When people think about empires during the early 1900s, the Ottoman empire is always an afterthought especially since it disbanded after World War 1 but many don’t know what happens until they see Turkey. How did the Ottoman empire become Turkey and when? The answer is the actions of one man, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk. His revolutionary ideas and his actions right after the war helped save the Ottoman empire from being carved up like the middle east after the first world war and created a new democratic state that would endure to this day. I want to talk about Ataturk because the reforms he made during the short time span he was in power created a modern state and I would like to eventually talk about how he still affects Turkey today. Timelines like the one I made are important to telling history because they help show that actions in the past influence decisions made later on and so forth. They’re an interactive way to tell history to those that can’t grasp the full picture from a textbook and they’re vital to historians for organizing and studying events in the past that correlate with the present.
The events i wanted to include in the timeline i thought were relevant to talking about Ataturk, I wanted to limit myself to events that occurred in his life time as I thought that was a good cut off point and barring a few events that occurred before the end of WW1 I wanted to limit my focus to events between 1918-1938 as I want to hone in on Ataturk and his reforms and how they affect Turkey. I thought about talking about events that referenced Ataturk after his death such as how Pakistan was following Ataturk’s idea of nation building or how the coup in 1960 Turkey was to restore the founding ideas of Ataturk. However, I felt that would expand my idea too much to cover so I left them out. I came across one reform during Ataturk that I didn’t put in the timeline and it covers women’s role in Ataturk’s society since Turkey was a muslim society and women made more of an appearance in society and Ataturk had a role in encouraging them to go out more. I didn’t cover this topic because I couldn’t pinpoint a date as to when he started to encourage women to be more social and I think that’s a large enough topic on its own.
I had trouble finding the right photos for the timeline as photos in 1920s Turkey are rare. A majority of the photos I found were on Wikipedia and I like to try and have a variety of sources but I ultimately gave up as the photos they had were necessary to talk about the time period. I think videos would work better but it would be even harder to track down. The visuals add more gravity to the actions made during the time and I’m proud that most of the photos I used were from the time and are considered primary sources.
I have a list of sources that have the events listed along with getting the photos from sources that talked about their respective events and I’m confident that my timeline is accurate. There is a lot of bias towards Ataturk since he is very popular but the sources I used minimized bias and I made sure to double check sources.
My experience with TimelineJS was simple since most fo the work I did was filling out a google sheet with information and I was confident in the information I had. I thought it was intuitive since I got the google sheet and it had a few examples and I was able to replicate the style. I don’t think using a timeline affected how I see history since I see history as somewhat of a cause and effect and the timeline only cemented this opinion as I was able to connect some events with others that would happen in the future. I do think that a timeline like the one I made is good for telling history to those that have a harder time understanding.
I think that depending on the event you’re talking about, it can emphasize an event such as the first constitution of the Turkish republic, however, the format also limits the amount of information I can give for bigger topics such as the Turkish war of independence. I think the order of events matter because some events don’t make sense without context for certain events. Timelines have limitations in how some information is presented such as the war of indepence and WW1 since it restricts the amount of information I can give for a single event compared to an essay or video. However, timelines help give the information concisely and help people connect events with one another more easily than an essay.
I don’t think the timeline massively affected how I view Turkish history other than showing that the events I talked about aren’t single actions but are connected to fulfill a single goal. If I were to build a different timeline, I would like to try and find different visuals such as videos since I used mostly photos from the era. I would recommend talking about a subject that has more gaps between events because I worry that the events I talked about happened too quickly to put on a timeline.