10 November in Türkiye: When the sirens sound in memory of Atatürk
Every year on 10 November, at exactly 09:05, sirens sound across Türkiye. Traffic comes to a standstill, people stop what they are doing, and the entire country falls silent for one minute. It is a moment of remembrance for Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the founder of the Turkish Republic.
Why does Türkiye fall silent on 10 November?
At 09:05 on 10 November 1938, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk died at Dolmabahçe Palace in Istanbul, aged just 57. Türkiye's first president and the founder of the republic was gone.
Ever since, the same moment has been marked every year. When the sirens sound, everything stops. People pause in the streets, drivers get out of their cars, and complete silence descends. In shops, offices and cafés, people stand up and bow their heads. For one minute, the country shares the same silence.
I experience the day alongside my Turkish colleagues. Some of them feel a particularly strong connection to Atatürk and his ideas, and it is not unusual to see a tear roll down someone's cheek when the sirens sound and the minute of silence begins. The atmosphere is incredibly intense, and I find it a deeply moving moment myself.
Remembering Atatürk in modern Türkiye
Over the past two decades, however, the commemoration has also taken on a political dimension. Türkiye has gradually moved in a more national-conservative and religious direction, and the relationship with Atatürk's secular vision for the republic has become a recurring point of debate.
In the political rhetoric coming from government offices, Atatürk's republican and secular vision no longer features in quite the same prominent way as it once did. At the same time, greater emphasis has been placed on religious values, Ottoman history and a different narrative of the country's national identity.
Critics of this development argue that Türkiye has moved so far away from the republic's founding principles that the country has effectively broken with the secular republic Atatürk established in 1923.
And yet, when the sirens sound at 09:05, silence still falls across the country. For that one minute, political differences are put aside as millions remember the man who founded the Turkish Republic.
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