Atatürk

Atatürk

Established: March 17th, 1982/III

Cunstaval: Sir Iustì Canun, UrGP

Başbakan: Evan Cuntainça

Senator: Brad Holmes

Demonym: Atatürkey

Motto: Ne mutlu Talossalıyım diyene ("What joy to he/she who says ‘I am a Talossan’").

Location of Atatürk.

Atatürk is a province of Talossa. It is home of the Talossan capital: Abbavilla.

Atatürk Province is the Kingdom of Talossa’s northernmost province. It is bordered to the north by the United States, to the west by the river Manáweg (the Milwaukee River), to the east by the Már Talossán (the Talossan Sea, i.e. Lake Michigan), to the southwest by Benito Province and to the southeast by Vuode province. It is named after the great Turkish leader Mustafa Kemâl Atatürk, a one-time hero of King Robert I and one of the most important historical figures of the twentieth century.

History

The initial annexation of the territory which was to become Atatürk Province took place on 17 March, 1982, making it Talossa’s second province. It was proclaimed “Kemâl Atatürk State”. Within a year, a series of further annexations had brought its entire present territory, which is home to 6 Talossan citizens and over 6,000 Cestoûrs, into Talossan hands. The province has undergone several name changes and provincial border shifts; it acquired its present size and shape in July, 1985, except for the section known as the “Talossan Capital Territory” (Abbavilla was the nation’s capital at that time) which returned to Atatürkian control in August, 1991. In February, 1994, the national capital was moved to Electrabase, but it was moved back to Abbavilla with the adoption of the new Organic Law in 1997.

Unfortunately, Atatürk has long been one of Talossa’s least active provinces. Early provincial government was more or less nonexistent until November, 1988, when the Cosâ forced the province to adopt a constitution. Dave Kuenn, of Davron fame, ruled Atatürk with an iron hand until he was driven out of office in the elections of 1991, and replaced by the FAD (Front for Atatürk Democracy), which oversaw the ratification of a new constitution and ruled Talossa with its own iron hand. In March, 1994, Kuenn returned to provincial politics, won the election, and again ruled Atatürk with an iron hand, until he was again driven out of office in the summer of 1995. Geoff Toumayan won the next election and assumed the Premiership, but did very little. In the fall of 1996, the provincial government was again reorganised, and for the first time in its history Atatürk got a democratic government: a participatory democracy with no leaders or political parties, where all the province’s citizens saw things done via online “town meetings”. A great idea in theory, but in practice all of those citizens became inactive, leaving Atatürk to flounder and wallow in nothingness while other provinces began to shine forth around it. This was the situation Sir Tomás_Gariçéir found when he moved to Atatürk from Cézembre in July, 1998. That summer Secretary of State Ián_Anglatzarâ called provincial elections in which Gariçéir became the Senator for Atatürk — by being the only candidate, the only person who voted, and voting for himself! The apathy and inactivity of his fellow Atatürkers began to wear on Gariçéir, who found himself pining for those fine days of yöre when Atatürk was ruled in steel-hard firmness. In the fall of 1998, Gariçéir was seriously considering staging a coup (not difficult to do when you’re the only active citizen) and appropriating Atatürk province as his own personal fantasy fiefdom. Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on your point of view) events outside of Talossa commanded much of his attention for several months, and said coup was never actually executed.

Help did arrive, however, on Wittenberg, the Talossan discussion forum, where it was pointed out that there was a clause in the Organic Law which allowed the Ziu to intervene and impose a military governorship on inactive provinces in order to reactivate them. Ben Madison wasted no time in authoring a bill entitled the “Not-so-hostile Takeover of Atatürk Act”, which invoked that very clause and proposed installing Gariçéir as the Military Governor of the province; the bill was quickly seconded by Gariçéir (who was delighted at the prospect of getting what he wanted, namely Atatürk province for his own personal fantasy fiefdom, without actually having to do anything) and placed on the March Clark. The bill passed, a joyful occasion for all Talossans and especially Gariçéir, who, confident of its success, had spent the hours leading up to the voting deadline mentally polishing his metaphorical Military Governor boots to a pristine shine. Overnight, Atatürk became a hotbed of patriotic Talossan activity as Governadéir Gariçéir assumed his post, labouring into the night to create the province’s first-ever website, before continuing work on his multitude of Talossan-language projects.

In the fall of 1999, Atatürk gained another active citizen in Davïu Foctéir, who immediately became very active in both national and provincial circles. He soon became Gariçéir’s right hand man in provincial affairs. In July of 2000, at TalossaFest, Wes Erni was appointed Senator for Atatürk Province, replacing the defunct Mark Franklin, who had taken over as Senator when Gariçéir withdrew from national politics, but then promptly vanished. The year 2000 also saw the ranks of provincial citizenry swell with an influx of new citizens living in Atatürk-assigned territory, including Tanja Kraft, Mike Dinitz, and the ferociously active Martin-Pierre Frenette, who singlehandedly made up for all the other inactive Atatürkers.

Unfortunately, the cresting waves of activity in Atatürk soon came crashing down. In 2001, Foctéir was obliged to retire from public life due to job circumstances beyond his control, though he maintains personal contact with Talossans and attended TalossaFest and the Royal Wedding in August, 2002. Kraft and Dinitz disappeared. This left only Gariçéir and Frenette as Atatürk’s shining beacons of activity and patriotism, with Frenette providing the backbone of Talossa’s online existence through hosting Talossa.net, Wittenberg, and Talossa.com on his servers, as well as representing Atatürk in the Senäts, and Gariçéir continuing to devote all his efforts to the furtherance of Talossan language and culture.

External links

• Ataturk information and history by Tomás Gariçéir