Salonica in the context of "European Youth Capital"

Mustafa Kemal Atatürk (c. 1881 – 10 November 1938) was a Turkish field marshal and statesman who was the founder of the Republic of Turkey, serving as its first president from 1923 until his death in 1938. He undertook sweeping reforms, which modernized Turkey into a secular, industrializing nation. Ideologically a secularist and nationalist, his policies and socio-political theories became known as Kemalism.

Born in Salonica in the Ottoman Empire, his early military career saw him involved in the Italo-Turkish and Balkan Wars. As a member of the Committee of Union and Progress and the Young Turks, he played an important part in political events of the late Ottoman Empire, such as the Young Turk Revolution and the 31 March Incident. He rose to prominence with his role in the Defence of Gallipoli during World War I. Following the defeat of the empire after the war, he led the Turkish National Movement, which resisted the empire's partition among the victorious Allied powers. Establishing the provisional "Ankara government", he defeated the forces sent by the Allies, thus emerging victorious from the Turkish War of Independence. During and after the war, the ethnic cleansing of Armenians and Greeks from Anatolia outside of Istanbul, including the Kars region invaded by the Kemalist armies, was largely completed via large-scale massacres, flight, expulsions, and the population exchange between Greece and Turkey. His government subsequently proceeded to abolish the Ottoman sultanate in 1922 and proclaimed the Republic of Turkey in its place in 1923.

Mustafa Kemal Atatürk (c. 1881 – 10 November 1938) was a Turkish field marshal and statesman who was the founder of the Republic of Turkey —after the fall of its predecessor, the Ottoman Empire— and served as its first president from 1923 until his death in 1938. He led sweeping reforms, which modernized Turkey into a secular, industrializing nation. Ideologically a secularist and nationalist, his policies and socio-political theories became known as Kemalism. Atatürk's personality cult and the Kemalist historiography developed around it have had significant and ongoing influences on Turkey's political culture and historical narrative.

Born in Salonica in the Ottoman Empire, his early military career saw him involved in the Italo-Turkish and Balkan Wars. As a member of the Committee of Union and Progress and the Young Turks, he played an important part in political events of the late Ottoman Empire, such as the Young Turk Revolution and the 31 March Incident. He rose to prominence with his role in the Defence of Gallipoli during World War I. Following the defeat of the empire after the war, he led the Turkish National Movement, which resisted the empire's partition among the victorious Allied powers. Establishing the provisional "Ankara government", he defeated the forces sent by the Allies, thus emerging victorious from the Turkish War of Independence. During and after the war, the ethnic cleansing of Armenians and Greeks from Anatolia outside of Istanbul, including the Kars region invaded by the Kemalist armies, was largely completed via large-scale massacres, flight, expulsions, and the population exchange between Greece and Turkey. His government subsequently proceeded to abolish the Ottoman sultanate in 1922 and proclaimed the Republic of Turkey in its place in 1923.

The Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (IMRO; Bulgarian: Вътрешна македонска революционна организация (ВМРО), romanized: Vatreshna Makedonska Revolyutsionna Organizatsiya (VMRO); Macedonian: Внатрешна македонска револуционерна организација (ВМРО), romanized: Vnatrešna Makedonska Revolucionerna Organizacija (VMRO)), was a secret revolutionary society founded in the Ottoman territories in Europe, that operated in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Founded in 1893 in Salonica, it sought sovereignty for Macedonia under the slogan Macedonia for the Macedonians. Initially it aimed to gain autonomy for Macedonia and Adrianople regions in the Ottoman Empire, however, it later became an agent serving Bulgarian interests in Balkan politics. IMRO modeled itself after the earlier Bulgarian Internal Revolutionary Organization of Vasil Levski and accepted its motto "Freedom or Death" (Свобода или смърть). According to the memoirs of some founding and ordinary members, in the Organization's earliest statute from 1894, the membership was reserved exclusively for Bulgarians. This was later changed on the initiative of Gotse Delchev, who wanted IMRO to depart from its exclusively Bulgarian nature, so he opened the membership for all inhabitants of European Turkey and the organization begun to acquire a more separatist stance. However, these new formulas as a whole failed to attract other ethnic groups, from whom it was seen as a pro-Bulgarian society, thus IMRO remained with base only among Bulgarian Exarchist affiliated Slavic speakers in Ottoman Macedonia. It used the Bulgarian language in all its documents and in its correspondence. The Organisation founded in 1896 its Foreign Representation in Sofia, the capital of Bulgaria. Starting in the same year, it fought the Ottomans using guerrilla tactics, and in this, they were successful, even establishing a state within a state in some regions, including their tax collectors. This struggle escalated in 1903 with the Ilinden–Preobrazhenie Uprising. The fighting involved about 15,000 IMRO irregulars and 40,000 Ottoman soldiers, lasting for over seven weeks. After the uprising failed, and the Ottomans destroyed some 100 villages, the IMRO resorted to more systematic forms of terrorism targeting civilians. More important, the Ilinden disaster splintered IMRO and signalled the beginning of a fratricidal conflict between the left-wing faction ("federalists") who continued to favor autonomy as step towards independent Macedonia and its inclusion into a future Balkan Federation, and the right-wing faction ("centralists") which favored unification with Bulgaria. In fact, the division was a culmination of a conflict which existed within IMRO since its formation. It was based partially on ideology, and partly in terms of personality and locality, and it would plague the Macedonian revolutionary movement over the next decades.

