Mustafa Kemal Atatürk founded the Republic of Turkey from the ruins of the Ottoman Empire, creating the most radical modernization project in Islamic history. A military hero at Gallipoli, Kemal led Turkish resistance against the post-WWI partition and drove out Greek forces in the War of Independence.
Ataturk's reforms transformed Turkey. He abolished the Caliphate, replaced Islamic law with Swiss civil code, granted women's suffrage, banned the fez, and replaced Arabic script with Latin alphabet. His secularism ('laiklik') separated mosque and state more completely than anywhere in the Muslim world.
Atatürk's authoritarianism was justified as necessary for modernization—one-party rule, suppression of opposition, cult of personality. 'For the people, despite the people.' His legacy includes Turkish nationalism, military as guardian of secularism, and the tension between democratic form and authoritarian practice. Whether Atatürk was visionary modernizer or cultural imperialist remains debated, but his transformation of Turkey was unprecedented.