syria and Turkey itself. For this I spoke to Mark

David Bayer. He is a professor international history at the London School of Economics and Political

Science. He taught me through the life of the key figure in this period, the life of Mustafa

Kamal, known later as Ataturk. He was a soldier, he was a statesman, he's a visionary, reformer, founder, the first president of the Republic of Turkey. It's thanks to him that Turkey exists as it does today. After the First World War, the imperial powers thought they might keep going. They thought they might partition not just the Ottoman Empire,

but this last chunk of it as well, the bit we now call Turkey. He's also the man who modernised

the country's legal education systems. He insisted on the adoption of European customs of norms

down to the way that people dress. He's also the man who has encoded modern Turkish identity and DNA,

a man who was bitterly opposed, for example, to Kurdish national aspirations. He was happy to

employ violent methods against the Kurds, and that has remained a feature of Turkey's policy

towards those Kurds ever since.

He's revered. He's despised. He's one of those vital men that emerge from the shambles of

the First World War to shape the course of nations and peoples and regions.

We're still living in their world, folks.

So here we go.

This is our episode on Ataturk and the collapse of the Ottoman Empire

and the birth of modern Turkey.

Enjoy.

T-minus 10.

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