Whose hittites, and Why? Language, archaeology and the quest for the original turks

Abstract

In 1949, the Trust Press had the seeming audacity to publish an anonymous book entitled, Is Ataturk a Dictator? The answer, of course, was no. By that time, enough time had passed since the 1938 death of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, one of the leading generals of the Turkish War for Independence and the country's first president, for the question to float in popular discourse, and yet not to consider its full ramifications. The book begins with the tale of an old man who asked Ataturk himself, Sir, are you a dictator? The narrator explains, He looked at the man with a pained expression and asked in return, If I were, could you ask me that question? (Anonymous, 1949:13). © 2004 Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers, New York.