Latife Uşşakî

Latife Uşaklıgil (born Fatıma-tüz Zehra Latife Uşakîzâde; with the honorifics, Latife Hanım; 17 June 1898 – 12 July 1975) was the First Lady of Turkey between 1923 and 1925 as the wife of Mustafa Kemal (later Atatürk). She was related from her father's side to Turkish novelist Halid Ziya Uşaklıgil.

Biography

Lâtife Hanım was born in 1898 in Smyrna (now known in English as İzmir ) to one of the most prominent Turkish trading families of the city, with roots in the city of Uşak, whence their unofficial family name of Uşakizâde. Her father, Muammer Bey, was the first Turkish member of the cotton exchanges in New York and New Orleans. She completed her high school studies at the American College for Girls in Istanbul and in 1919 she went abroad to study Law in Sorbonne and continued her studies in London.

However, the relationship between her and her husband was not happy; after frequent arguments, the two were divorced on 5 August 1925. Lâtife Hanım lived the rest of her days in İzmir (as Smyrna came to be known in English after the 1930s) and Istanbul (known as Constantinople in English prior to the 1930s), in virtual seclusion, avoiding contacts outside her private circle until her death in 1975. She never remarried, and remained silent about their relationship throughout her life. In 2005, the Turkish Historical Society was to make her diaries public "except for the most private ones, taking the views of her family into consideration". However, her family publicly claimed that they had the right to the ownership of the letters and stated that they did not wish the diaries to be published. Consequently, the society decided against the publication.

A comprehensive but also controversial biography of Latife Hanım by the veteran Cumhuriyet journalist İpek Çalışlar was published in 2006.

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