Kultura Uzdrowiskowa w Europie, tom XIV: Uzdrowiska arystokratyczne [Avrupa’da Spa Kültürü, c. XIV: Aristokratik Spalar], Bożeny Płonki-Syroki,Pawła Brzegowego,Sławomira Dorockiego,Andrzeja Syroki, Editör, Oficyna Wydawnicza Arboretum, Wroclaw, ss.281-291, 2022
The
social life in the Carlsbad hot springs as described in a 1918 memoir by
Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founder of the Republic of Turkey
Before
becoming the revered founder of the Republic of Turkey in 1923, Mustafa Kemal
Ataturk suffered from urinary tract diseases in his years of service as a World
War I front-line commander. During July 1918, he received treatment for his
illness in the Karlovy Vary Hot Springs in Czechia. There, he also wrote a
memoir of this therapeutic visit in six notebooks amounting to a total of 158
pages, which was discovered much later in his private library and published in
1983. From these travel notes, written in Turkish and French, it is understood that
Ataturk was deeply influenced by the lively social life in Karlovy Vary, marked
by the unrestricted participation of women, which inspired him to grant Turkish
women rights including suffrage following the foundation of the Republic. This
paper discusses Ataturk’s descriptions and observations of the social life in
Karlovy Vary in the summer of 1918.