Bayezid II (Ottoman Turkish: بايزيد ثانى, romanized: Bāyezīd-i s̱ānī; Turkish: II. Bayezid; 3 December 1447 – 26 May 1512) was the sultan of the Ottoman Empire from 1481 to 1512. During his reign, Bayezid consolidated the Ottoman Empire, thwarted a pro-Safavid rebellion and finally abdicated his throne to his son, Selim I. Bayezid evacuated Sephardi Jews from Spain following the fall of the Nasrid Kingdom of Granada and the proclamation of the Alhambra Decree and resettled them throughout Ottoman lands, especially in Salonica.

The history of the Jews in Greece can be traced back to at least the fourth century BCE. The oldest and the most characteristic Jewish group that has inhabited Greece are the Romaniotes, also known as "Greek Jews." The term "Greek Jew" is predominantly used for any Jew that lives in or originates from the modern region of Greece.

Aside from the Romaniotes, a distinct Jewish population that historically lived in communities throughout Greece and neighboring areas with large Greek populations, Greece had a large population of Sephardi Jews, and is a historical center of Sephardic life; the city of Salonica or Thessaloniki, in Greek Macedonia, was called the "Mother of Israel." Greek Jews played an important role in the early development of Christianity, and became a source of education and commerce for the Byzantine Empire and throughout the period of Ottoman Greece, until suffering devastation in the Holocaust after Greece was conquered and occupied by the Axis powers. Despite efforts by Greeks to protect them, some 4,000 Jews were deported from the Bulgarian occupation zone to the Treblinka extermination camp. In the aftermath of the Holocaust, a large percentage of the surviving community emigrated to Israel or the United States.

Ahmed Djemal Pasha (Ottoman Turkish: احمد جمال پاشا; Turkish: Ahmed Cemâl Paşa; 6 May 1872 – 21 July 1922) was an Ottoman general and statesman. Along with Talaat and Enver, he was one of the Three Pashas that ruled the Ottoman Empire during World War I.

As an officer of the II Corps, he was stationed in Salonica, where he developed political sympathies for the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP), a secret reformist party. He was initially praised by Christian missionaries and provided support to the Armenian victims of the Adana massacres.

Mustafa Kemal Atatürk (c. 1881 – 10 November 1938) was a Turkish field marshal and statesperson who was the founder of the Republic of Turkey —after the fall of its predecessor, the Ottoman Empire— and served as its first president from 1923 until his death in 1938. He led sweeping reforms, which modernized Turkey into a secular, industrializing nation. Ideologically a secularist, republican and nationalist, his policies and socio-political theories became known as Kemalism. Atatürk's personality cult and the Kemalist historiography developed around it have had significant and ongoing influences on Turkey's political culture and historical narrative.

Born in Salonica in the Ottoman Empire, his early military career saw him involved in the Italo-Turkish and Balkan Wars. As a member of the Committee of Union and Progress and the Young Turks, he played an important part in political events of the late Ottoman Empire, such as the Young Turk Revolution and the 31 March Incident. He rose to prominence with his role in the Defence of Gallipoli during World War I. Following the defeat of the empire after the war, he led the Turkish National Movement, which resisted the empire's partition among the victorious Allied powers. Establishing the provisional "Ankara government", he defeated the forces sent by the Allies, thus emerging victorious from the Turkish War of Independence. During and after the war, the ethnic cleansing of Armenians and Greeks from Anatolia outside of Istanbul, including the Kars region invaded by the Kemalist armies, was largely completed via large-scale massacres, flight, expulsions, and the population exchange between Greece and Turkey. His government subsequently proceeded to abolish the Ottoman sultanate in 1922 and proclaimed the Republic of Turkey in its place in 1923.